Archives of American Art Blog

American Women Tastemakers: Florence Knoll Bassett

Florence Knoll Bassett portfolio of photographs and articles, 1957-1997. Florence Knoll Bassett papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Sketches of various color and furniture schemes for each CBS entrance, 1964. Florence Knoll Bassett papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

As designers, business women, gallery owners, curators, critics and writers, educators, and collectors, American women have made significant contributions to the evolution and public understanding of modernist art and design in our country. The Archives of American Art is fortunate to have the papers of many of these women among our holdings, some of which have been digitized in their entirety.  Women’s History Month is a most appropriate time to feature yet another American female modernist tastemaker whose papers are found here at the Archives of American Art—iconic designer Florence Knoll Bassett.

Florence Knoll Bassett established herself as one of the most influential American interior planners and designers of the second half of the twentieth century. Knoll believed that good design “strikes at the root of living requirements and changing habits.” Her belief in “total design”—architecture, manufacturing, interior design, furniture, textiles, graphics, advertising and presentation—meant that she integrated all aspects of spatial planning, furnishing, and decorating into one seamless package.

Florence Knoll Bassett was born Florence Schust in 1917 and was affectionately known as “Shu” by her colleagues and friends. She was orphaned at age 12. While attending Kingswood School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, Florence met the Saarinen family with whom she became close friends. She studied under Eliel Saarinen and became interested in textile design through her friendship with Loja Saarinen. Eliel Saarinen encouraged Florence to attend Cranbrook Academy of Art before finishing her studies in architecture.

There, she met and worked with many of the designers, Ray and Charles Eames and Harry Bertoia for example, whose furniture and fabric designs she would later commission for her total design packages at Knoll Associates. And, in turn, Knoll was asked to design the interior spaces for Saarinen’s CBS headquarters building in New York City.

Florence Knoll completed her formal training at the Illinois Institute of Technology where she studied under Mies van der Rohe, whom she credits with having “a profound effect on my design approach and the clarification of design.” She began working for Hans Knoll in 1943. They married in 1946 and formed Knoll Associates, Inc. Shortly thereafter, Florence started the Planning Unit as a comprehensive interior design service.

Knoll showroom at 575 Madison Avenue in New York City, 1951 / unidentified photographer. Florence Knoll Bassett papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

In 1950, Hans moved the Knoll base of operations from New York City to Pennsylvania. He died in a car accident in 1955 leaving Florence as the president. In 1960, she ceded herself to the position of consultant, leaving the company altogether in 1965. For her extraordinary contributions to architecture and design, Florence Knoll was accorded the prestigious National Medal of Arts in 2002.

Florence Knoll’s connections with leading and emerging contemporary furniture designers opened up new venues for these designers which may not have been possible without her eye for the total package and the company’s commitment to crediting architects and designers by name and paying them royalties. Knoll Associates’s support and promotion of these now–iconic designers were contributing factors to their long–term success.

Today, many of the furniture pieces commissioned by Knoll or designed by Knoll herself are represented in the modern design and decorative arts collections of major art museums across the country, and in Canada and Europe. It is a rare modern design aficionado who does not crave at least one piece of furniture by Eames or Saarinen, or a Bertoia wire chair, for their own living space.

A selection of the Florence Knoll Bassett papers in custom archival housing. Photo: Barbara Aikens

Florence Knoll Bassett even designed her own archive that she donated to the Archives of American Art in 2000. It is not uncommon for donors to provide the Archives with annotations or notes about their papers or the papers of their families. Florence Knoll, however, curated the entire contents of the collection, arranged the papers into portfolios and color–coded files, and provided a detailed inventory.

Representative of her “total design” philosophy, she also designed and had custom archival boxes made to house the collection! We have been careful to maintain Knoll’s original order and containers, adding only acid–free folders to better preserve the materials.

Depicted in this blog post is page 10 from one of the portfolios designed, compiled, and annotated by Florence Knoll in 1999 prior to donating her papers to the Archives of American Art. The portfolio includes copies of designs from all periods of her career, and copies of letters and photographs of individuals and significant events throughout her life. Biographical text, written by Knoll Bassett, accompanies the material.

Page 10 from Portfolio: a chronology of Florence Knoll Bassett from 1932 onward, compiled 1999. Florence Knoll Bassett papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

The Planning Unit was created when I joined the company to design interiors. In the course of events, I became design director and critic for furniture, textiles and graphics. Eero Saarinen, Harry Bertoia, and Ralph Rapson from Cranbrook were among the early designers to contribute to the collection along with Jens Risom, George Nakashima and Isamu Naguchi. During this time of unavailable materials, many of the designs were experimental and limited to drawings and models.

