Vintage Mid-Century Modern Furniture
In Disney's Golden Age, a Modernist Pioneer Designed the Perfect Animator's Desk
By Ben Marks — In the summer of 1938, Walt Disney put $10,000 down on 51 acres of land in Burbank, California, for a new animation studio. At the time, Disney’s first full-length animated feature, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” was on its way to grossing $8 million at the box office, a new record for a motion picture. But even before the financial success of “Snow White” was assured, Disney had pushed “Pinocchio” and “Fantasia,” into production at his company’s cramped Hyperion Studios—hence the need...
Hoarders, Hauntings, and Two-Headed Cows: Dealing Dead People's Things
By Ben Marks — As a child, Duane Scott Cerny didn’t exactly dream of growing up to become one of Chicago’s premier antiques dealers, but his early entrepreneurial instincts should have been a clue that one day he would. His eyes were opened to the world of resale on an unlikely day, November 22, 1963, at the tender age of 4, when the assassination of President Kennedy interrupted Cerny’s lunchtime ritual of watching “Bozo’s Circus” on TV. What, young Cerny wondered, could possibly be more important than...
Eames, Nelson, and the Mid-Century Modern Aesthetic
By Maribeth Keane — In this interview, Steve Cabella talks about collecting the work of designers Charles and Ray Eames, and about the mid century modern movement. As a teenager, I collected everything from vintage bicycles to Coca-Cola to Victorian stuff. Once I realized some of this stuff contained concepts of art and design, I started looking for vintage objects that also represented art or design movements that could hold my interest. I ran across Art Nouveau and then Art Deco and then Arts and...
The International Influences of Buffalo Furniture
By Maribeth Keane — About 11 years ago, my wife and I went on some architectural tours. We joined the organization that sponsored the tours, and I volunteered to be the Webmaster for them. I decided to take a few photographs to illustrate the tours, and realized it would also be good to describe some of the architecture, so I started an architectural dictionary. Then I decided it would be useful to have some Buffalo history, as background for the architecture, so I started working on that. Then I started...