Grossman's achievements were many and encompassed industrial design, interior design and architecture. In 1933, having successfully completed her fellowship at the renowned Stockholm arts institution, Konstfack, she opened Studio, a combined store and workshop in Stockholm. In the same year she married jazz musician Billy Grossman.
TRAVELING ACROSS THE ATLANTIC
In 1940, the couple decided to emigrate to the United States and embarked on a harrowing journey across the Atlantic aboard the Japanese liner Nakura Maru, never reaching their intended destination of New York, but eventually arriving in San Francisco.
WELL-PUBLICIZED STORE
Upon arrival in California in 1940, she opened a well-publicized store on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, where she was among the first to bring the Scandinavian modern aesthetic to southern California’s burgeoning modernist scene.
SWEDISH AND CALIFORNIAN INFLUENCE
In a 1951 interview, Grossman described the combined Swedish and Californian influence on her work as: ‘one of mellow, golden surfaces, of lightness and airiness and informal comfort.’
A CREATIVE CLIMATE
The postwar creative climate was highly receptive to new ideas in architecture and design, and Grossman’s unique approach to Swedish modernism was a hit in Los Angeles. For her, good design was fundamentally humanistic; its role was to support people’s daily lives in a relevant and engaging way, and personal and social wellbeing were key considerations.
THE DESIGNER OF 14 HOUSES IN LA
From the 1940s to the 1960s, Grossman was the only female architect in Los Angeles to own an independent practice. She designed 14 homes in the city and the surrounding area between 1949 and 1959 and
Grossman was clearly influenced by the principles of the Case Study Houses – the series of postwar experiments in American residential architecture commissioned by Arts & Architecture magazine – with their open floor plans, clean lines, and floor-to-ceiling glass walls and cantilevered decks to take advantage of their expansive views.
DECORATING THE SPACES
Grossman would often complete her builds with custom textiles, ceramics, furniture and lighting fixtures, and it is her furniture – such as the Modern Line Sofa and 62 Series Desk and her lighting designs, including the Gräshoppa Lamp and Cobra Lamp, for which she is best known today.
While Grossman is the architect behind more than 15 homes spanning the globe from California to Sweden, she is most noted for her industrial designs where the Gräshoppa Floor Lamp and Cobra Table Lamp belongs to the most famous works.
INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION
Grossman's work often appeared in Arts & Architecture magazine and was exhibited at museums such as Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and the National Museum in Stockholm throughout the 1940s and ’50s – her Cobra Lamp was even recognized with a Good Design Award in 1950.