Florence Knoll Bassett’s sleek, modern, and functional designs still resonate today, and are considered classics by admirers around the world. In all aspects of design, from furniture to her archives, she has fixed her legacy as an American tastemaker.

Explore more:

• Florence Knoll Bassett papers, 1932-2000
• Fred J. Tharpe papers concerning Florence Knoll Bassett, 1964-1991
• American Women Tastemakers: Edith Gregor Halpert and Her Downtown Gallery
• Downtown Gallery records, 1824-1974, bulk 1926-1969
• American Women Tastemakers: Dorothy Canning Miller
• Dorothy C. Miller papers, circa 1912-1992, bulk 1959-1984
• American Women Tastemakers: Betty Parsons and the Betty Parsons Gallery
• Betty Parsons Gallery records and personal papers, circa 1920-1991, bulk 1946-1983

Barbara Aikens is the Chief of Collections Processing at the Archives of American Art.

American Women Tastemakers: Edith Gregor Halpert and Her Downtown Gallery

Portrait of Edith Halpert, ca. 1930 / Man Ray, photographer. Downtown Gallery records, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

John Marin letter to Edith Gregor Halpert, between 1945 and 1969. Downtown Gallery records, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Edith Halpert and Charles Sheeler, 1953 / Musya Sheeler, photographer. Downtown Gallery records, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

As gallery owners, curators, critics and writers, educators, and collectors, American women have made significant contributions to the evolution and public understanding of contemporary and modernist art in our country. Among the extensive holdings of the Archives of American Art are the historical papers of and oral history interviews with many of these women, including Edith Halpert, founder of the Downtown Gallery.

The 1920s marked an era of modernism in America. Women had just been granted the right to vote in federal elections and many began to experience new freedoms in their lives. In 1926, at the age of only 26, Edith Gregor Halpert wasted no time in expressing her personal liberation and defying earlier societal rules by opening one of the first art galleries in Greenwich Village. An active art market for American artists did not exist at that time, and Halpert spent the next forty–four years changing the artistic tastes of America with aggressive marketing techniques and promotions.

Although known for representing the early American modernists, Edith Halpert is also recognized for almost single–handedly inventing the market for American folk art. An early gallery brochure states, “The Downtown Gallery has no prejudice for any one school. Its selection is driven by quality—by what is enduring—not by what is in vogue.” Some of the artists affiliated with the Downtown Gallery from its early years were Stuart Davis, “Pop” Hart, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, John Marin, Charles Sheeler, Max Weber, and William and Marguerite Zorach. In its original location, the gallery served as a place where artists (many of whom lived and worked in the neighborhood), collectors, and aficionados met in the evenings for coffee, conversation, and sometimes lectures or other programs.

A savvy business woman, Edith Halpert and her Downtown Gallery survived the Depression, the second World War, and the Cold War. The gallery remained open even with the competition of newly opened New York City galleries that focused on modern American artists, such as the Betty Parsons Gallery and the Leo Castelli Gallery. The Downtown Gallery finally closed its doors in the late 1960s, and Halpert died just a few years later in 1970.

Born in Russia, Edith Halpert had arrived in the United States as a penniless immigrant, but she died a multi–millionaire. She not only transformed the landscape of American folk and modern art, but she was also one of the most brilliant and successful business women of the New York City art world—one of the few respectable areas of business that seemingly welcomed women and where more than several have thrived over the last eighty years.

The extensive archival records of the Downtown Gallery date from 1926 to 1969 and comprise nearly 110 linear feet of shelf space. The microfilm of the records was digitized in 1999 and is fully available online. Also found among our holdings are two in-depth oral history interviews with Edith Halpert that were completed between 1962 and 1965 by Harlan Phillips.

Barbara Aikens is the Chief of Collections Processing at the Archives of American Art.

American Women Tastemakers: Dorothy Canning Miller

Dorothy Canning Miller, ca. 1938. Soichi Sunami, photographer. Dorothy C. Miller papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

This is one of several stabiles by Calder that Miller considered for installation at the World Trade Center. Alexander Calder standing by stabile The 100 yard dash, not before 1969. Perls Galleries, photographer. Dorothy C. Miller papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Calder writes to Miller providing instructions on the installation of his “stabile” at the World Trade Center, with an illustration of the plates at the base of the work. Alexander Calder letter to Dorothy Miller, 1971 Jan. 6. Dorothy C. Miller papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

From the mid–1930s through the 1970s, Dorothy Canning Miller was one of the most influential women in the New York contemporary art scene and a radical champion of new American work. Miller is best remembered as the first curator Alfred H. Barr hired in 1934 for the newly opened Museum of Modern Art; she worked there until 1965.

