GIRARD GROUP: HERMAN MILLER
Alexander Girard/Herman Miller Furniture Company
Alexander Girard/Herman Miller Furniture Company: GIRARD GROUP: HERMAN MILLER. Zeeland, MI: The Herman Miller Furniture Company, [1967]. Original edition. 34 x 22 [86 x 56 cm] poster folded into eighths [as issued]. Light wear to folds and a trace of edgewear, but a very good or better example of this promotional poster for the short-lived Girard Group manufactured by The Herman Miller Furniture Company.
34 x 22- inch poster printed in four colors on both sides that also functioned as a promotional brochure for the sofas, lounge chairs, café seating, and tables of the Girard Group with color photographs and dimensions of all the manufactured pieces, as well as fabric samples and specifications.
Alexander Girard (American, 1907 – 1993) became director of design for Herman Miller's textile division in 1952, a time when fabrics, especially in the office, tended toward the utilitarian, drab and pattern-less. “People got fainting fits if they saw bright, pure color,” Girard commented at the time.
At Herman Miller, Girard had the freedom to express himself. With primary colors, concise geometric patterns, and a touch of humor, he injected joy and spontaneity into his designs. During his tenure, he created over 300 textile designs in multitudes of colorways, wallpapers, prints, furniture, and objects. Girard's work with Herman Miller continued until 1973 and included spicing up the Action Office system with a series of decorative panel fabrics.
Born in New York City and raised in Florence, Girard was educated in Europe as an architect. He began practicing architecture and interior design in the late 1920s. The exhibition he curated for the Detroit Institute of Arts in 1949—“For Modern Living”—celebrated postwar modernism. Girard developed a friendship with Charles Eames in the 1940s when the two men realized they had coincidently designed almost identical modern radio cabinets and were both experimenting with plywood chairs.
Girard's reputation soared in 1959, when his zestful interior design of the La Fonda del Sol restaurant in New York electrified the public. He designed the entire experience for the restaurant—interior, graphics, place settings, staff uniforms. Girard reprised the feat for Braniff International Airways in the mid 1960s, designing no less than 17,543 different items—from logo to lounge furniture.
While Girard focused his abilities at Herman Miller on the textile program, he had a long history of designing furniture for other projects and clients. For Braniff this included sofas, lounge chairs, café seating, and tables for its airport lounges. In 1967, these designs were commercialized into the Girard Group—his only collection of furniture for Herman Miller.
One of Girard’s biggest ventures with Herman Miller was the innovative yet financially unsuccessful Textiles & Objects store in New York City, opened in 1961. The store sold objects that he brought back in bulk from his travels around the world, as well as products made with his textiles such as pillows and tablecloths, and small furniture by other Herman Miller designers. The short lived store, seen by many as an exhibit rather than an enterprise, provided the experience Girard described as "seeing, touching, and remembering familiar associations and all the other intangible activities of the mind and soul."