Edgar Kaufmann, jr.

Following his father’s footsteps, Edgar jr. attended Shady Side Academy until his keen interest in art prompted him to study painting in Europe with a family friend, Victor Hammer. Edgar jr. remained in Europe until 1934, when he returned to the United States with plans to settle in New York City and paint.

That summer, however, his life took an unplanned turn. After having read Frank Lloyd Wright’s An Autobiography (1932) on the advice of a friend, he was inspired to join the Taliesin Fellowship, which Wright and his wife, Olgivanna, had recently founded as an institute for artistic growth. In September, Edgar jr. traveled to Wisconsin for an interview with Wright, and a month later he was officially inscribed as a member of the fellowship. His stay at Taliesin only lasted six months, however, and he returned to Pittsburgh in 1935 to take his long deferred place in the family store, where he eventually became merchandise manager for the Home Department. Over the next seven years, he played a pivotal role in integrating the family’s interest in progressive design, in Wright’s work, and business.

In 1937, Edgar Kaufmann jr. began an 18-year association with the Museum of Modern Art after John McAndrew, its curator of architecture and industrial art, visited Fallingwater. The next year, the museum exhibited photographs of the house. In 1940, Edgar jr. and his mother presented an exhibition of Mexican antiques and folk art, entitled "Below the Rio Grande." The following year, Edgar jr. brought the Museum of Modern Art’s traveling exhibition "Organic Design" to the department store. He had played a central role in organizing the exhibit, and the experience led him away from a career in retailing to his life’s work as a curator and scholar.

In 1940, Edgar jr. also became associated with the Museum of Modern Art as Curator in the Department of Industrial Design. Upon his 1946 return from service in World War II, he became Director of the Industrial Design Department at the Museum of Modern Art. He held this position until 1948, when his department was merged with the Department of Architecture under the direction of Philip Johnson. Now a Research Associate and Consultant in Industrial Design, he remained with the museum until 1955, pursuing the campaign he had begun before the war to promote contemporary furniture design among manufacturers, retailers, and consumers. He organized the International Competition for Low-Cost Furniture Design in 1948, but his greatest accomplishment was the Good Design program of 1950-55, in which the museum joined forces with the Merchandise Mart in Chicago, promoting good design in household objects and furnishings.

After his father’s death in 1955, Edgar Kaufmann jr. inherited Fallingwater, and continued to use it as a mountain retreat until 1963. Then, following his father’s wishes, he entrusted it and several hundred acres of land to Western Pennsylvania Conservancy as a conservation in memory of his parents. He guided the organization’s thinking about the administration and programming of Fallingwater, and was a frequent visitor after tours began in 1964.

Edgar Kaufmann jr. was a lecturer and authority on Frank Lloyd Wright. He was an Adjunct Professor of Architecture and Art History at Columbia University from 1963 – 1986. He authored several books on Wright, architecture, and modern design, and was a contributor to Encyclopedia Brittanica. He died on July 31, 1989.

Edgar jr. passionately believed that good design was an essential part of everyday life, and that objects of the highest standards of quality and design should be available to everyone, at affordable prices. Because of his experience and connections, he bridged the gap between the commercial market and the design world. His influential exhibitions probably changed the course of the design and manufacture of everyday objects in this country. Nine of the Good Design shows were seen by thousands of Americans in venues such as banks, Elks Lodges, art societies, and department stores such as Kaufmann’s. In addition, his booklets What is Modern Design? (1950) and What is Modern Interior Design? (1953) were widely read and respected.