Knoll Associates 1947/1948 Catalog
Product information:
Knoll Associates 1947/1948 catalog in portfolio form, comprising 40 pages on 32 loose plates (2 double-sided fold-outs) in printed wrappers on card stock, with typography and layout by Herbert Matter. Printed by the Ram Press, New York, in 1948. 9.5” x 12”. With three 1948 price lists laid in. A landmark of American postwar graphic design in terms of visual quality and production standards, and a holy grail of American mcm design literature. The catalog combined the talents of Florence Knoll and Herbert Matter, along with Charles Niedringhaus and the Knoll “associate designers" Andre Dupres, Pierre Jeanneret, James Johnson, George Nakashima, Isamu Noguchi, Eero Saarinen, Abel Sorenson, Elias Svedberg, Ilmari Tapiovaara, and Hans Bellman. Featured too were textile designs by Alexander Girard, Toni Prestini, Shirle Rapson, Naomi Raymnond, Astid Sampe, Marianne Strengell, and Angelo Testa.
The 1947/1948 catalog announced Knoll, Inc as a force in postwar design. Florence Knoll assumed control of the company after her marriage to Hans in 1946, forming the Planning Unit to provide interior design services and hiring Herbert Matter as a graphic design consultant in that year, and parting ways with Jens Risom (though his early 1940’s designs would continue to be offered). Matter brought an experimental and innovative approach to Knoll’s corporate identity, branding, and advertising commensurate with Florence Knoll's vision for the company. Starting with the now iconic elongated slab serif “Knoll” logo in 1947, Matter produced ads, photography, and catalog layouts for Knoll through 1966. Matter’s hand is evident throughout the 1947/1948 catalog—in the striking wrap-around cover design, possibly a projection of the interior grid from the new 601 Madison Ave showroom, and related to a textile display inside the showroom (see photo at bottom), in the photography itself used in the catalog, and in the innovative page layouts, a number of which were employed as full-page ads, sans additional text, in Interiors magazine. Note especially page 1, with its free-form red background correlating to organic design in furniture, and page 8, with a photomontage of Eero Saarinen’s Grasshopper Chair and Florence Knoll’s dog—both signed in the plate and both clearly intended for promotional literature.
Per the text inside the cover, the “catalogue is presented in loose leaf form to facilitate the addition of new pages as they become available”—a suitable strategy for a company growing in manufacturing capacity, market influence and swagger. Still, it appears that 40 pages represents the complete catalog as issued. Knoll would produce a catalog in the same format the following year—the 1948/1949 Knoll Associates catalog—then in 1950 would produce the hard cover, spiral-bound 1950 Knoll Index of Designs, an acknowledged masterpiece of design literature and a more durable and widely distributed artifact.
In astonishingly fine condition, the wrappers crisp and bright, the tab on the lower right fully present, overall with only very minor evidence of age and use—just some minor rubbing and bumping to the wrappers. The three laid-in price lists with Knoll decals attached. EXCEEDINGLY SCARCE. World Catalog lists a copy at RISD and possibly one at a midwestern library. And only one listing, at the New York Public Library, for the 1948/1949 portfolio catalog. I suspect few of these portfolios were actually distributed, and, of them, most would be missing pages due to normal usage or specific original interests (i.e. they were not given out complete).
