Eliana Willis

Twenty-five items form the colorful, tactile, and often humorous work of 14 women designers, both known and obscure, in the “Born Too Tall: California Women Designers, Postwar to Postmodern” exhibition at R & Company in Tribeca, New York.
“Southern California was a hotbed of creativity,” said Evan Snyderman, co-owner of R & Company and co-curator of the show with James Zemaitis, the company’s Director of Museum Relations. “And we thought, why not focus on unsung heroes—in particular the women who are often left out of the conversation, and are not in history books—and give them the credit they are due?”
Wendy Maruyama, Mickey Mackintosh. Photo: Joe Kramm, courtesy of R & Company.
The show sheds overdue light on novel approaches by women experimenting with traditional processes and materials. A curved plywood sculpture by Ray Eames—newly reissued in a limited edition—is instantly recognizable, while animal-shaped furniture by Pamela Weir-Quiton comes as more of a delightful discovery. While still in college, Wendy Maruyama used then-verboten particle board, instead of wood, and car paint to create her Mickey Mackintosh chair (1981), which is today recognized as one of the earliest and most iconic examples of postmodern furniture. Arlene Fisch, in the early 1980s, incorporated sewing techniques to create unique pieces of gold and silver jewelry.
Arline Fisch, Floating Square brooch and bracelet. Courtesy of R & Company.
“This is something we have been championing for 25 years as a gallery, and is now finding its place in the contemporary design and art world,” said Snyderman. “We see this coming together of all these practices, and hierarchies breaking down between fine art, craft, sculpture, and design.”
The title of the show comes from a chapter title in Fifth Chinese Daughter, a bestselling memoir by Jade Snow Wong, whose pottery is featured in the exhibition. It refers to the writer’s dim marriage prospects but also typifies the “biology is destiny” trope that hampered the careers of so many female artists.
Pamela Weir-Quiton, unicorn rocker and moose rocker. Photo: Tiffany Smith Studio, courtesy of R & Company.
Some of the participants in the show had felt held back because they were doing something new. “There were no galleries around for me,” said Pamela Weir-Quiton, who, conversely, didn’t lack for commissions in her frenzy of creation fresh out of college (where she was the lone woman woodworker). It took close to a half century for a museum—in this case, LACMA, in 2019—to come around to acquiring one of her pieces, which is also featured in “Born Too Tall,” the figurative Georgie girl dresser and chair in a mix of walnut, birch and ebony. “My stuff never fit in to the brown woodworking of the ’60s,” said Weir-Quiton. “It was animated. It had eyes. It connects with you.”
California being a state larger than many countries, the geographic peg of the show doesn’t conjure any visual through-line. There’s a boho earthiness to some of the pottery and textile pieces from the 1970s, countered by the lyric midcentury elegance of Greta Magnusson Grossman’s double cone lamp of the late 1940s. Some artists acknowledge inspiration from the sunlight, openness, diversity, and “energy” of the West Coast. More than half of the artists are not from the state, but worked, studied, or taught there, and remain associated with it.
Cheryl R. Riley, Brush Strokes Cigarette Table 1 (Gold). Courtesy of R & Company.
“I love the brightness, the light there,” said Cheryl R. Riley, a Texas native who lived and worked for two decades in San Francisco before settling on the East Coast. She has two cigarette tables in the show (a throwback to the time when a diminutive piece of furniture was designated for that activity). They easily double as stand-alone sculptures. She likens the medium to a sketch pad, or accessories, saying that their small size and low material cost allow for endless experimentation with shapes, colors, and finishes. “California is gold country, with the gold rushes, and there’s also the silver, with the Mexican culture.” She added, “I don’t have a fear of bling.”
The show, on view through January 27, 2023, at 64 White Street, also features work by Evelyn Ackerman, Claire Falkenstein, Trude Guermonprez, Merry Renk, June Schwarcz, Kay Sekimachi, and Marguerite Wildenhain.
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“When designing the Oblong collection, the goal was to match the simplistic, bulky, and rounded forms with striking materials,” said Sanayi313 co-founder Enis Karavil. Imperfectly shaped stools, consoles, coffee, side, and dining tables comprise the collection stemming from an intelligent use of knotted mazel and burl wood. Crafted by carpenters using thousand-year-old techniques specific to Istanbul, the pieces are available through New York gallery Love House.
