As Arthur Umanoff’s mid-century pieces are reissued by Menu, we look at the designer’s lasting legacy
The mid-century American designer whose archive pieces are being revived by Danish brand Menu
This wonderful portrait (right) of Arthur Umanoff (1923-85) sums up his warm, engagingstyle.Thechrome-finishedfurniture is glamorous in a quintessentially midcentury way, but Umanoff’s pipe, 10-gallon hat and cowboy boots – the latter casually slung on the floor, while his feet are up on the desk – suggest a man with a no-nonsense attitude to design. ‘My father’s use of materials and proportions created a harmonious balance for modern living,’ says his daughter Wendy Umanoff, a designer in her own right, who has helped Menu reissue five of her father’s finest designs. ‘His early pieces were practical and utilitarian. He often used wrought iron, brass, birch and walnut veneers, leather, jute rope and rattan, which look as relevant today as they did then.’
Umanoff was born in New York to parents of Eastern European heritage. He took a roundabout route into design, serving as a navy medic during WWII, before an encounter with industrial designer Tony Paul in the early 1950s convinced him to enrol at Brooklyn’s prestigious Pratt Institute. Like many young American creatives of the time, he was influenced by Danish and German modernism, and ready to shake off the staid interiors of previous generations in favour of a simpler, organic look.
After graduating, he set up a manufacturing business, Post Modern Ltd, with his brotherin-law. Though it didn’t take off, it paved the way for his work with a slew of other companies, eager to sell a contemporary lifestyle to post-war Americans. His walnut side table, designed in the early 1950s for The Elton Company, is symbolic of this: as impactful as such a small piece can be, its brass rim and tripod base reveal his taste for contrasting robust wooden forms with slender metal elements.
The Menu collection also includes a walnut and brass candleholder (a companion for the table), an elegant brass cone pendant light with walnut fitting (1956), and a black powder-coated steel wine rack (1971), which suspends wine bottles from leather straps and has an industrial feel. Perhaps the most surprising piece is a dainty handwoven rattan and steel planter (1961), which comes in a tall or low version and shows Umanoff at his most lighthearted.
Umanoff was a very hands-on designer, says Wendy, always focused on problemsolving and working directly with craftsmen to get the details right. Although many of the numerous companies he worked with are now gone, it’s this quality that means his work remains full of life. menuspace.com
‘HIS USE OF MATERIALS AND PROPORTIONS CREATED A HARMONIOUS BALANCE’