John Dickinson, one of the most innovative and original American interior and furniture designers of the 20th century, is renowned for his highly original sculptural furniture made out of plaster with animal-like legs, hooves, planks, and tree branches, and galvanized metal tables, in a monochromatic palette. His work is characterized by the use of scale, shape, and patina rather than color and pattern. While innovative, his designs drew inspiration from classical, African, and Art Deco motifs.
Born in Berkeley, CA in 1920, he briefly attended Parsons School of design in New York and while there was influenced by professors like interior designer Albert Hadley and other contemporary designers including T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings and his Klismos line. His signature chalk white finish directly relates to the work of 1920s/1930s designers Jean-Michel Frank, Serge Roche, Syrie Maugham, and Frances Elkins.
He worked for various interior design firms and department stores like Lord & Taylor, then eventually made his way back to the Bay Area in the 1950s and opened his own design business in 1956. By the 1960s, now based in his Pacific Heights Victorian firehouse, he had established his signature look of a monochrome palette and pared down original design drawing from Classical and African elements and forms. Components included anthropomorphic legs and feet, branches, wood-textured planks, bones, and chiseled stone.
Using a carved wood maquette to design the forms, he produced some of the furniture and lighting in reinforced concrete with a plaster finish. He once stated “People think I never use color. It’s not true. Their eye just isn’t trained, and they don’t notice subtlety. Subdued colors are still colors. But really, the reason I can’t use strong color with conviction is that it draws attention away from all the things I do best, which involve line, proportion and shape.” His earliest plaster pieces were commissioned for the couture section of the I. Magnin department store in Chicago. Starting in the 1970s, he used galvanized metals for lampshades and for tables using the metal to mimic draped fabric. Additionally, other pieces were created from highly lacquered wood, maintaining his monochromatic theme, some integrating wood details.
Dickinson’s popularity resulted in commissions from his devoted followers in the Bay area and designed entire interiors. Sadly, none of these complete projects exist in their original forms and have been disassembled, with many pieces appearing on the secondary market. In 1977, through his followers connected to the SF Museum of Modern Art and Macy’s, he received a major commission to create a collection of 25 objects, produced by Randolph & Hein. The designs for these and many examples, now in the museum’s permanent collection, were critically acclaimed, but at the time were not successful in the larger market due to cost and their avant-garde appearance.
Two years before Dickinson’s passing, in 1980, he received his final large commission for the Sonoma Mission Inn, owned by Carlene Safdie, an avid client of his who later inherited his estate and donated around 200 of his working drawings to the SF Museum of Modern Art.
