Greta Magnusson Grossman

R Gallery Presents an Exhibition of
Furniture and Lighting by Greta Magnusson Grossman
Featuring photographs of her work by Julius Shulman

Biography | Lighting | Furniture

Biography

Swedish born designer and architect Greta Magnusson Grossman (1906-1999) decorated the homes and showrooms of many Californians during the 1940s and 1950s. The unique approach to Swedish modernism that she brought with her when she moved from Stockholm in the late 1930s proved to be incredibly popular on the west coast, cropping up in almost every issue of John Entenza's influential magazine Arts & Architecture. The designer herself, however, led a quietly professional life, working prolifically without ever becoming a commanding personality within the industry.

Grossman was a student of industrial design in Stockholm, with an emphasis on furniture, textiles and metal work. After graduating she worked with a cabinetmaker for a year before opening her own shop and furniture upholstery workshop. While she ran the business she also attended the Royal Academy of Technology in Stockholm for her architecture degree. Around 1939 she and her husband extended a visit to the US into a permanent resettlement in Los Angeles. By 1942 Grossman had caught the eye of Barker Brothers and was designing exclusively for them. Over the next twenty years she also produced work for companies like Glenn of California, Sherman Bertram and Modern Line. Her furniture was characterized by the materials she used-- natural woods and woven or strung rope and cane seats-- and by her bases which were often curved metal tubing or traditional metal with balls on each of the feet. Her pared down decor was based on her belief that, "modern furniture is a growth, progressing out of the needs of contemporary living. It's not a superimposed style, but an answer to our present conditions...It has developed out of our preferences for living in a modern way." She also created a successful line of lamps for the Ralph O. Smith company in the early 1950s. Her style was to mount a cupped "shell" shade on a flexible arm so that the glare was minimized but the light could be directional. Around 1952 she came out with the "Wilshire Group" of furniture as part of a collaboration with Martin/Brattrud of Gardena, California. The series included an elegant tweed upholstered sofa and armchair with metal bases. She taught Industrial Design at UCLA in the 1950s and at the Art Center School in Los Angeles.

Grossman was also the architect and interior designer for a number of residences in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Her 1949 Hillside House, built on a steep incline that she referred to as "a problem lot," stretched gracefully along and jutted out from the side of the hill with an enormous expanse of windows. She also designed a two-story house in 1951, on a raised frame that left room for a carport and patio beneath the house itself. Grossman designed her own home in Beverly Hills as well as privately commissioned homes and interiors.

Her flexible and generous aesthetic embraced her own modern furniture as well as traditional heirlooms and classical antiques. She voiced an understanding that, "there is no sense in discarding the old merely because it is not new. So many old things mix in very well. So many good things are timeless." She also championed a down to earth feminism, telling a 1951 interviewer for American Artist that, "the old idea that women are not good at mechanical work is stuff and nonsense. The only advantage a man has in furniture designing is his greater physical strength."