Edgar Bartolucci
Edgar Bartolucci studied under Laszlo Moholy-Nagy at Chicago’s Institute of Design in the early 1940s. His most well-known design, the Barwa lounge made in collaboration with Jack Waldheim, was widely publicized but only self-produced in small batches while mass-produced knockoffs appeared on the market. In the 1950s Bartolucci created a small edition of coffee tables, in collaboration with Bob Cato. Cato, a colleague from the Institute of Design, was also Bartolucci’s business partner for a commercial interior design company as well as the art director of Glamour magazine at the time. Together they made an edition of approximately 100-150 tables for a retail store selling modern designs but when the production was complete they found the store had gone out of business.
Edgar Bartolucci and Bob Cato
Discouraged by his early endeavors in furniture design, Bartolucci went into the point of purchase display business and later became the Vice President of Max Factor. Despite a short-lived career in the field of furniture design, Bartolucci made a number of admired works and retained friendships with many of his classmates and amassed a wonderful collection of their works. The following eleven lots come from the Collection of Edgar Bartolucci.
