Design 
27 October 2022
Design 
267

Gerald Luss

Cabinet

Lehigh Furniture Inc.
USA, c. 1960
walnut, lacquered wood, nickel-plated brass 31¾ h × 72 w × 18¾ d in (81 × 183 × 48 cm)
estimate: $5,000–7,000
result: $4,750
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Cabinet features six drawers and two doors concealing two adjustable shelves. Wright would like to thank Gerald and Susan Luss for their assistance in cataloging this work
provenance: Private Collection, New Jersey | Acquired from the previous by the present owner

This work will ship from Rago in Lambertville, New Jersey.

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Group Effort

Discovering Designs by Gerald Luss

Gerald Luss

When John O’Neill purchased the present lot, a sleek walnut cabinet with minimalist nickel pulls, he theorized that it was of Danish origin—it displayed the same warmth and understated elegance characteristic of designs from the Scandinavian masters. Unable to pin-down a solid attribution, O’Neill—who hosts a mid-century design focused podcast called The Perspecta—posed the question to his listeners. An instance of crowd-sourcing at its best, the masses provided the answer: Gerald Luss.

Luss, now 95, started his own firm after spending 17 years with Designs for Business in New York. His first major commission (major being an understatement) was to design 350,000 square feet of office space at the Rockefeller Center for magazine giant, Time-Life. The resulting design was so quintessentially of the moment, the set designers for Mad Men used it as the inspiration for the offices of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. More recently, Luss’s stunning modern masterpiece of a family home in Ossining New York garnered a new generation of admirers after playing host to an exhibition of contemporary art organized by Blum & Poe and Mendes Wood DM.

Using this new-found information, O’Neill dug in, and found that indeed his cabinet exhibited characteristics of the often overlooked-designer, noting that even the aluminum pulls matched the cabinet hardware installed in Luss’s own kitchen. Taking it one step further, O’Neill went direct to the source, and corresponded with Gerald and his wife Susan. Over email (transcribed below), Susan thoughtfully recounted Gerald’s recollection of the design.

Approximate year of manufacturing? 

1960

How many pieces were made? 

Cannot project. The system had a broad Lehigh furniture company consumer usage based on modular component concept, providing multiple options as required for any given architectural interior or residential project or consumer.

Any details about Lehigh Furniture Company?

Part of emergence of midcentury contemporary furniture and furnishings sources similar to Herman Miller and Knoll Associates.

Did Gerald personally help to build it?

Between 1955 and 1960 [Gerald] built prototypes within his living quarters, developing the concept of flexibility to permit reconfigurations as required by changes evolving in user work and/or living quarter demands. Architectural and interior design publications exhibiting the concept resulted in commission by Lehigh based on this concept.

What else was he working on at the time? 

A broad range of commissions materializing from recognition by corporate, institutional, governmental and healthcare clients reflecting media reporting on emergence of flexible design concept, the commission from Time-Life consisting of 350,000 square feet housing their six publications and project design concepts based on every architectural and furniture component being capable of accommodating need for changes that could materialize over the following two to four decades.

Wright would like to thank Gerald and Susan Luss for their assistance in cataloging this work

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