302: MARILYN NEUHART, collection of five dolls < American Design, 12 September 2019 < Auctions

American Design 12 September 2019

I sew because I have to—it is just that simple. After a long day hunched over my computer dealing with the vagaries of English spelling, clumsy syntax and wayward grammar, not to mention computer crashes and arbitrary and demanding clients, I look forward to time spent with my needle and thread, the tactile delight of cloth in my hands and the pleasure of working with color and form—nothing is more life-sustaining and yes, it has to be said, more therapeutic.

Marilyn Neuhart

Marilyn Neuhart and her husband John were well-known and respected graphic designers for over fifty-five years and both worked at the Eames Office from 1957 to 1961 and freelanced for another thirty years. Neuhart began making her dolls the same year she started working for Eames and would give them as gifts to friends and family. In 1959, upon seeing a doll made for Ray Eames, Alexander Girard asked Neuhart to create them in quantity to sell at his Textile & Objects shop, which opened in New York in 1961. In total, Neuhart made about 2,000 of the dolls within a few years, all while working at Eames and teaching at UCLA. The Neuharts would then go on to create some of the most comprehensive and thoughtful presentations of the history of Eames Office.

A Life Lived with Herman Miller

The Collection of Betty Gorecki

Betty Gorecki's husband Richard worked for Herman Miller from the mid-1950s to the late 1960s—a defining era in the company's history, when the designs of Charles and Ray Eames, George Nelson and Alexander Girard changed the look of modern American design.

Richard Gorecki was a traveling salesman that worked for the interiors department, consulting offices on furnishing their spaces with the adaptable and optimistic furniture and textiles that would become iconic of the era. Betty, a hairstylist who owned a salon, fell in love with the modern designs of Herman Miller and outfitted their home with the colorful and inviting aesthetic (even making custom curtains and pillows out of Girard fabrics).

Art is only art if it is synonymous with living.

Alexander Girard

Along with classic Herman Miller designs, Betty also decorated her home with items purchased from Girard's Textile & Objects shop, including the delightful handmade dolls of Marilyn Neuhart and folk art from South America. This collection also features Herman Miller Summer Picnic posters by Stephen Frykholm, timeless Nelson and Eames furniture, and Girard works ranging from an important collection of over six hundred fabric samples to his good-humored Environmental Enrichment panels.

Though Betty and Richard divorced in the early 1970s, Betty continued to live with these designs, seamlessly integrating their ease, optimism and resilience into her home and life for over forty years—just as Eames, Nelson and Girard had hoped they would be.

What makes a design unique, original, inventive, imaginative, and compelling? What are those attributes that really make your design really stand out amongst the crowd? I think the dimensionality comes from the person designing it, if that makes any sense. The design has to have presence.

Stephen Frykholm