Burl wood was popular in the Art Deco and Hollywood Regency movements of the 1920s and ’30s and again in the 1970s. Collected for its luxurious appearance, heavy weight, and aesthetic moodiness, the intricately knotted wood is again seeing a resurgence today as it crops up in architectural fit-outs and furniture designs.
Stools from the Oblong collection. Courtesy of Sanayi313 studio.
Sanayi313 got its start in fashion but now develops everything from interiors to home accessories. With residential design as its main market, the firm operates out of the rapidly transforming, post-industrial Ataturk Oto Sanayi Sitesi district in Istanbul. Within this dramatic setting, the firm is focusing more and more on creating contemporary high-craft pieces in rich woods that hark back to European and Middle Eastern antiques—a vast collection Enis has amassed over the years.
Though unmistakably bold in appearance, Sanayi313‘s Oblong collection is intended for a myriad of interiors. The new pieces—unified by a formal vocabulary of monumental planes, neotenic details, and bowed edges—are as much a celebration of contemporary sculptural design as they are an ode to Istanbul, a city of contrasts. For Karavil and his brother Amir, Oblong is a chance to demonstrate their ‘maximalist expression in minimalist form’ ethos.
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For over a decade, Niki and Simon Haas have upended the worlds of art and design with their bonkers biomorphic objects. This month, they bring their freewheeling fantasia to Gallery All in Shanghai, where the twins—who live and work in Los Angeles—are exhibiting a series of never-before-seen tapestries, mirrors, and fuzzy furniture items.
The three-part exhibition is organized into a dream-sequence of rooms: “Theater of Fantasy,” “Looking Glass and Paths,” and “Storyteller.” The overarching aim is to transport the viewer to the strange yet serene moonlit landscape evoked by the French composer Claude Debussy, whose piano piece Clair de Lune, takes its title from the eerie, 19th-century poem by Paul Verlaine.
Haas Brothers, Chaise Lurman. Brass, faux fur. Courtesy of Gallery All Shanghai.
In the first room, “Theatre of Fantasy,” curator Duffy Du has created a space that is part frozen dreamscape and part snow-hotel lobby. Handcrafted objects belonging to the brothers’ ongoing “Beasts” and “Drippy Ghost” series are displayed on marshmallow-like plinths, as well as tables and stools with molten bronze limbs. An orange, horned chaise lounge titled Chaise Lurman and a purple faux-fur caterpillar with brass lips titled Bench in the Cogs stand motionless—although you get the sense that this bizarre tableau springs to life the moment your back is turned.
Haas Brothers, Reach-able Moment L. Cast bronze, LED light. Courtesy of Gallery All Shanghai.
Moving through, Looking Glass and Paths is a display of mirrors from the Haas’s ongoing “Zoidberg” series—a collection of lumpen bronze mirrors that look like portals to another realm and willfully blur the distinction between art and design.
Grouped together under the title “Storyteller” is the brothers’ collection of silk and wool tapestries. A new medium for the dexterous twins, the series of childlike wall hangings depict the Californian landscape and are directly inspired by their burgeoning fascination with nostalgia and innocence.
Haas Brothers, Cause and Reflect (detail). Cast bronze, peach mirror. Courtesy of Gallery All Shanghai.
“I think we are honing our ability to create fantasy,” Niki said in a recent interview. “It’s definitely supposed to take you back to childhood, and it’s meant to free you from preconceived stereotypes or rules in how you interact with the world and yourself.”
While some of the pieces in “Clair de Lune” are unique, many of the objects are editions, which will delight those keen to add to their own menagerie of Haas critters. Early patronage from the actor Tobey Maguire, and continued support from high-profile clientele, has ensured that the work of the Haas Brothers has been in demand since they first established their studio in 2010.
Two tapestries in “Clair de Lune.” Courtesy of Gallery All Shanghai.
In 2021, the Haas Brothers beast Biggy Stardust—a two-legged, yeti-like sculpture crafted from purple faux fur and bronze—fetched $225,000 at a charitable auction held at Christie’s in New York, nearly double its low estimate.
Meanwhile, their ongoing collaboration with the homeware brand L’Objet provides an entry point for those at the start of their collecting career. Surely there’s space on everyone’s table for a £330 ($402) pair of brass salt and pepper shakers?
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