Imagine a seven-foot silver Christmas tree with spiky, bulbous toys, an authentic Lionel Flyer train whizzing around on a track beneath it and a revolving color wheel highlighting the works: It`s classic, it`s rare . . . it`s `50s. And it`s in the Printer`s Row loft apartment of Michael Anderson.
Anderson`s Christmas look, a glittery but spartan one, has been called mid-century modern.
In a sense he went ”back to the future,” to a crucial period during which Americans entered a revolutionary era of design, both decorative and industrial.
”Designers began to use modern technologies created during World War II, and bring them into the home,” Anderson says.
Names such as Eero Saarinen, Charles Eames, George Nelson, Isamu Noguchi, Harry Bertoia, were some of the inventive forces in furniture that made the
`50s a revolutionary expression of our contemporary time. It was an era that threw a shadow far into the future.
This is the second holiday season that Anderson has celebrated with `50s decorations. The first, also with a metallic silver tree and revolving color wheel light, was in his previous apartment, which he says was ”pretty wild actually, with boomerang-shaped sofas” (which he has since sold).
This is the first year he has done a `50s Christmas in this apartment. This is with a little help from the Boomerang shop, 3352 N. Halsted St., where he acquired the spiky decorations he has used on a table. The classic revolving color wheel he found at the Salvation Army store. The wonderful giant spike star at the top of the tree is new.
Since the first `50s Christmas, Anderson`s collecting taste has matured into what he calls ”the designer look of the `50s.”
”It evolved into a classier line. That is one of my goals, trying to keep the lines clean and classic,” Anderson says.
This is far from the screaming kitsch that included dreadful harlequin wallpaper and gold flecked amoeba-, human kidney-, or boomerang-patterned lampshades on motel room lamps that came out in carloads. There was so much of that that it all became an amusing vulgarity that sometimes obscured what was true brilliance in furniture design.
”I try to keep it simple. That was my whole premise. You are able to enjoy the design of the furniture because I think it is exquisitely designed,” adds Anderson.
A focal point in the floor plan, at vantage point for viewing the tree, is a black leather contemporary sofa of Italian design (from Carson`s) flanked by a pair of butterfly or sling chairs. These chairs were originally designed by Jorge Ferrari and manufactured by Hardoy.
They were an idea borrowed from a folding wooden officer`s chair of the 19th Century. They have been knocked off to the tune of 5 million copies, but the legitimate version made in the post-war years was by Knoll.
”One thing about that period,” Anderson says, ”was the sturdiness of the design. Because the soldiers were coming back from the war, designers were making things that could be folded up and moved very easily. And you didn`t have to worry about things being damaged. The furniture was designed for function. People would be able to use it, and it also gave people style.”
The little table between the butterfly chairs is a smoking stand from the `50s (also from Boomerang). On the floor before the sofa and chairs is
”your basic Mondrian design rug,” which he found at the Brokerage shop, 3448 N. Halsted St.
As counterpoint to the rug`s lovely balanced panels of bright color, grids of light from the industrial-style window frames play on the walls and floor and echo the strong linear design in the rug.
Atop the Mondrian rug is a superb amoeba-shaped glass coffee table (also from the Brokerage). The heavy, handsome brass base on which it stands makes him assume it is Italian.
Far back against the wall to the side of this grouping is a long, modern wooden table, in simple but graceful lines, which he says is ”definitely a
`50s design from Marshall Field`s.” He refers not to the store, but office of the man who was the publisher of the Chicago Sun-Times.
In front of his fireplace, hung with a huge homemade wreath, is a reproduction of the original egg chair designed by Arne Jacobsen in 1958, from Marshall Field`s, the store.
Paired with it are a Plycraft chair and footrest. The chair is made of one solid piece of molded wood lined with leather. He found these two pieces, in mint condition, in a thrift shop on Clark Street.
”That little black cabinet is Salvation Army. That is the look, though,” Anderson adds.
A real treasure is the splendid set of four original Thonet-inspired Charles Eames wire chairs designed in 1952 with Herman Miller molded scoop seats in the dining area. He owns a set of six and is looking for a longer
`50s table, so he can use them all at once.
He has set the table for Christmas dinner with `50s china by Sascha Brastoff of California. The glassware is modern Mikasa. The silverplate flatware is a Reed & Barton `50s design.
It was his current apartment, which he has been in for a year, that inspired this evolvement into the classier `50s style.
”It was this space,” he says, ”1,500 square feet in what was once a Linotype factory built in 1886. When I opened the door, I gave the seller a check and told him I would take it. It lends itself to what I collect, because of the openness, the fireplace; the steel framing of the windows is very linear, very sparse. Even with the Christmas decorations, you can see the sparseness to it. The red box over the flagstone fireplace is very `50s.
”If you move into a loft space, I think you should do it for the rawness of space,” he adds.
For example, the open kitchen, which faces the interior of the loft, has shelves on which he displays his collection of `50s glassware, black and gold diamond-patterned and some very special period ceramics, jars and bowls with their characteristic abstract shapes and colors.
”They were using a lot of muted pinks, turquoises, lime greens, taupes,” Anderson says. ”The bulk of the ceramics from that period were coming from the Italians. Some of it was from California.” He has some fine examples of both.
Anderson started collecting mid-century modern when he came here from Kansas City six years ago.
”It was accessible; it had clean lines; it was modern to me,” he says.
”It was affordable. It allowed me to have a very modern apartment without the expense of the high tech. The furniture came first and then the furniture got too expensive and then the art came next.”
When the `50s look began to get hot and prices went sky-high, Anderson began buying what he could find of art from the era.
The gallerylike, long, open walls of his loft lend themselves to an ever- changing display of his collection of about 120 pieces of art, which make it seem like Christmas all year around.
”Abstract, fluid patterns and amoebic shapes are characteristics of `50s art,” he explains.
One of his favorite pieces is the Martha Reyes ”Blue Horse,” painted in 1948 and hung near the Christmas tree.
”Probably the best-known name I have is Vasarely,” he says, showing a small graphic piece from the time ”when he was doing his blacks and dimensionals,” a block of tiny squares that bend and collapse, creating movement in the larger structure. (Anderson also acquired this at the Brokerage.)
If it isn`t true `50s in his collection, then it`s bound to resemble it. An example is the Rachel Williams painting, done in 1984, which is hung on the wall between the two windows.
”Look at the Picasso-esque Sperry Vicci done in 1947 and then you look at her (Williams) and you get almost the same feeling,” Anderson says.
At right angles to the fireplace is one of his other massive works, a painting by George Barnes, done in 1970, which his grandmother who lived in Kansas City had owned. ”I thought it looked like the universe`s reaction to matter and energy,” Anderson says.
”It`s like an organic thing that just continues to grow and expand and develop,” he says of his art collection. ”I just pick and find things from every source.
”A lot of them came from the Halsted Street area thrift and antique stores. Some came from galleries. Not every piece is original but it is based on an original.”
Anderson eventurally wants to open his own art gallery.
All of the original work he has bought ranges from under $10,000 to $15,000, he reports.
”I`ve been able to buy all this stuff, not necessarily from galleries, but at estate sales, thrift and resale shops.
”One thing I`ve been wanting to do is travel around outside Chicago and collect,” he continues. ”You can find some real neat things.”
The best source still for designer `50s furniture?
”Estate sales,” he concludes. ”Especially North Shore estate sales. A lot of people, especially on the North Shore, are starting to sell their `50s things off.”