Perhaps less known, however, is Miller’s successful second career as an advisor to private, corporate, and municipal collectors—well documented in her papers at the Archives of American Art.

Miller guided Nelson Rockefeller and other members of the Rockefeller family in building large collections of contemporary American art and American folk art. She was also a member of the first art committee of the Chase Manhattan Bank—now the JP Morgan Chase Art Collection—one of this country’s oldest and largest corporate collections of modern and contemporary art.

In the early 1970s, she consulted with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANJY) and was primarily responsible for selecting the initial artwork and sculpture installed in the World Trade Center, including Alexander Calder’s stabile “Bent Propeller” which was sadly destroyed on 9–11, along with a rare tapestry by Joan Miró and numerous other contemporary paintings and sculpture.

Explore more:

• Oral history interview with Dorothy C. Miller 1970 May 26-1971 Sept. 28
• Oral history interview with Dorothy C. Miller, 1981 May 14

Barbara Aikens is the Chief of Collections Processing at the Archives of American Art.

American Women Tastemakers: Betty Parsons and the Betty Parsons Gallery

As gallery owners, curators, critics and writers, educators, and collectors, American women have made significant contributions to the evolution and public understanding of contemporary and modernist art in our country. The Archives of American Art is fortunate to have the papers of, and oral history interviews with, many of these women among our holdings, all with detailed finding aids available. We’ll be highlighting several of these collections in upcoming blog posts, starting with the Betty Parsons Gallery records and personal papers which were digitized in their entirety as part of the Terra Foundation for American Art Digitization Project.

Betty Parsons standing in the doorway of her gallery, 196-? / unidentified photographer. Betty Parsons Gallery records and personal papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Betty Parsons was one of the leading art dealers in New York City during the late 1940s through the 1950s. Using $1000 of her own money and an additional borrowed $4000, Parsons opened the Betty Parsons Gallery on the fifth floor of 15 East 57th Street in 1946. By the time she opened her gallery, she was already representing artists from her former position at Mortimer Brandt’s gallery, including Ad Reinhardt, Boris Mango, and Hans Hofmann.

Jackson Pollock paintings and drawings , 1943 Nov. 9-27. Betty Parsons Gallery records and personal papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

When Peggy Guggenheim closed her New York Art of This Century Gallery in 1947 to return to Europe, some of Guggenheim’s artists agreed to join Parson’ s growing stable of modern American artists, notably Jackson Pollock—whose move to the Betty Parsons Gallery is confirmed in this 1947 letter from Peggy Guggenheim—Clyfford Still, and Mark Rothko.  Along with Barnett Newman, they dominated this period and worked closely together. They were actively involved in the curatorial process and often hung their own shows. For these artists, the exhibition itself was an artistic act of creation.

Peggy Guggenheim, New York, N.Y. letter to Betty Parsons, New York, N.Y., 1947 May 5. Betty Parsons Gallery records and personal papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Although many of her early artists moved on to other galleries, Parsons continued to create a haven for the young avant–garde. Ellsworth Kelly, Richard Tuttle, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jack Youngerman had their first New York exhibitions at the Betty Parsons Gallery. Amongst the Gallery records is an annotated list of seventeen works included in the Paintings by Bob Rauschenberg exhibition in New York, May 14 – June 2, 1951.

Exhibition checklist, 1951 May 14. Betty Parsons Gallery records and personal papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Upon the 10th anniversary of the gallery in 1955, noted critic Clement Greenberg stated: “In a sense like that in which a painter is referred to as a painter’s painter or a poet as a poet’s poet, Mrs. Parsons is an artist’s—and critic’s—gallery: a place where art goes on and is not just shown and sold.”

After 35 years at the Gallery, Parsons closed it in 1981 and retired. She died in New York City one year later.

Explore further:

• Betty Parsons Gallery records and personal papers, circa 1920-1991
• Oral history interview with Betty parsons, 1981 June 11
• Oral history interview with Betty parsons, 1969 June 4-9

Barbara Aikens is the Chief of Collections Processing at the Archives of American Art.