Incollect Magazine - Issue 9

Incollect Magazine 89 designer’s enduring popularity among both designers and consumers. Brush also points to the versatility of Springer’s designs. “His best pieces are uniquely maximalist, but also minimalist,” she explains, and “able to be easily, unobtrusively integrated into any interior scheme. The things he strived to create were like ‘little black dresses’, classics that could be gussied up to the max or pared down to chic sophistication.” Today Springer’s pieces serve as icons of domestic chic and interior refinement and as valuable investments in what Brush calls “functional works of art.” But beyond monetary value, a look at his furniture and lighting in showrooms, homes, and magazines reveals one indisputable fact: his pieces not only raise the aesthetic level of a room but also add cachet and sensual glamor through the embodiment of both historical and contemporary sensibilities. “Springer wasn’t just timeless,” Cohler Mason says, “he was way ahead of his time as a designer and a true trendsetter.” This page clockwise from top left “Vermicelli” ball table lamps with a swirling pattern of incised black enameled wood and gold and silver leaf in a lower layer, 1979. From TFTM on Incollect.com Cocktail table in blue-gray shagreen, the table surface in a pattern of squares with inlaid bone dots at the corners and bone-covered leg caps. Handcrafted in the Philippines for Karl Springer circa 1980s. From Solo Modern on Incollect.com Large hand-blown white scavo glass vase produced by Seguso Vetri d’Arte, Murano, Italy for Karl Springer. The scavo (Italian, excavation) technique is meant to imitate the weathered surface of glass from an archeological excavation. From Lobel Modern on Incollect.com Dowelwood lounge chairs in cerused wood with zebra hide upholstered cushions, circa 1970s. From Flavor on Incollect.com