![]() McCobb started after the war, and Paul McCobb Design Associates was really an interior design company and he had a showroom. There are two lamps - lamps were his first pieces. I collected this archive of materials - catalogs and whatnot - and that was essential for filling out the story. And then we started to figure out that it’s modular, it’s coordinated and accessorized. But from the design and the style, I started to piece together that there were other pieces. This was 18 years ago and there was really no information on design and oeuvre. ![]() ![]() The appeal was the thin black iron legs and frame and the simple slab of wood on top. It’s a bench that’s in the middle of the living room, a super simple 60-by-18-inch bench. I’m pretty sure it was at the Broadway Antique Market in Chicago. What was the piece that got you started on McCobb and where did you get it? On a sunny weekday afternoon earlier this month, Proctor eased into a McCobb-designed high-back chair in his library for a conversation (which has been condensed and edited for clarity) about his most treasured pieces and the disaster that inspired him to turn his home into a museum. On Saturday, he is teaming up with the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design to host three house tours of his “living museum.” Proctor quietly debuted the museum early in 2022, when he began accepting visitors by appointment - namely, McCobb devotees and design aficionados who heard about the collection through word-of-mouth or design circles. “The scope of work,” he says, “hasn’t been presented in this way.” The exhibition continues in Proctor’s library and bedroom. ![]() Anton Maix, one of which bears an ebullient rhombus pattern. Nearby, a display features the fabrics McCobb designed for textile producer L. Move on to the dining room and you’ll find a delicate tea wagon (1953) and more Planner Group designs - including a sleek wooden dining table surrounded by chairs whose backrests gently swoop. Julie Jackson’s use of reclaimed wood reinforces her commitment to creating sustainable home goods that tread lightly on the environment.Įnter the home and you’ll spot a McCobb chair inspired by Shaker design from 1949 and a pair of pristine armchairs from 1950 that Proctor reupholstered in Knoll fabric from the era. woodworker turns fallen trees into stunning vessels Lifestyle With eyes on the planet, an L.A. company to reissue McCobb’s designs - among them, his angular bow-tie sofa, redolent of an age when cars sported fins. The Danish company Fritz Hansen, for example, now carries pieces from the designer’s Planner Group series, which feature slender wrought-iron frames bearing unembellished wood or glass surfaces. Rising interest in his designs has sent prices for his original pieces soaring and led furniture makers to reissue some of his works. He also died young: in 1969, at the age of 51.īut in recent years, McCobb has made a roaring comeback. Some of that has to do with the fact that the designer frequently worked in collaboration with different companies rather than solely under his own name. ![]() Of that showcase, a furniture buyer told the New York Times: “We treat Paul’s furniture like sugar in the grocery store - it’s a staple.”īut unlike some of his fellow Modernist designers, including Herman Miller and Charles and Ray Eames, the Boston-born McCobb didn’t remain a household name. In 1957, Bloomingdale’s showed 15 of his room settings. newspapers on topics such as the need for more bounce in furniture cushions and how to define a room without cluttering it up, the latter for the Los Angeles Times Home Magazine in 1954. And you could read his articles about design in major U.S. He designed glassware, lamps and Remington typewriters. His mass-market furnishings, with their thoughtful construction and clean lines - think: “ Mad Men” Modernism - graced countless middle-class homes. In the middle of the last century, designer Paul McCobb seemed to be just about everywhere. ![]()
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