VLADIMIR KAGAN (1927 - 2016 ) was an illustrious furniture designer whose historic career spanned nearly 65 years. Kagan’s avant-garde craftsmanship and sensuous designs exude luxury, comfort, and helped to shape the mid-century American design aesthetic.

Born in Worms on the Rhine, Germany, Vladimir Kagan came to the United States in 1938. His earliest focus was on painting and sculpture but in his formative years, he became exceedingly attracted to architecture and design. He studied architecture at Columbia University and in 1947 joined his father, the master cabinetmaker Illi Kagan, to work in his woodworking shop and learn furniture making from the ground up.

Early commissions included the Delegate’s Cocktail Lounges for the first United Nations Headquarters in Lake Success N.Y. (1947-48). In 1948, he opened his first shop in New York on East 65th Street and moved to fashionable 57th Street in 1950. His clients are luminaries in the world of art, theater, music, and industry.

Connoisseurs and museums avidly collect Kagan’s designs today and his furniture is in private collections worldwide. His prize-winning designs have been published in books and magazines internationally and are in the permanent collections of the V+A London, the Vitra Design Museum, and Die Neue Samlung in Germany as well as most prominent museums in the United States.

(Source: Wright Auctions + Vladimir Kagan; Image Credit: Atomic Ranch)