In 1968, New York Times critic Rita Reif hailed Baughman’s work for its elegance and sophistication. They would be friends and collaborators for the next 50 years.Ĭoggin let Baughman pursue his singular vision, while the Thayer Coggin company benefited from its close relationship with the ever more prominent Baughman, the manufacturer’s lead designer and an architect of California modernism who also collaborated with Drexel Furniture, Glenn of California and others during his career. After a nearly hour-long meeting in which Coggin shot out of his seat exclaiming he had never seen anything like Baughman's work, the two men shook hands. In 1953, after showing his prescient designs to a number of companies (who turned him down) in the furniture center of High Point, North Carolina, Baughman decided to pay a last-minute visit to Coggin, who had just founded his eponymous brand. Having both served in the military during World War II and coming from humble backgrounds - Coggin from Denton, North Carolina, and Baughman from Goodland, Kansas (but raised in California) - they shared a passion for simple, modern design in home furnishings. Today vintage Thayer Coggin sofas, coffee tables, alluring chrome-framed chairs and other furnishings are recognized as masterpieces of good design and remain highly sought after by collectors near and far. Like his colleagues Karl Springer and the multifarious Pierre Cardin, Baughman’s designs are emblematic of the 1970s: sleek, sure and scintillating.Īs you will see from the furniture presented on 1stDibs, Milo Baughman’s designs for the likes of Drexel Furniture, Glenn of California and - for five decades - Thayer Coggin are ably employed as either the heart of a décor or its focal point.įew friendships last a lifetime, but Milo Baughman (1923–2003) and Thayer Coggin (1922–2003) were united by their desire to craft American furniture with timeless heirloom appeal. While many of his chair designs are enlivened by such effects as tufted upholstery, Baughman tended to let his materials carry the aesthetic weight, most often relying on seating and table frames made of sturdy and sleek flat-bar chromed metal, and chairs, tables and cabinets finished with highly-figured wood veneers. He was famously opposed to ostentatious and idiosyncratic designs that were made to excite attention. Like his fellow adoptive Californians Charles and Ray Eames, Baughman’s furniture has a relaxed and breezy air. He had a particular talent for lounge chairs, perhaps the most sociable piece of furniture. A prolific lecturer and writer on the benefits of good design - he taught for years at Brigham Young University - Baughman (whose often-scrambled surname is pronounced BAWF-man) focused almost exclusively on residential furnishings, such as chairs, sofas and benches. Baughman's work was included in "High Styles: Twentieth Century American Design" at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and he was inducted in the the Furniture Hall of Fame in 1987 along with Thayer Coggin in 2004.Milo Baughman was one of the most agile and adept modern American furniture designers of the late 20th century. Rather, he achieved a look that is uncompromisingly modern, but which never violates the timeless standards of classic good taste.įrom 1953 to 2003, Thayer Coggin and Milo Baughman collaborated on designs, engineering and manufacturing techniques that came to define the mid-century modern era of American residential furniture. Baughman's characteristic restraint did not permit the look of mere novelty to enter in. Paramount to Baughman's design philosophy was that good design is enduring design. The relaxed and timeless quality of his highly influential work continues to be collected, reinvented and revived by designers around the world. Milo Baughman (1923-2003) was a pioneer in modern design, and one of the leading modern furniture designers of the second half of the 20th century.īaughman's uniquely American designs are forward-thinking and distinctive, yet unpretentious.
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