Florence Knoll and her dog, Cartree, at the 575 Madison Avenue Knoll Associates Showroom, 1956. Courtesy Knoll Archive.
In 1958, Shu—by then the single most powerful fgure in the feld of modern design—married bank executive Harry Hood Bassett and eventually settled in Miami, where she would go on to design commercial Miami interiors in addition to several private residences. Hood Bassett was an important civic leader in Miami, and the corporate art collection that was developed for the Southeast First National Bank became one of the best in the country. At the height of her career, and afer designing thousands of ofce interiors, she resigned from Knoll in 1965. At only 48 years old, she had profoundly infuenced post–World War II design by defning the look for corporate interiors during the 1950s and 1960s and promoting the “open ofce” workspace. She is one of the most infuential architects and designers of post-war America, and she made designers like Saarinen and van der Rohe famous for their furniture—designs that are today considered classics (along with her own pieces)—and still being used in contemporary interiors. She had a curatorial eye for identifying talent and great works of art that she integrated both in her showrooms and in her homes. Shu was of the belief that art was to be lived with and enjoyed on a daily basis, rather than something kept hidden away in storage. Now, Phillips ofers the rare opportunity to share in the joy in the many memories that Shu experienced over an incredible life of art and design. When mid-century modern furniture was having a resurgence, she’d open up an auction catalogue with her furniture and her name in it, and jokingly say to me: “You know, Paul, I’m an antique now.” —Paul Makovsky, Critic and Curator Paul Makovsky is a writer based in New York City. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Contract Magazine, a publication dedicated to architecture and design. Makovsky has curated countless exhibitions about art and design, including “Knoll Textiles: 1945- 2010” at the Bard Graduate Center, and was a contributor to the accompanying catalogue published by Yale University Press. He was a close friend of Florence Knoll Bassett and is currently writing a biography of her life and work.