Milo baughman professional#

The Baughman-Lee showroom was located at 744 1/2 North La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles. Lee contributed hand printed fabrics, wallpaper, lamps and accessories to go alongside Baughman's furniture designs both offered their services as interior consultants. During this time, Milo found time to run his own custom design shop with Olga Lee (his wife at the time) in Los Angeles from 1951-1953.

An earlier desk design from 1948 for Winchendon was later included in the Whitney Museum exhibition 'High Styles: Twentieth Century American Design,' in 1985. Following this, Murray Furniture of Winchendon Massachusetts introduced 'The Milo Baughman Collection' in 1952.

Next, the large furniture manufacturer Drexel invited him to their North Carolina headquarters to create a major collection. The 'California Modern' collection created for Glenn of California in 1948, along with Greta Magnusson-Grossman, used walnut, iron and Formica, and put forth a distinctive Los Angeles style. He left Frank Brothers in 1947 to establish 'Milo Baughman Design Inc.,' and quickly did commissions for Glenn of California and Pacific Iron, helping to place these companies at the forefront of a new California modernist design movement. While there, he met Georgia Christensen, who founded and published Furniture Forum,an important early publication on modern design complete with photos, dimensions, pricing, as well as designer photos and biographies. The store had the distinction of being the first west coast all-modern specialty store, and proved to be a good launch pad for his career. Upon completing his studies, he was hired to work at the Frank Brothers furniture store as an interior and custom furniture designer. Milo Baughman was inducted into the Furniture Designer's Hall of Fame in 1987. In addition to the 'High Styles' show at the Whitney Museum of Art in New York, Baughman's furniture has been exhibited in museums and shows throughout the United States, including the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, NC the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh.

Milo baughman professional#

He remained in Utah where he maintained a professional design studio until his death on July 23, 2003. Baughman has also lectured at Rhode Island School of Design, the University of Tennessee, the University of Wisconsin–Madison and North Carolina State, among others. He then moved to Virginia for twelve years, and then back to Utah, where he was a senior lecturer at BYU for another nine years. In 1969, he was invited by Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah to establish the Department of Environmental Design, where he remained chairman and adjunct professor for six years while he continued his professional design business. In 1965, Baughman converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), and was active and passionate about his newfound Christian faith until his death. He also lectured broadly on the state of modern design, extolling the positive benefits of good design on the lives of human beings, and helping to define and shape the discussion for years to come. He is most famous, however, for his longtime association with Thayer Coggin Inc., of High Point, NC, which began in 1953 and lasted until his death in 2003. Baughman designed for a number of furniture companies starting in the mid-1940s until his death, including Mode Furniture, Glenn of California, The Inco Company, Pacific Iron, Murray Furniture of Winchendon, Arch Gordon, Design Institute America, George Kovacs, Directional, Henredon and Drexel, among others. Contemporary furniture designers and dealers continue to copy, reinvent, and revive his work in the new and secondary decorative arts markets. His American designs were forward-thinking and distinctive, yet unpretentious and affordable. Milo Ray Baughman, Jr., born in Goodland, Kansas on October 7, 1923, was a modern furniture designer.