International Competition for Low-Cost Furniture Design
The Museum of Modern Art Bulletin, Vol. XV, No. 2, January 1948
Edgar Kaufmann, Jr.
THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART BULLETIN. New York City: Museum of Modern Art, 1948. First edition [The Museum of Modern Art Bulletin, Vol. XV, No. 2, January 1948]. Slim quarto. Photo illustrated stapled self wrappers. 16 pp. 23 black and white illustrations. Wrappers lightly worn. Interior unmarked and very clean. A very good copy.
7.5 x 10 staple-bound booklet with 16 pages and 23 black and white illustrations. Includes articles “Music and Musicians” with images of Marian Anderson by Yousef Karsh and Philippe Halsman, Gjon Mili, Adrian Siegel Philippe Halsman, Fred Plaut, W. Eugene Smith; “Paintings by French Children” and a four-page announcment of the “International Competition for Low-Cost Furniture Design” with all the necessary information on this notable competition spearheaded by Edgar Kaufmann Jr.
Excellent supplemental material for collectors who already own a copy of Kaufmann, Edgar, Jr.: PRIZE DESIGNS FOR MODERN FURNITURE [from the International Competition for Low-Cost Furniture Design]. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1950.
The legendary 1949 MoMA International competition introduced the experimental plastic furniture designs of Charles Eames to the world. The competition led to awards for Seating Units: Don Knorr, Georg Leowald; Charles Eames, and the University of California, Los Angeles Campus, Davis Pratt, Alexey Brodovitch, John McMorran, Jr. and John Merrill, Jr.; Storage Units: Robin Day and Clive Latimer, Ernest Race; Team Entries: Robert Lewis and James Prestini, and Armour Research Foundation, Donald Wallance, and Midwest Research Institute; Yale School of Forestry, Carl Koch, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harry Weese, and Armour Research Foundation, Marcel Breuer, and U.S. Forest Products Laboratory; as well as individual awards to Willy and Emil Guhl, Charles Eames, Theodore Luderowski, Ilmari Tapiovaara, Oliver Lundquist and Abel Sorensen, Guido Gai, Pierre Faucheux, Augusto Romano, Junzo Sakakura, Alfred Boenecke and Gunther Gottwald, Gerhard Weber, Ernst Pollak, Ivo Pannaggi, Hans Wegner, Xavier and Clara Porset Guerrero, Arne Korsmo and Jorn Utzon, Henry Kibel and C. E. Stousland, Jr., Marco Zanuso, Huson Jackson, Werner Blaser, Franco Albini and Luigi Colombini.
Edgar Kaufmann Jr. (1910–1989) studied painting and typography in Europe before serving as an apprentice architect at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin Foundation from 1933 to 1934. The Kaufmanns of Pittsburgh commissioned two of the iconic American residences of the 20th-century, Wright’s Fallingwater in 1936 and then Richard Neutra’s Palm Springs Desert House in 1946. Edgar Jr. joined the Museum of Modern Art in 1946 as director of the Industrial Design Department, a position he held until 1955. While at MoMA, he initiated the Good Design program (1950–1955) and was a strong proponent of uniform industrial design education standards.