Florence Knoll Bassett Artwork valuations, appraisals and auction estimates

The American designer and architect Florence Knoll Bassett (unmarried Schust) was born in 1917 in Saginaw, Michigan. Having lost her parents as a child, she was raised at Kingswood School for Girls, part of the Cranbrook community of schools founded by Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen and Detroit publisher George Booth. Read the full biography

The American designer and architect Florence Knoll Bassett (unmarried Schust) was born in 1917 in Saginaw, Michigan. Having lost her parents as a child, she was raised at Kingswood School for Girls, part of the Cranbrook community of schools founded by Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen and Detroit publisher George Booth. Saarinen personally encouraged the young woman to attend the Cranbrook Academy of Art, where Florence would concentrate on studying architecture until 1939, when she left the Academy to go first to New York (to study at the Columbia University School of Architecture) and then in London (Architectural Association). In 1940 he studied under the guidance of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe at the Armor Institute (now the Illinois Institute of Technology) and worked for the architects Marcel Breuer and Walter Gropius, returning the following year to New York, where he worked for the interior design Harrison & Abramovitz - and here he met the modern furniture manufacturer and seller Hans Knoll (1914–55). Impressed by her talent, Knoll immediately hired her as Knoll's head of planning and, in 1946, Florence married Hans. The same year the company changed its name to Knoll Associates. His position at Knoll supports both established talents from the Bauhaus school and emerging designers such as Harry Bertoia. As a designer and architect, Florence designs and produces tables, chairs, sofas and storage, promoting ergonomic designs in interior design, and a total integration of furniture, art, graphics and fabrics. In 1951 the company was renamed Knoll International, expanding its market into Europe and beyond, and, following the tragic death of her husband in 1955, Florence became president of the company: three years later she married banker Henry Hood Bassett. Florence Knoll Bassett continued to serve as Knoll's design director until 1965, when she retired. In 2002 she was awarded the National Medal of Arts, and in 2004 she donated all the documentation of her career to the Smithsonian art archives in Washington, DC