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American Art Deco Furniture

Donald Deskey American Art Deco Radio City Music Hall Sofa

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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designed this three seat sofa in 1932 for his most important commission, Radio City Music Hall. There were several of these sofas in the Grand Lounge of the theatre.

In 1972 management decided that the Grand Lounge was too crowded and disposed of much of the original furniture. This sofa is from that dispensement.

The feet and base are of ebonized wood. The sides and upper arms are in soft black vinyl and the back and cushions are covered in a luxurious gray wool fabric. These sofas were only made for Radio City Music Hall and were never a production item for Deskey. This is a chance to own a rare and very important piece of American Design history…it's also very comfortable.

The sofa measures 72" wide x 32" deep and is 32" high

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