Los Angeles Modern Auctions (LAMA)

In 2018, Steve Aldana of Esoteric Survey helped organize Maurice Martiné Designs at Archive 20th Century in Costa Mesa, California, featuring the largest number of works by the designer ever assembled, including the present lot. Aldana created a booklet to accompany the exhibition that included his own text about the designer, presented here in full. 

Maurice Martiné (1918-2006) spent over five decades designing in Laguna Beach, CA. His award-winning furniture from the 1940s and ‘50s received international notoriety. He was hired by top architects, such as A. Quincy Jones and William Cody, yet he is relatively unknown, and examples of his work are scarce. This exhibition presents the greatest number of Martiné designs ever assembled. It includes furniture, artifacts, and ephemera—all sourced from private collections.

Born in Utah, and like many other young, optimistic architects and designers with a quest to make the world better, Martiné moved to California. At the University of Southern California, he studied under Paul Frankl, Allan Gould, and Glen Lukens, and received his BFA in 1940. Fresh from college, he went to work as a designer in the furniture department at Barker Bros. He also did stints as a tool designer at Lockheed and was an industrial designer for Newton S. Leichter. World War II pulled Martine away from the design world, and he served in the Army Air Corps. After being discharged, he moved to Corona Del Mar and started his design practice.

With the creation of a bent steel rod and wood chair wrapped in cord, Martiné received an avalanche of press and accolades. This included an award in 1947 by the A.I.D. (American Institute of Decorators). Other winners included Estelle and Erwine Laverne (O’s fabric), Kurt Versen (lamp) and Claire Falkenstein (wallpaper). Honorable mentions went to George Nelson (desk), Florence Knoll (letter tray) and Pipsan Saarinen Swanson (lamp). The A.I.D. jury included Max Abramovitz, Carl Koch, and Samuel Marx. Martiné's award-winning chair was celebrated in newspapers all over the United States and was included in many books, like the Italian Esempe series and George Nelson’s Chairs. Nelson declared the chair a “shocking” design which “...exploits the techniques of stimulation. The eye is excited by opposing masses and erratic movement. There is violence in the comparison between the light wire frame and bold, sharp seat and back forms, between open areas and bulky masses. Acute bends and sharp angles force the eye to change direction abruptly.” The chair was selected by a multitude of post-war architects, such as William Cody for the Del Marcos Hotel (1947) in Palm Springs—the first of many projects the two would collaborate on in the coming decades.

George Nelson declared the chair a “shocking” design which “...exploits the techniques of stimulation. The eye is excited by opposing masses and erratic movement."

In 1948, Martiné focused his efforts on manufacturing and distributing his designs through his own studio, Maurice Martiné Designs, located in Corona Del Mar. A knock-down dowel chair, along with several other steel and aluminum–base chairs and tables were added to his catalog of designs. The new chairs were featured in influential publications, such as Arts & Architecture magazine and the Walker Art Center’s Everyday Art Quarterly. The designs were also selected for multiple MoMA Good Design shows and the Design for Today’s Living exhibition at the Long Beach Municipal Art Center.

It was at one of the MoMA exhibitions, where Maurice was on hand to receive an award, that he met actress Dolores Michaels. They married just three months later, in 1953. She lived in Hollywood during the week and spent the weekends in Laguna Beach with Maurice. The two were archery enthusiasts and hunted in the Laguna Hills. The marriage lasted until 1958, and a messy public divorce ensued. Dolores claimed Martiné “...treated her like a ‘beautiful art object’ and made her live a Spartan existence in a ‘shell of a house.’ She says the home has no hot water or heating ‘and we were forced to bath in the ocean the year `round.” Martiné did not contest the divorce. The marriage was over in 1959. He was 41, and she was 25.

In the early 1950s, he collaborated with architect A. Quincy Jones on the Laguna Beach & Tennis Club and the Kenaston house. Martiné’s dowel chair was also selected for the “Pilot House," designed by Jones, Whitney R. Smith, and Edgardo Contini. Martiné furniture was a common sight in the interiors of architect-designed homes. Alexander Girard not only had a cord chair in his own home but also sold them in his retail shop in Michigan. Commissions in Palm Springs for interior planning in William Cody’s Springs Restaurant and Racquet Club Cottages West also happened in the 1950s.

Throughout his career, Martiné designed and manufactured his own furniture. The only known exception came in the mid-1950’s when he designed a rattan and iron line for Stone and Phillips (1954) and two tubular chairs for Ryder Eliot Inc (1957). In conjunction with his furniture and interior design studio, Martiné operated a retail shop, located at Three Arch Bay in South Laguna. He advertised “wine and design.” Wine was sold, along with interior accessories by companies such as Heath Ceramics, Dansk, Lauffer, and Arabia.

During the 1960s, Martiné's work included more interior commissions, which sometimes included custom furniture designed for specific projects. This was the case in 1962 with the William Cody-designed Cannon house. Martiné designed the interior, including custom benches, chairs, and cabinets. During this period, he also did interior work for actor James Arness of Gunsmoke and some business executives. In 1968 he developed a suite of furniture for the Concept 2 modular house by architect J. Lamont Langworthy. The house and furniture were shown at the California State Fair (Cal Expo) in Sacramento. It was shipped back after the fair, and the house is permanently installed in Los Angeles.

Martiné furniture was selected for the Pasadena Museum of Art’s seminal California Design exhibitions. California Design 10 (1968) included two lounge chairs made of aluminum, laminated rosewood and cane and a cube side table with aluminum. California Design 11 (1971) included a prototype wood frame chair on casters. The last known designs came in the early 1990s with a system of cube furniture and lighting, which Martiné called “Cube Concept.” The open- or closed-framed cubes were sold at his South Laguna studio. With the exception of this line, not much is known about his work after the 1970s. Maurice Martiné died in 2006.

See more exhibition photos at Esoteric Survey.

LAMA is proud to present a special selection of design curated by Esoteric Survey, featuring more than 100 works that represent platform founder Steve Aldana's guiding fascination with mid-century design and design history in California. Drawing from Aldana's personal collection as well as from his design-minded community, this collection includes iconic works as well as deeper cuts that represent lesser-known, but nonetheless integral, achievements of postwar artists and designers. 

An urban planner by vocation, Aldana has nurtured his fascination with modern design, particularly the strains that emerged in mid-century Southern California, through Esoteric Survey for nearly 15 years. With a desire to share fascinating obscure design figures and document visits to architecture and design sites, he created the blog he named Esoteric Survey in 2009. What first served primarily as a private log for personal reference eventually blossomed into a valuable resource for like-minded design aficionados, and has since taken the form of an immensely popular Instagram account.

Explore Steve Aldana's Blog Esoteric Survey