Planner, Perimeter, Predictor, Paul McCobb

1956 Linear Group Room Divider If you are as familiar with Paul McCobb's work as I am you will know that these pieces are infrequently tagged with the familiar Calvin Furniture tags as are all of the other designs from the Linear Group. Most every example I have ever seen is unlabeled. This lack of a label bothered me from time to time, I just didn't understand why this particular piece would occasionally show up unlabeled. Back in June I found the answer while going through the paperwork for a show that Paul McCobb did. I didn't realize at the time that I had found the answer, it was just another tidbit of information to go into the research archive for later consumption. In 1958 Paul McCobb put together a show for the American Federation of Artists titled "Kaleidoscope - Changing aspects of American Design 1875 - 1960". The show was a traveling pictorial display detailing the evolution of American furniture towards Contemporary and was shown around the US and ...

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1951 Directional Modern #1699 Corner Table A true rarity! A genuine Paul McCobb Directional Modern #1699 Corner Table by Furnwood Corp. of Brockton, MA circa 1951 To the best of my knowledge no pieces from this group have ever come to auction. There's almost no documentation whatsoever for this earliest of Paul McCobb's furniture designs barring a single reference on pg. 128 of William J. Hennessey's indispensable "Modern Furnishings for the Home" (reprinted by Acanthus Press in 1997) and an unattributed image of the table along with two early Paul McCobb chairs (also unattributed) in a photo depicting a new Karagheusian carpet in the March 1952 issue of Furniture Age pg. 44. The legs and structure are solid Honduran Mahogany and the top is of Honduran Mahogany veneered Plywood which is unusual for Paul McCobb's designs as they were most frequently of hardwoods, veneered or solid. The scale of it astonishes me, the table is 34" (l) x 34" (w) ...

Added Daryl Products to 1962 Changed the 1962 Alside entry to reflect new information

Moved Blair Series 690 Chairs from 1962 to 1961 Added Mutschler Series 800 Office Arrangements to 1961

Added entries for a carpet that Paul McCobb designed for Edward Fields in 1959 and an entry for Alside Inc. a manufacturer of Prefab Aluminum Houses starting in 1962.

Spent the day today with Paul McCobb's daughter Melissa and her husband Andrew sorting through a recently re-discovered archive of her father's design work (it's amazing what you can find in the attic some days). The upshot is I now have in my possession several project reference binders, chock full of press photos, furniture catalogs, and 35mm color slides put together by Paul McCobb himself as a reference for his work. It is an incredible cornucopia of new and better information+ new and better images. But it's only on loan so I will need to make quick work of it, scanning and cataloging all the new information. The Gift Craft office set is in it and the Electro-Voice Organ (both of which I had been having a very hard time finding elsewhere); Mutschler, Blair, Lane, Widdicomb and Paul McCobb showroom catalogs, plus the 1955 Executive Office catalog. There are real surprises in here, things that I did not even suspect existed (no pictures of any globes though...) a...