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American Art Deco Furniture

A Rare Donald Deskey American Art Deco Bookcase / Desk

Modernism Gallery

This very rare bookcase was designed ca. 1935 by Donald DeskeyDonald Deskey
American [1894 - 1989] 

Donald Deskey was born in Blue Earth, Minnesota in 1894. In 1912 he left for California with a high school diploma. After a series of jobs, a stint in the army, and attendance at The University of California at Berkeley to study architecture and painting he began in 1920 working in advertising, first Chicago then New York. In 1925 he visited the Exposition International des Arts Decoratifs et Industrials Moderns and the Bauhaus in Germany. He came back to New York in 1926 committed to the modern movement. He created store window displays for Saks- Fifth Avenue and made folding screens for Paul Frankl. Frankl paid Deskey $35 per screen and sold them for $400… a tidy profit. Through his work at Saks, Deskey met the company president, Adam Gimbel and showed him some furniture drawings he had made in Paris. Gimbel was impressed enough that he commissioned Deskey to furnish the interior of his Park Avenue apartment, Deskey’s first...
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(1894 – 1989) for the Widdicomb Furniture Company of Grand Rapids, Michigan. The case, which features three open shelves above a rectangular base with four drawers on the right hand side and a door on the left hand side which opens to reveal three shelves. The front of the base has a matching handle which pulls out a writing surface. The bookcase is in Avoidire wood veneers with black lacquer trim. The case measures 58 ½” high, 29” wide and 21” deep.

A great addition to any collection!

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Reference# AF093

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