Australian Design Luminary

Full description

RESEARCH BACKGROUND
'Australian Design Luminary' is a retrospective survey exhibition of the enduring and significant design and artwork produced by Kjell Grant, whose long career as an industrial designer, architect and artist commenced in 1947 under Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, as well as Mies van der Rohe at Illinois Institute of Technology.

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION
Grant's design work has ranged extremely widely, and includes furniture, interiors, seating, whitegoods, electrical appliances, clothing, textiles, jewelry, porcelain and sculpture. His work is an important survey of the history of modernist design, beginning with its abiding concern for streamlined form, uncluttered lines and modern materials, and virtues of flexibility and resilience, exemplified by his Montreal chair, to the colour and exuberance of his recent Jigsaw seating.

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION
Grant has designed and consulted for Cartier, Orrefors, Knoll, Rosenthal, Raymond Loewy, the Ford Motor Company, BHP, Shell, Mitsubishi and Toyota. His work has been commissioned by Sir Roy Grounds and Harry Seidler. His 1967 commission by Robyn Boyd to design the furniture for the Australian Pavilion at the Montreal Exposition resulted in his Montreal Chair being added to the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. He has designed for Flair, as well as auditorium interiors and seating for the Adelaide Festival Theatre, Victorian Arts Centre, Theatre Royal Sydney and His Majesties in Perth. His ECCO seating range has sold over six million items, largely in Japan and the USA. 'Australian Design Luminary' was reviewed and featured in 'Indesign magazine #31' and he received the honorary Indesign Luminary Award.