Incollect Magazine - Issue 4

2023 Incollect Magazine 121 timeless simplified elegance. “People love the cork stuff now,” says Converso. “It used to be unpopular, for a long time, but now all the cork tables are doing well, are popular again,” he says. He notes the market for Frankl “Station Wagon” cabinets with leather handles is very strong. Several Incollect dealers have outstanding examples of these signature designs. Frankl was born in Austria in 1887 and trained as an architect in Vienna and Berlin before emigrating to the United States. He was one of the most influential promoters of modern design styles in America and also helped to found the American Designers Gallery in New York alongside American- born Donald Deskey who studied design in Paris (he also attended the 1925 Paris Exposition) and in 1932, at age 38, completed a commission for the interiors of Radio City Music Hall — his tribute to American Art Deco and, today, a signature remaining example of this American design genre. Deskey went on to have a formative influence on American industrial design, his design style and ideas evolving swiftly from Art Deco into the streamlined modernism of American design in the mid to late 1930s. Deskey is even quoted as saying, about his interior designs for the Radio City Music Hall, ”We hope to impress the customers by sheer elegance, not by overwhelming them with ornament”, signaling Paul T. Frankl custom dining table designed for a project in La Jolla, California circa 1930. Has two 24-inch leaves, when both are inserted the table measures 108 inches fully extended, comfortably seating 10 to 12. Lacquered wood and cork base, silvered glass. From Converso. Rare custom bookcase by Paul T. Frankl, c. 1930. Bookcase/ storage cabinet of orange and black lacquered wood with gold painted face in a snaking geometric motif and thick glass side panels. A rare example that exemplifies Frankl’s departure from his skyscraper furniture into a more simplified direction. From Donzella, photo by Josh Gaddy.