Sue Kohler lived a life devoted to art, architecture and design. Born in Grand Rapids, educated at the University of Michigan with advanced degrees in art history, Sue met her husband, the architect Carl R. Kohler, at Cranbrook where she had landed her first curatorial position at the Museum of the Cranbrook Academy of Art. They married in 1953, traveled extensively for his position at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and eventually settled in Washington, DC in 1959.
Raising three children, Lisa, Peter and Eric, in their Georgetown row house, the Kohlers amassed an eclectic collection of midcentury modern furniture, architectural fragments and antiques. In 1974, Sue began a 35-year career as Chief Historian for the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, ultimately retiring at the age of 80. During her tenure at the Commission, she co-authored many books on Washington DC architecture and planning, including Designing The Nation’s Capital: The 1901 Plan for Washington, DC.
The present lot is drawn from the Estate of Sue Kohler, and reflects her lifelong passion for studying and collecting American design.
T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings 1905–1976
Terence Harold Robsjohn-Gibbings was born in England in 1905. While studying architecture at the University of London, Robsjohn-Gibbings was fascinated by the restrained elegance of Greek and Roman art, so he often spent his spare time wandering the galleries of the British Museum. In 1929, he moved to New York where he worked for famed tastemaker Charles Duveen before establishing a career as an independent interior designer in 1936. In 1938, Harper’s Bazaar stated that Robsjohn-Gibbings felt that “the modern should stem from the very ancient,” as he believed that furniture should be steeped in the symmetry and rationality of Greek design. In 1946, Robsjohn-Gibbings had the chance to make his ideals manifest when he was invited to design a line of furniture for Widdicomb Furniture Company. His furniture line was hailed as a triumph by House Beautiful, and his design for a butler’s table was featured in the landmark Good Design exhibit of 1951 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
In addition to working as an interior designer, Robsjohns-Gibbings was also an astute critic of design culture in America and he was noted for his humorous novels like Goodbye, Mr. Chippendale, which poked fun at the American craze for all things antique in interior design. During the 1960s, Robsjohn-Gibbings moved to Athens, the birthplace of classicism, and his apartment overlooked the Parthenon. While living in Greece, Robsjohn-Gibbings designed interiors for both Aristotle Onassis and the Niarchos family. Robsjohn-Gibbings passed away in 1976. He left behind a legacy of classically-derived forms, and his elegant works reside in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, among many others.
Auction Results T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings
