page_title: Mel Smilow
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Mel Smilow / Career
caption_attribution_description: Award winning ottoman with rush seating. Other information I am working with the smilow family to create this page.
context_page_description: Mel Smilow was an American furniture designer, artist, and partner in Smilow-Thielle, a mid-twentieth-century firm producing affordable, modern furniture and other interior furnishings, with retail outlets located in the greater metropolitan New York area and Washington, DC.
context_section_description: After an honorable discharge from the army, Smilow returned to his job selling furniture. In 1949, in partnership with a colleague, Morton Thielle, he founded Smilow-Thielle, a manufacturer and retailer of modern furnishings.
  As they started their business, the partners saw a unique opportunity: by purchasing quality furniture directly from a variety of American manufacturers and selling it at Smilow-Thielle retail outlets, they recognized they could eliminate the cost of middlemen and pass the savings on to their customers. Frustrated by the lack of available, good-quality modern design, Smilow began designing furniture for the company; with his acute interest in and eye for modern design, he soon became its sole designer. The business evolved, selling only exclusive modern designs focusing on clean lines, exquisite attention to detail, and carefully calculated proportions, and it brought an American perspective to the Scandinavian designs that were becoming so popular in the mid-twentieth century. Using American hardwoods, particularly walnut, oak, and birch, the Smilow-Thielle product line included chairs, sofas, tables, its trademark “floating” cabinets, bookshelves, lamps, and eventually, textiles used for upholstery and draperies. Large pieces, such as sofas, chairs and bookshelves, had finished backs, allowing them to be freestanding pieces in the open floor plans popular in mid-century America. Zippered fabric covers on loose cushions could be removed for dry cleaning or repair, a significant savings when compared with reupholstering or outright replacement. With the goal of producing furnishings that were functional, durable.  By eliminating the middleman, Smilow's pieces were designed to become family heirlooms, yet sufficiently affordable for average Americans.
  As the Smilow-Thielle furnishings became increasingly popular, the number of their retail outlets increased: at its height, there were five Smilow-Thielle stores around the metropolitan New York area and one in Washington, DC.  For more than 30 years, the firm's flagship store was located on Lexington Avenue between 64th and 65th Streets in Manhattan. Smilow-Thielle was also a regular advertiser in the Washington, DC newspapers and the front section of the Sunday New York Times for over a decade.
  Examples of Smilow's furniture were featured in publications such as The New York Times  and discussed in The New Yorker  magazine, and in books that chronicled modern designs of the times, including six examples in William Hennessey's Modern Furnishings for the Home. 
  The Pratt Institute included an ottoman designed by Smilow in its 1955 exhibit of well-designed furniture available for under $25.00.  In 1967, Smilow's Wooden Rocker, designed in 1960, was chosen as seating in the United States Pavilion, designed by Buckminster Fuller at Expo 67 in Montreal. In 1988, Edward Fields Carpet Makers and the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) awarded him first prize  in their annual rug design competition for “Heartland,” with its textured and subtle geometric design.
  In 1969, Smilow and Thielle dissolved their partnership. Smilow retained sole ownership of both the company, operating as Smilow, Corp. and later as Contemporary Classics, as well as his flagship store at Lexington Avenue and 64th Street. By 1981, he retired and closed the business, but continued to offer custom furniture, cushions, and covers to his loyal customers while he pursued his passion for sculpting, painting, and printmaking.
  In May 2013 a collection of Smilow Furniture was re-introduced at the ICFF  (International Contemporary Furniture Fair)  in New York City and is once again available.
caption: Rush ottoman from the 1955 Pratt Institute exhibition.
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