Nebraska native Don Shoemaker studied painting at the Art Institute of Chicago, but he ended up in Mexico after falling in love with the country on his honeymoon. He relocated to San Miguel Allende, Guanajuato in the late 1940s. Within a decade, Shoemaker would move to a village called Santa María de Guido near Morelia, Michoacan, where he founded his own furniture company, Señal S.A., which focused on making contemporary interpretations of traditional Mexican designs and employed over 100 skilled craftsmen. Shoemaker's synthesis of old and new forms appealed to select clients in Mexico and especially to buyers at fashionable retailers in American cities like Los Angeles, Houston, and Chicago. Offering furniture designs that were alternately organic or geometric in emphasis, Shoemaker also used local, native woods like cocobolo and bocote.
Auction Results Don Shoemaker
