Urban Furniture Company - Sweden - need info.  

Anyone?
Come on, I know someone on here must have at least heard of Urban furniture co. The Hinn pieces made by Urban go for 5 and 6 figures so there's at least some dealers here who would know about Hinn, and maybe via default more could be found out about urban. Please? Anyone? Bueller, Bueller.....

Urban Furniture was my family's company in midtown Manhattan from the late 1940's until 1959.  My Grandpa Michael Labriola started the business and my dad Frank, my Uncle Lou, and Aunt Eleanor shared in the day-to-day duties.  This was a small custom design furniture manufacturing and upholstering shop with a busy sales showroom  across the street from The United Nations compound on the lower east side.  Supposedly we were the first to represent and import William Hinn's incredible furniture.  Open the drawer on any piece and look for a metal badge with the words "Urban Suburban NY".

Interesting, good to know.  Do you have an archive of old brochures and catalogs that you could share?  Thanks.

I don't know if it is related but probably two companies using the same name.  I used to have a double sided sideboard with open shelving on top and it was also called Urban Suburban, designed by Merton Gershun and made by American of Martinsville.

Yes, thanks indeed for that info, and welcome to the forum. We bought one of the long dressers a couple of years ago. I had not previously realized that Urban was not the manufacturer of the William Hinn pieces, but rather the importer. I would also be interested in seeing catalogs of Urban. The two pieces of vintage references that I have previously come across are an ad and a 1955 newspaper article. I had not previously mapped the NYC address in the ad, but sure enough, it was right next to the U.N.

I went down a bit of a rabbit hole on William Hinn and Edmond Spence last night and thought I'd share what I found in terms of markings.  I looked at many of the Hinn "Swedish Guild" pieces and none I saw had an Urban Furniture metal badge.  It looks like they all had ink stamps on the back or underside of "Made in Sweden - Factory No 24" as shown in first photo.  I did see a couple of dressers that had tags of New York furniture retailers, such as Daniel Jones and A.H. Stiehl.  From the labels shown in photo 3, it appears that Urban imported these pieces and then sold them to furniture retailers like Daniel Jones and Stiehl Furniture.

And it looks like Urban also distributed Spence's designs made in Sweden, which had similar ink stamps, though different factory numbers (photo 4) .  This could explain how the Hinn pieces were misattributed to Spence, who was better known in the US.  

 According to Esoteric Survey, Edmond J. Spence (1911-1986) was born in Montreal but set up a design firm in New York City in the 1940's and by the early 1950's was very successful.  Swedish industrialist, Wolfgang Thomas, hired his firm to design an extensive line that was produced in 17 Swedish factories for the American market. 

I could not find any info on Hinn other than a couple of entries saying he was Swedish. 

@mark737. Nice research. I looked into Hinn pieces in 2019 when comparing them with Jorgen Claus ,Brande Mobelfabrik chests of drawers, which are very similar. Saved images of marks from two  Hinn drawer sets. Factory 14 and Factory 24. As you say , just ink stamps.

Hinn was American. Here is a nice writeup from 1961 about him

One interesting tidbit from that article is that it appears he was the designer for those Gordon's of Johnson City travertine tables that always get mis-attributed to Bertha Schaefer.

Thanks for sharing this article.  Makes sense that he was American - William Hinn isn't a very Swedish name.  And it's interesting that he, like Spence, designed for Swedish and Mexican makers.   And, of course, was good to learn he was married to a pretty brunette named Thelma.  Here are a few other pieces attributed to him for White.    

I came across a 1956 White Furniture brochure of the Tiara collection for sale.   It mentions Hinn as the designer of the collection and includes tables made by Gordons and  upholstered seating made by Hickory Chair Co. Here's a shot of the part of the Gordon's page 

Im a dealer here in Sweden and I can say with almost 100% certainty that these pieces of furniture ever was sold here in Sweden.
They must have been produced here for the American market exclusively, they have never showed up in the second hand market as far as I know.

One little clue is in the Urban ad above which mentions that they had an office in Stockholm, so most likely there was a connection to some manufacturers here.
Aren't the Hinn pieces also made of walnut?
That is a very rare wood here that almost never was used for furniture in Sweden, but maybe was specified by Urban?

That's interesting to learn Edmund Spence was born in Montreal.

I have some bedroom pieces that were produced by Quebec furniture maker Gibbard which look distinctly like other pieces credited to Spence.

Supposedly they were designed by Wesley Griffith of Gibbard but I've never been able to find primary source evidence.

Picked up this Gordon's (by William Hinn maybe) surfboard coffee table yesterday.  Under all that beautiful paint, the top appears to be a walnut veneer, like the side table in photo above.  Hopefully it's still salvageable, or else I'll be looking for a piece of travertine.

https://imgur.com/gallery/BnpV4Q0  

@mark737  there is clear documentation that Hinn designed the Tiara group for Gordon's (and also White Furniture) but there isn't any evidence that I have seen that he designed your table.