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Heywood Wakefield Modern Furniture Identification and Value Guide.

By Steve Rouland and Roger Rouland. Collector Books © 1995 with 1997 values update. 352 pages. Complete listing of all Heywood-Wakefield modern furniture from 1936 to 1966. Fully illustrated, with company history. Hundreds of designs by Gilbert Rohde, Leo Jiranek, W. Joseph Carr, Count Sakhnoffsky, Alfons Bach, Frank Parrish and others are featured in this informative book.

$19.95 + shipping.

Excerpt:
After the opening of the "L'Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes" in Paris, furniture manufacturers began producing modern styles in the United States during the late 1920s. Nonetheless, a Śmodern' style of furniture was not immediately embraced by the American public. From the ŚModernes' Exposition a few designers such as Donald Deskey and Paul Frankl did bring a rich, understated style to the States; but many other visitors, including fashion designers and department store buyers, returned to employ only Modernes extraneous surface decorations. Ultimately cubist styles, exotic colors, and angular surface motifs contributed to a boom in modern furniture design and a commercial bust for modern at furniture stores. Reacting to the public's failure to accept this modernistic style (now sometimes referred to as "Zig-Zag Deco"), most furniture manufacturers abandoned modern, which was left largely in the hands of a few small, metropolitan concerns.
Heywood-Wakefield -- believing there were still possibilities in a more subdued modern style, and additionally believing complete modern furniture packages could be mass produced at affordable prices -- entered into an agreement with Gilbert Rohde to design a modern line, marking the first of several contracts between the furniture maker and prominent designers of the time. Rohde brought to Heywood-Wakefield a first-hand knowledge of Europe's modern styles, having traveled to Paris a few years before the Great Depression. Upon his return home Rohde opened a design office, where he worked on Śmodern' interior design before agreeing to work for Heywood-Wakefield....
In 1931 Heywood-Wakefield introduced Rohde Contemporary Furniture, the first modern furniture (as well as the first line using sectional and modular pieces) ever assembled on a production line basis. It was in fact Rohde who pioneered the development of sectional and modular furniture, which included such pieces as matching and similar-sized chests and bookcases that could be combined and rearranged in any number of different combinations.

Heywood Wakefield Modern Furniture Identification and Value Guide.
	By Steve Rouland and Roger Rouland. Collector Books © 1995 with 1997 values update. 352 pages. Complete listing of all Heywood-Wakefield modern furniture from 1936 to 1966. Fully illustrated, with company history. Hundreds of designs by Gilbert Rohde, Leo Jiranek, W. Joseph Carr, Count Sakhnoffsky, Alfons Bach, Frank Parrish and others are featured in this informative book. $19.95 + shipping.
Excerpt: After the opening of the "L'Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes" in Paris, furniture manufacturers began producing modern styles in the United States during the late 1920s. Nonetheless, a Śmodern' style of furniture was not immediately embraced by the American public. From the ŚModernes' Exposition a few designers such as Donald Deskey and Paul Frankl did bring a rich, understated style to the States; but many other visitors, including fashion designers and department store buyers, returned to employ only Modernes extraneous surface decorations. Ultimately cubist styles, exotic colors, and angular surface motifs contributed to a boom in modern furniture design and a commercial bust for modern at furniture stores. Reacting to the public's failure to accept this modernistic style (now sometimes referred to as "Zig-Zag Deco"), most furniture manufacturers abandoned modern, which was left largely in the hands of a few small, metropolitan concerns. Heywood-Wakefield -- believing there were still possibilities in a more subdued modern style, and additionally believing complete modern furniture packages could be mass produced at affordable prices -- entered into an agreement with Gilbert Rohde to design a modern line, marking the first of several contracts between the furniture maker and prominent designers of the time. Rohde brought to Heywood-Wakefield a first-hand knowledge of Europe's modern styles, having traveled to Paris a few years before the Great Depression. Upon his return home Rohde opened a design office, where he worked on Śmodern' interior design before agreeing to work for Heywood-Wakefield.... In 1931 Heywood-Wakefield introduced Rohde Contemporary Furniture, the first modern furniture (as well as the first line using sectional and modular pieces) ever assembled on a production line basis. It was in fact Rohde who pioneered the development of sectional and modular furniture, which included such pieces as matching and similar-sized chests and bookcases that could be combined and rearranged in any number of different combinations.