New Orleans Auctions' upcoming 'Modern and Contemporary Art and Design' auction on 11 April features over 250 lots of furniture, fine art, photography, lighting, porcelain, decorative arts and more. The auction is highlighted by the estate of Carol Straus, including custom furniture from the Straus Suite, part of a custom interior commissioned in the 1940s by Carol and her husband Robert D. Straus, and designed by Terence Harold Robsjohn-Gibbings.
This collection, which has remained in the Straus family until now, represents one of the earliest and most complete intact custom sets to be offered at auction. The original interior drawings by Robsjohn-Gibbings for the Straus House in Houstoun, Texas are preserved at the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art. While some pieces, such as the biomorphic coffee table, are similar to models that were mass-produced by Widdicomb, others are more unusual either in form, scale or finish. American design in the late 1920s and early 1930s tended to rely heavily on European and English antiques, and reproductions of those styles, something that Robsjohn-Gibbings saw as tired and lacking in originality.
British designer T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbing found initial success in the United States through his innovative interior design services. Well read in the history of art and design, Robsjohn-Gibbings looked to the timeless architecture and furnishings of Classical civilisations, especially Greece, for inspiration.
His intention was to create spaces that were eternally relevant yet specific to the client. By design, his furniture could be placed in any interior at any moment in time, past or future, relies on inherently neutral motifs and aesthetics that have consistently been used over thousands of years.
The Strauses hired T. H. Robsjohn-Gibbings to design a custom interior to complement their modern art collection at their home in Houston, Texas. When the stylish interior was complete, the Straus House represented a unique collaboration between an emerging design icon and a brave young couple with a forward-looking vision.
Between the timing of the project and the unusual design, the final product endures today, decades later, as a notable early landmark of early modernist architecture in Houston. The custom furniture designs offered at auction include an oak and glass cocktail table, an oak and leather square games table, four oak side chairs, a sofa, magazine table and more.
The Strauses were also dedicated art collectors and their illustrious collection included work by modern masters such as Mark Rothko, Alberto Giacometti, Georgia O’Keeffe, Stuart Davis, Josef Albers, Alexander Calder, Max Beckmann, Jacob Lawrence, Helen Frankenthaler and Henry Moore.
This auction includes works by Loren MacIver, Ben Shahn, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Henri Matisse, Darrel Austin, Raymond Parker, David Hockney and David Hare. Additionally, the Strauses collected works by Texas artists, many of whom became good friends, including Dorothy Hood, Derek Bosier, David Bates and Joseph Glasgo.
The Strauses, who were passionate about modern and contemporary art, went on to help found what is now the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAM). After Robert’s death in 1982, Carol Straus continued collecting art but her focus shifted more towards contemporary craft, buying baskets, glass, pottery and mixed media works, some of which are also included in this sale.
