GRETA M. GROSSMAN

 

Greta Magnusson Grossman (1906-1999) maintained a prolific forty-year career on two continents: Europe and North America, and operated as mover and shaker in the male dominated world of mid-century modern design.

 

 

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.’

Greta M. Grossman in her residence, Beverly Hills, California. ca. 1960.
 

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 

 
Exterior, 9376 Claircrest Drive, Beverly Hills, California, 1956-57. Designed by Greta M. Grossman. Photograph by John Hartley.

 

 

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.

Interior of 677 Nimes Road, Bel Air Estates, Los Angeles, California, 1949-50. Designed by Greta M. Grossman.

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.

Greta M. Grossman, Cobra Lamp design board. Included in the Museum of Modern Art’s “Good Design” exhibition, 1952.

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.