Few women designed furniture during the inter war years. We all know Florence Knoll and Ray Eames. But many of us have not heard of Bertha Schaefer. She designed furniture along side some pretty big names.
Schaefer began as an interior designer -- an acceptable vocation for a woman because at that time women were recognized as having a natural instinct for the placement of color and objects. After all, it was only natural. Planning, spatial relationships and mathematics, it was believed, would only strain their heads. This was something reserved for the male domain. Bertha Schaefer designed alone, she didn’t have any husband to partner with who could help expose her talents and skills.
Bertha Schaefer expanded the definition of decorator to designer. She then expanded the definition of designer to innovator. She was pioneer in integrating fine and applied arts with interior design. She owned businesses and an art gallery. She created her own furniture designs and had them mass produced.
Schaefer began as an interior designer -- an acceptable vocation for a woman because at that time women were recognized as having a natural instinct for the placement of color and objects. After all, it was only natural. Planning, spatial relationships and mathematics, it was believed, would only strain their heads. This was something reserved for the male domain. Bertha Schaefer designed alone, she didn’t have any husband to partner with who could help expose her talents and skills.
Bertha Schaefer expanded the definition of decorator to designer. She then expanded the definition of designer to innovator. She was pioneer in integrating fine and applied arts with interior design. She owned businesses and an art gallery. She created her own furniture designs and had them mass produced.
Treadway, September 10, 2006: Schaefer's Dining Table, manufactured by Singer, 1950s, round walnut top raised on four tapered legs, original finish. Realized - $800Born in 1895 in Yazoo City, Mississippi to Emil and Julia (Marx) Schaefer, she grew up there with a sister and a brother. They lived in a house designed by their father that was traditional by no means. This was to have an effect on her decision to study interior design. Schaefer obtained a B.A. from Mississippi State College for Women. After a stint working in the statistics department in Washington, Schaefer returned to Mississippi. She felt different than the other girls there and wanted to escape the dusty hot Mississippi roads. Schaefer left for New York to attend the two year interior design program at Parsons School of Design. After graduating she headed to Paris for five months. When she returned to NYC, she landed a job with Helen Criss, interior designer, who couldn't keep her long for financial reasons. So in 1924, she opened her own business: Bertha Schaefer, Interiors.
Treadway Toomey, September 14, 2008 – realized $800: Bertha Schaefer coffee table, produced by Singer & Sons, travertine top raised on walnut base with six sculptural curved supports, signed with paper label.She designed interiors for private homes, apartments, hotel lobbies and restaurants. Although she designed and altered pieces of furniture here and there, her design emphasis, actually, was on lighting. She believed in functional and economical lighting fixtures. By 1939, she was one of the first to use fluorescent lighting in residential applications. By 1954, she was tackling a model bathroom for General Electric and designed the interior of Temple Washington Hebrew Congregation. But it was this functional and economical way of living that she employed in her furniture designs.
Sold at Rago, October 28, 2007 and also in April of 2007 both for $2,400, Schaefer for M. Singer & Sons. Italian walnut.In the 1940s, her interests turned to Contemporary art. She was eager to put into action the idea that art should not be chosen based upon the idea that it matched with the décor. In fact just the opposite, she believed one should choose a painting first and then build the room around it. In 1944, she opened the Bertha Schaefer Gallery of Contemporary Art. There she featured fine art, sculpture and furniture.
She was a proponent of the German Bauhaus School and believed that economical designs could possess both craftsmanship as well as beauty. Her gallery was an arena to exercise her ideas and in 1947, she curated a series of exhibitions titled “The Modern House Comes Alive”. She debuted what she considered to be the American counterpart to the European movement.
Her furniture designs caught the eye of Joe Singer of M. Singer and Sons Furniture Company in New York City. He liked Schaefer’s ability to marry fine arts with commercial arts, which she displayed in her furniture designs and in her gallery. In November of 1951 during a week-long trade show, Schaefer debuted fifteen furniture pieces along side twenty-one pieces by ground-breaking Italian designers such as Gio Ponti, Carlo Mollino, Carlo de Carli and Ico Parisi. With the introduction of their designs came a new influence in furniture design in America. Modern furniture was perceived as cold and aseptic, some even called it sterile. But Schaefer, by herself, had gone a step beyond functionalism and provided interest to the viewer with her beautifully molded wooden forms.
Available at 20th Century Interiors.Schaefer continued to design modern furniture for Singer from 1950 to 1961 and often co-designing with Gio Ponti. Many of her design forms predate her introduction to these Italian designers. It is interesting to note that her furniture items sell for considerably less compared to these other names – (though Carlo Mollino blows everyone out of the water.) American and not Italian, yes. Name recognition, not as well known. Trained as an interior designer and not an architect, true. Items she co-designed with Gio Ponti go for more. But why isn’t she as well known for her furniture designs? I don’t know enough to provide an answer. Any thoughts out there?