Raymond Loewy

From my review of “Raymond Loewy: Designs for a Consumer Culture” at the National Heritage Museum in Lexington:

Loewy (1893-1986) was born in France, immigrated to New York in 1919, and found success as an advertising illustrator before he became, in the late 1920s, one of the pioneers of the field of industrial design. These men were generally consultants who dreamed up the look and shape of things and left it to manufacturers' engineers to figure out how to make the stuff work. Loewy argued that good design could improve anything, even, say, dentists' chairs. "Why not suffer in comfort?" he quipped.

Read the rest here.

“Raymond Loewy: Designs for a Consumer Culture,” National Heritage Museum, 33 Marrett Road, Lexington, Oct. 13, 2007, to March 23, 2008.


















Pictured: Model of Pennsylvania Railroad GG-1 electric locomotive styled by Loewy’s firm; china Loewy’s firm designed for the German firm Rosenthal in the 1950s.