Edward Wormley, 87, Designer Of Modern Residential Furniture
By RITA REIF
Edward J. Wormley, a style setter in modern residential furniture in the United States for four decades, died on Friday at Norwalk Hospital in Connecticut. He was 87 and lived in Weston.
Mr. Wormley designed furniture from 1930 to 1970. He began creating pieces with simplified silhouettes and plain surfaces after a trip in 1930 to Paris, where he met Le Corbusier and Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann, the Art Deco designer. Back in the Unit- ed States in 1931, he was hired by the Dunbar Furniture Corporation of Berne, Ind., to improve its least ex- pensive furniture line, which people bought with soap coupons and was therefore popularly referred to as “borax.”
Within five years, Mr. Wormley’s furniture had made Dunbar the top producer of modern in America. From 1931 until 1970, when the com- pany was sold, Mr. Wormley de- signed about 150 pieces a year for the company, combining a knowl- edge of woodworking, an under- standing of the past and a feeling for what makes a chair comfortable for an American. Among the classics he designed were the A-frame wood chair with a caned back and com- pass legs of 1959 and a ledge-armed tufted sofa of the mid-1960’s.
Mr. Wormley aiso urged Dunbar to make reproductions of some of the best examples of European modern- ist and Art Deco furniture by Jean- Michel Frank of Paris and Richard Riemerschmid of Munich. Mr. Wormley had a photograph of a chair by Riemerschmid from 1899 that he had copied from the image. Even though the chair was not a replica, the heirs of Riemerschmid were so satisfied that they added it to their museum collection.
“Edward Wormley was a major influence on American design in the mid-century,” said Jack Lenor Lar- sen, the textile producer. “And he
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did far more than furniture, design- ing carpets, fabrics, lamps for Light- olier and the first rheostat lighting system for the home.”
He was also a pioneer collector of Art Nouveau, especially Tiffany lamps and glass vases. He inlaid Tiffany glass tiles in tables that he designed for Dunbar in 1956, two years before the revival was recog- nized by any museum.
Born in Oswego, Ill.,, Mr. Wormley had polio as a small child and did not walk until he was 5; he limped for the rest of his life. After completing high school in Rochelle, Ill, he stud- ied design for two years at the Art Institute of Chicago. His first job was in the design studio at Marshall
A feeling for what maRes a chair comfortable for Americans.
Field & Company in Chicago. After that he worked briefly for Berkey & Gay, a furniture manufacturer in Grand Rapids, Mich.
During World War II, Mr. Worm- ley worked as the head of the furni- ture unit of the Office of Price Ad- ministration in Washington. After the war, he continued as Dunbar’s design director but worked outside the company from his own office.
His furniture designs were includ- ed in the Good Design shows of the Museum of Modern Art in 1951 and 1952. Examples of his furniture are in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Museum of Decorative Arts in Montreal.
He won the Designer of Distinction award from the American Society of Interior Designers and the Elsie de Wolfe Award.
No immediate family member survive.
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ASFD starts program for students
HiGH POINT — The American Society of Furniture Designers has established a two-part program to help prepare design students for -areers as professional furniture designers.
With the new program, said ASFD executive director Bud Caywood, the society expects to award each year a scholarship to an outstanding student in furniture design and to administer a contin- uing mentor program for many student designers.
At the fall International Home Furnishings Market here, the soci- ety began its fund-raising for the scholarship and its search for ap- plicants for the mentor program.
Caywood said the program 1s designed to provide an ASFD member as an individual mentor assigned to cach of the students throughout their school years. The mentors will provide the students guidance and information, he said, and ultimately “give them a hand in entering the furniture industry.”
As participants in the mentor program, Caywood added, stu- dents also will attend the indus- try’s spring and fall international markets here under ASFD aus- pices and will receive the society's publications, including the mem- bership directory. —H.H.
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Entry forms for ASFD design awards available on line
HiGH POINT — The Ameri- | new furniture. Categories are can Society of Furniture De- | signers has put entry forms for its Pinnacle design achieve- ment award on line as part of the Global Furniture Network site.
The site (http://gfurnet. com/gfn/) includes home pages for several furniture manufac- turers, including Hood, sored by three trade magazines William Alan and Bermex. The | ~_ Furniture Design and Man- site also provides background | Ufacturing, Upholstery Design information on shopping for and Manufacturing, and Wood furniture, a furniture glossary | & Wood Products, and detailed information on the High Point market.
The Pinnacle awards recog-
major collections, stationary CAE 19396 upholstery, motion upholstery, bedroom, casual dining, formal
dining, occasional furniture, home office, juvenile furniture, ready-to-assemble furniture,
Rittersdorf joins Fritz + Hodges
HiGH POINT — Ted Rittersdorf has Joined Fritz + Hodges Associates, a furniture design and marketing firm, as senior designer. He will report to Steve Hodges, vice president. SEE Prior to joining Fritz + Hodges, Rittersdorf ae : / &= was employed with Roser and Gregory, a nize outstanding designs in | after April 1, 1995. —B.C. Rittersdorf Fells Os ienicompanyin ch Poin
lighting and accessories. The awards are co-spon-
I'he deadline for entries is