Richard Schultz is best known for his outdoor Leisure Collection, introduced by Knoll in 1966. However, this collection was not the first furniture he designed for Knoll, and his early years with the company saw him involved in helping develop furniture for other designers at the company.
Schultz was born and raised in Lafayette, Indiana but enrolled at Iowa State University, thinking engineering was the profession he wanted to pursue, but by his second year there he realized that was the wrong path for him. He served in the US Navy and upon leaving, searched for industrial design schools. He selected the Chicago Institute of Design. Schultz became exposed to the field of product design and its prominent designers at the time. He graduated in 1950, then traveled to Europe with some fellow graduates. While there, he carried his sketchbook nearly everywhere he went. Upon his return in the summer of 1951, Schultz focused on a career in furniture design.
“I knew I wanted to try to work for Knoll,” he said in a 2012 interview, “because in those days the work I wanted to do was only being done by Knoll and by Herman Miller. And so, I went in without an appointment…this was at 575 Madison Avenue, which is the first really big, impressive Knoll showroom after 601 Madison. And I got an interview with Mrs. Knoll. So, I told her whatever I could about my background and my education and showed her my stuff…mostly my schoolwork and my sketches from Europe—nothing to do with furniture. Then we talked a little while and then she called Hans, who had the next-door office. Hans came in, sat down, and about all he had to say was, ‘How much do you want to make?’ which was, of course, something I didn’t have any idea of, and I said, ‘Fifty dollars a week.’ And he said, ‘Fine, you’re hired.”1
Schultz was assigned to the Design Development group and shortly thereafter he was directed to temporarily move to Pennsylvania to assist Harry Bertoia in his studio with the development of a wire sculpture chair. Schultz assisted Bertoia with designing the holding fixtures for the bent wire so Bertoia could spot-weld the intersecting wires. Don Pettit, also of Knoll’s Product Development, contributed ideas for manufacturing the labor-intensive compound curve chairs. The first chairs were offered by Knoll in 19522. During the mid- to late1950s, Schultz designed rather conventional furniture for Knoll while assisting with other designed within Product Development.
The 1960s would be Richard Schultz’s most prolific and successful with Knoll. He was asked to design new tables to complement the Bertoia Collection and began sketching ideas. He settled on a tabletop design having eight pie-shaped segments with the outer two points of each segment having a generous radius, having the overall appearance of a petal. Production was approved for the No. 320 Petal End Table, No. 321 Petal Coffee Table, and the No. 322 Petal Dining Table. The base was cast iron with white fused plastic finish; the tabletops were offered in redwood with oil finish, and redwood with epoxy finish. This collection was first offered in 19603 and remain in the catalog today.
Schultz had also been working on a compact side chair and a variant of that design that permitted stacking. The No. 147 Side Chair and No. 148 Stacking Side Chair appeared in Knoll’s catalog for 1960 and were in production for several years. Today, they are favorites with collectors of mid-century modern furniture. Schultz also took his first foray into outdoor furniture with the No. 175 Chaise Lounge, which was selected by the Museum of Modern Art for its permanent collection.4
In 1963, Knoll introduced the Richard Schultz Desk Collection which included the No. 4106 Table Desk, 4108 Table Desk with Pencil Drawer, 4144 Executive Desk with two short pedestals, and 4164 Executive Desk with two full pedestals.5 The collection was available in walnut, teak or rosewood veneer and sat on square polished and chromed steel legs. The Schultz Desk Collection was manufactured through 1985.6
During the early 1960s, Florence Knoll Bassett divided her time between New York and Miami where her husband Harry Hood Bassett was president of a bank. Bertoia chairs were on their patio near the water and salty air—and the chairs began to exhibit rust. Schultz picks up the story:
“The Bertoia chairs were all rusting away, especially with the salt water. So, one day she came up to New York and she said, ‘Somebody’s got to design some decent outdoor furniture that’s going to hold up outdoors.’ So, I said I would do that. I would like to do that.”7
Schultz took a new approach to outdoor furniture design and chose sturdy cast aluminum frames with a durable finish and comfortable Dacron mesh fabric for seating, and porcelain enameled steel for the tables. The collection was introduced in 1966 and manufactured until 1991. Knoll purchased Richard Schultz Design in 2012 and reintroduced the Leisure Collection, while adding other pieces Schultz had designed.
(Photo of Richard Schultz courtesy of Knoll, Inc.)
1. Nanette L. Laitman, interview with Richard Schultz, Smithsonian Archives of American Art. Washington, DC. September 25-26, 2012.
2. Brian Lutz, Knoll – A Modernist Universe (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 2010), 135, 155.
3. Eric Larrabee and Massimo Vignelli, Knoll Design (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1989), 158.
4. Nancy N. Schiffer, Knoll Home & Office Furniture (Atglen: Schiffer Publishing Ltd., 2006), 150-152.
5. Ibid., 270.
6. “The Richard Schultz Desk Collection.” https://www.knoll.com/the-archive/.
7. Laitman.