Details
A MAHOGANY AND BLACK LACQUERED DESK
BY JOSEPH URBAN, CIRCA 1929
The rectangular mirrored top over a single drawer with two square gilt pulls, the top supported on each side by a cabinet, opening to reveal four drawers, with paper label reading: A MAN'S DEN CONSERVATORY
INTERIORS ON EXHIBITION AT METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART Designed by JOSEPH URBAN Executed by HUGO GNAM AND SON--30 1/2in. (77.5cm.) high, 59in. (149.8cm.) wide, 25 1/2in. (64.8cm.) deep
cf.Randolph Carter and Robert Cole, Joseph Urban: Architect, Theatre, Opera, Film, New York: Abbeville Press Inc, 1992, p.194, 198 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Architect and the Industrial Arts, An exhibition of Contemporary American Design, New York 1929, p.49
This desk is part of an interior for a man's den, designed by Josef Urban for the 1929 Exhibition The Architect and the Industrial Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Urban was commissioned to design two rooms at the exhibition, a man's den and a roof garden. Every piece on display was designed by Urban including the furniture, wall coverings and carpets. The Museum's show displayed how leading American designers and architects were interperting the new Art Deco style.
Josef Urban, the Austrian born architect, illustrator and set-designer, was born in 1872. He was a pupil of Carl Hagenauer and was co-founder and president of the "Hagenbund", a rival artist union to the Viennese secession group. After several architectural projects in Vienna, Urban moved to Boston in 1911 to be stage direcor of the Boston opera. In 1917 he bacame stage director at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City until his death in 1933.
In the fall of 1922, Urban opened the showroom Wiener Werkstaette of America Inc., at 581 Fifth Avenue, a branch of the famous Viennese institution, with the goal of bringing the designs of the Viennese modern movement to the United States.
Next to Marjorie Merriweather Post's Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, (1926), Urban's architectural masterpieces included the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York (1927), and the New School in Greenwich Village (1928-1929).
BY JOSEPH URBAN, CIRCA 1929
The rectangular mirrored top over a single drawer with two square gilt pulls, the top supported on each side by a cabinet, opening to reveal four drawers, with paper label reading: A MAN'S DEN CONSERVATORY
INTERIORS ON EXHIBITION AT METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART Designed by JOSEPH URBAN Executed by HUGO GNAM AND SON--30 1/2in. (77.5cm.) high, 59in. (149.8cm.) wide, 25 1/2in. (64.8cm.) deep
cf.Randolph Carter and Robert Cole, Joseph Urban: Architect, Theatre, Opera, Film, New York: Abbeville Press Inc, 1992, p.194, 198 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Architect and the Industrial Arts, An exhibition of Contemporary American Design, New York 1929, p.49
This desk is part of an interior for a man's den, designed by Josef Urban for the 1929 Exhibition The Architect and the Industrial Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Urban was commissioned to design two rooms at the exhibition, a man's den and a roof garden. Every piece on display was designed by Urban including the furniture, wall coverings and carpets. The Museum's show displayed how leading American designers and architects were interperting the new Art Deco style.
Josef Urban, the Austrian born architect, illustrator and set-designer, was born in 1872. He was a pupil of Carl Hagenauer and was co-founder and president of the "Hagenbund", a rival artist union to the Viennese secession group. After several architectural projects in Vienna, Urban moved to Boston in 1911 to be stage direcor of the Boston opera. In 1917 he bacame stage director at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City until his death in 1933.
In the fall of 1922, Urban opened the showroom Wiener Werkstaette of America Inc., at 581 Fifth Avenue, a branch of the famous Viennese institution, with the goal of bringing the designs of the Viennese modern movement to the United States.
Next to Marjorie Merriweather Post's Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, (1926), Urban's architectural masterpieces included the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York (1927), and the New School in Greenwich Village (1928-1929).