Donald Deskey

(b Blue Earth, MN, 23 Nov 1894; d 1989). American interior and industrial designer. He gained a degree in architecture and studied painting before working in advertising. From 1922 to 1924 he was head of the art department at Juniata College, Huntingdon, PA. In 1921 and 1925 he made trips to Paris, where he attended the Ecole de la Grande Chaumi?re and the Acad?mie Colarossi, returning to New York in 1926 as a champion of modern art and design. In 1926-7 he created the city's first modern window displays for the Franklin Simon and Saks Fifth Avenue department stores. In 1927 he was joined by the designer Philip Vollmer, and the partnership became Deskey-Vollmer, Inc. (to c. 1929). Deskey expanded into designing interiors, furniture, lamps and textiles, becoming a pioneer of the Style moderne (as Art Deco was known in America). His earliest model for the interior of an apartment was shown at the American Designers' Gallery, New York, in 1929. With its cork-lined walls, copper ceiling, movable walls, pigskin-covered furniture and linoleum floor, it demonstrated his novel approach. He was one of the first American designers to use Bakelite, Formica, Fabrikoid, brushed aluminium and chromium-plated brass, which he would combine with more exotic materials (e.g. desk, macassar ebony, mixed woods and brass, 1929; New Haven, CT, Yale U. A.G.). In 1931, for the showman Samuel L. Rothafel and the Rockefeller family, he created the interiors of Radio City Music Hall, Rockefeller Center, New York, introducing aluminium foil wallpaper in the men's smoking lounge. His Radio City interiors, together with a luxury apartment he designed for Rothafel in the same building (c. 1931-2), survive as his masterpieces.

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Deskey did much to help shape the Streamlined Modern style that became widespread in 1920s and 1930s USA. After a period studying architecture at the University of California and painting at the Art Students League in New York City and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a period working at an advertising agency, he travelled to Paris in 1923 where he studied painting and worked as a graphic designer. Deskey was particularly influenced by the 1925 Paris Exposition des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels and, after his return to New York in 1926, he did much to popularize in the United States what became known later as the Art Deco style. This was achieved by blending progressive European trends in the decorative arts with first-hand experience of the emerging field of industrial design. In 1926 he began as an industrial design consultant and worked on a variety of furniture, furnishings, and textiles for the Deskey-Vollmer Company (1927-31), which he founded with Philip Vollmer. He also designed window displays for a number of the leading department stores on Fifth Avenue, New York. His designs were characterized by a use of abstract, geometric patterns, and new materials such as chromium plate (See Chrome), Bakelite, and aluminium. From the late 1920s he designed interiors for a number of wealthy clients, including John D. Rockefeller (1929-31). With Lee Simonson and Kem Weber he co-founded the American Union of Decorative Artists and Craftsmen (AUDAC) in 1928, seeking to bring together artists and designers to promote modern American design. His reputation was such that he won the competition to design the interiors of Radio City Music Hall in the Rockefeller Center, New York, in 1932-3. Deskey's designs, particularly for furniture and lighting, showed his indebtedness to French decorative arts. He was awarded a Grand Prix and Gold Medal at the 1937 Exposition Universelle in Paris and also worked on a number of displays at the New York World's Fair of 1939. He established his own design consultancy, Donald Deskey Associates, in 1946 and remained active until 1970, working on large corporate accounts such as Proctor & Gamble.

Donald Deskey (23 November 1894 – 29 April 1989) was a native of Blue Earth, Minnesota. He studied architecture at the University of California, but did not follow that profession, becoming instead an artist and a pioneer in the field of Industrial design. In Paris he attended the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, which influenced his approach to design. He established a design consulting firm in New York City, and later the firm of Deskey-Vollmer (in partnership with Phillip Vollmer) which specialized in furniture and textile design. His designs in this era progressed from Art Deco to Streamline Moderne.

He first gained note as a designer when he created window displays for the Franklin Simon Department Store in Manhattan in 1926. In the 1930s, he won the competition to design the interiors for Radio City Music Hall. In the 1940s he started the graphic design firm Donald Deskey Associates and made some of the most recognizable icons of the day. He designed the Crest toothpaste packaging, as well as the Tide bullseye. His company is still in operation in Cincinnati. A collection of his work is held by the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. He died in Vero Beach, Florida, the town to which he had retired in 1975.

External links

• Donald Deskey at IDSA
• Donald Deskey at The American Artists Bluebook
• Obituary, New York Times

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