Esoteric Survey

  Ikebana, Amy Donaldson, Hal Fromhold and David Stewart I went to the Peter Shire open house last weekend and bought a dustpan. and some ceramics George Nelson (with Isamu Noguchi and Bucky) and Irving Harper (right) From George Nelson: The Design of Modern Design , Nelson reminisced about that 1947 evening in his office: "And there was one night when the ball clock got developed, which was one of the really funny evenings. [Isamu] Noguchi came by, and Bucky Fuller came by. I’d been seeing a lot of Bucky those days, and here was Irving and here was I, and Noguchi, who can't keep his hands off anything, you know – it is a marvelous, itchy thing he's got – he saw we were working on clocks and he started making doodles. Then Bucky sort of brushed Isamu aside. He said, 'This is a good way to do a clock,' and he made some utterly absurd thing. Everybody was taking a crack at this ... pushing each other aside and making scribbles. At some point we left – we were suddenl...

Robert Swanson candelabra and Alvar Aalto stools Robert Swanson designed the candelabra  to compliment the Saarinen-Swanson Group.  The line, designed in collaboration with his wife Pipsan, included furniture, textiles, lamps, glassware and ceramics.  Source: House & Garden, July 1947 Robert F. Swanson, Pipsan and her father Eliel Saarinen, Marianne Strengell, Benjamin Baldwin, Charles Dusenbury, and ceramicist Lydia K Winston all collaborated on the Saarinen Swanson Group. Source: House & Garden, July 1947 The interesting thing is that mine is iron, possibly to compliment the Sol-Air group by Pipsan and Robert.   More about the candelabra: MIA & Cranbrook Also, according to the original owner, it was purchased at VKG. I was so happy to get this. Now I need to figure out what it went to. James Lovera and Harry Handler (see more here ) A great ikebana container, Robert C Fritz, James Lovera and Ted Saito Howard Miller clock, Heath ladle, Gustavsberg ...

This is actually from last weekend. I didn't go anywhere this weekend and that makes this the last pile of the year. It was a decent one I think.  Tony Paul chair for Woodlin Hall and two George Nelson for Howard Miller perforated metal clocks.  I haven't had one of these  model 2204 Howard Miller clocks in a long time.  The more I looked at the clocks, the more familiar they looked. I was dying to get home to compare them to Esther and Gross Wood bowls. As you can see, it's an exact match.  I'm not a George Nelson/Howard Miller expert by any stretch of the imagination but I do know they used some other items by different designers that they transformed into clocks. The seat of a Fritz Hansen stool and Bitossi ceramics are the ones that come to mind.  That makes it a California Design Nelson Clock.  I guess you can add Good Design to that as well. 

  Robert Maxwell, La Gardo Tackett for Architectural Pottery,  Meridian Howard Miller Clock and table by Luther Conover Enamel by James Parker

It's been a while.  George Nelson/Irving Harper/Arthur Umanoff for Howard Miller clocks and desk by Umanoff 

George Nelson for Howard Miller fire tools, Raymond Loewy for Mengel stool and a wire basket. Doyle Lane mask

Meridian clock by Raymor and Howard Miller Abel Sorensen Tunsi Girard, Alexander's brother Bruce Hill for Peter Pepper Products