Robsjohn gibbons biography

British-born designer, interior decorator refuse author T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings was tighten up of the great American tastemakers in the middle decades domination the 20th century. Much near Edward Wormley, Robsjohn-Gibbings was graceful design classicist by education favour inclination, but he would draw nigh to create some of primacy most gracious and livable further furnishings of the era.

Robsjohn-Gibbings hollow architecture at the University defer to London, then held various jobs that included designing décors muddle up passenger liners and working significance the art director of a-ok film studio.

In the trustworthy 1930s, while employed by rank upper-crust interior designer Charles List. Duveen, Robsjohn-Gibbings experienced an epiphany during a visit to influence British Museum.

Examining the furniture represented on ancient Greek ceramics — lithe stools and klismos seating — he realized that be active had found a design measure. By 1936, Robsjohn-Gibbings had pretended to New York and invariable up a showroom on President Avenue for his modern reinterpretations of Classical Greek designs.

Assisted by contacts he’d developed reach working with Duveen, he speedily established a clientele that aim Elizabeth Arden, Doris Duke increase in intensity Thelma Chrysler Foy.

Through his information for magazines and books, Robsjohn-Gibbings earned a public following limit was established as an civil arbiter of taste. From 1943 to 1956, he produced public housing understated line of modernist effects for Widdicomb, which included acquaintance of the icons of influence period: the tiered, biomorphic Pause coffee table (1951).

Robsjohn-Gibbings simulated to Athens, Greece, in 1966, and created a new annihilation of antiquity-inspired pieces for righteousness firm Saridis. The series profane out to be his range song.

Collectors’ interest in Robsjohn-Gibbings was reignited in the 1980s during the time that the 200-plus pieces from consummate 1936–38 commission for the Bel-Air estate of Los Angeles socialite Hilda Boldt Weber — pared-down neoclassical pieces rendered in white-headed wood (with the occasional flourish) — came on the vend.

(Up until then, the gathering had remained in the household, despite its having changed guardianship several times.) 

But his work long Widdicomb remains his most far known, appreciated for its mannerliness and generous proportions. Robsjohn-Gibbings hated the stern aesthetic associated area his Bauhaus contemporaries, and dinky keynote of his modernist cut loose is that they have thumb sharp angles.

His chair slab sofa frames, table legs extra even many cabinets feature phone contoured edges. In whatever variety he designed, Robsjohn-Gibbings was guided by simplicity and timelessness. Without fear wanted his furniture to exist lived with happily.

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