Joshua, have you read this discussion of Pearsall stuff?
http://www.designaddict.com/forum/General-discussion/Anti-pearsall
anther good one:
http://www.designaddict.com/forum/General-discussion/Why-does-Pearsall-g...
Coincidentally, I had both the Kagan tri-symmetric coffee table, and, the Pearsall elongated jacks coffee table in my showroom at the same time. This made me really consider how I should be labelling some of his pieces. Should it be "Kagan Style" "Inspired by" or "designed by Adrian Pearsall"?
This is all very interesting in light of how aggressive his family is to protective his designs. The following note from his children is on the Adrian Pearsall website. It doesn't sit too well with me when it sits next to the pictures below.
http://adrianpearsall.com/
Unfortunately we have been forced to remove the catalog of designs from our website as multiple people have been downloading, copying and reproducing the featured pieces and selling them as authentic Adrian Pearsall / Craft Associates vintage furniture. While we have attempted to, and will continue to, work with these companies to properly represent their reproductions, the lack of respect for our fathers name, designs and company name has been frustrating. Thus, in order to protect you, the discriminating collector, we now must officially certify the authenticity of Adrian Pearsall and Craft Associate furniture as a paid service instead of allowing open access to his designs. The fee we are charging for this service is now being used solely for the legal protection of his designs, and, in effect, for the protection of the value of all original pieces that are currently with collectors, in homes, and in specialty shops across the country. We apologize for the inconvenience and I encourage all lovers of Adrian Pearsall designs and authentic, vintage, mid-century furniture of all types, to express your discontent to any and all sellers who mis-represent their products as authentic or authorized in any way as Adrian Pearsall / Craft Associates furniture designs.
Attached pics are coffee tables from 1. Kagan and 2. Pearsall
Kitsch when it is so bad and over the top, it is so good. This was the charm that made 1950s kitsch retro and influenced many aspects of the 1980s which eventually became the post war era and later mid century modern that persist to this day. Without these kitsch stuff, design addict and all of us will not be here.
images from Cara Greenberg's 1985 book 'Mid century Modern'
I believe the family's statement was mostly in reference to a business that was blatantly marketing the Pearsall name and his designs (however unoriginal) without permission. I just looked and they are still doing this so I guess the family's efforts to stop them are either ongoing or were not successful. Or maybe they reached an agreement? No idea.
The original catalog is still online, thanks to google archiving (link in this thread). A year or two ago there was a discussion here about Pearsall and I started looking at his "inspired by" pieces and doing side-by-side photo comparisons to the real thing. There were way more than I thought. Kagan is the one everyone thinks of but there were many others.
The funny thing is that people come here fairly often asking if their sofa or chair is a Pearsall creation when it's actually by some company that made significantly better quality stuff (not necessarily better designs, just better construction and materials).
Adrian Pearsall was inconsistent.
There were sparks of originality in his designs, but then clear situations where the easy path was taken, and more than inspiration, was borrowed from others. His manufacturing choices mirrored his design ethos. Sometimes things were well built, with a high quality selection of walnut, other times construction and materials were shoddy. Sometimes his designs had a clean form, sometimes they were unnecessarily elaborate and kitschy.
For these reasons, I think it is hard to argue that he deserves a place among the top designers of the last century. If you look at the greats from the last century, one of the main things that defined them, after the actual designs they created, is consistency and quality. The great designers realized that execution of their design, was nearly as important as the design itself. It is a rarity that you come across a Wegner, Juhl, Kjærholm, Mogenson, Jacobsen, that was poor quality. Sure it may show its age, but almost never its lack of quality.
For these reasons, my opinion of Pearsall is tepid.
I am also of the camp, that the mid-century kitsch of the era, is just a faddish draw, and not substantive. The Atomic, chromed steel, excessively biomorphic forms, formica laminates, Hollywood Regency, Heywake, Lane, etc. style, is only bad, worse, down-right ugly, and visually offensive; it does not circle back around on itself at some point, and become 'good.' This is clearly just my opinion, as I have slumped to the levels of picking some of this stuff up, to resell to those who love it, so that I could then go pick up some Danish designed/made furniture for myself. I just do not think the kitsch has that much to do with good, timeless design, American or Scandinavian. But again, all of this is just my personal opinion/taste.
All I am saying is that without the revival of the 1950's kitsch from everywhere during the 1980s, those great mid 20th century designs that were forgotten when they went out of fashion would not have been rediscovered as these highly coveted 20th century design icons. Love it or hate it, that fascination with kitsch led us to where we are now in the 21st century.
I am not a big fan of 1950's kitsch either, I use to live in one of those typical ersatz ranch houses in the San Fernando Valley (The Valley) and several of those multi unit stucco boxes dingbat apartments in Echo Park and other places...so maybe there's a little bit of kitsch that I kept to this day, my 1952 electric Kelvinator range that I have not found a replacement yet that is practical and aesthetically pleasing.
Minimoma, I get what you are saying. It did not happen this way for me, but I can see your line of logic.
For me it was more along the lines of:
Too cash-strapped to buy new furniture, so I am going to buy used stuff.....
Seeing stuff that was well-built, and buying it for no other reason than it was cheap and well-built.....
Over time appreciating the 'look' that this cheap, well-built furniture had....
Realizing that the materials used in said furniture were actually not cheap at all, pretty hard to find, and really aesthetically appealing......
Realizing that the once cheap (now moderately priced), well-built stuff that I had was just the tip of the iceberg, and that there was far more amazing stuff out there....
Diving into MCM design....
Realizing that Scandinavian designed and built furniture (now, not cheap at all), is the most pleasing aesthetic to me, and probably a local maximus on the human timeline of beauty and craftsmanship for some time to come (at least in the area of production furniture).
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