Henry Dreyfuss's Designs for Living
Russell Flinchum's Henry Dreyfuss: Industrial Designer
Thomas D. Sullivan
October 1, 1997
Henry Dreyfus, Industrial Designer: The Man in the Brown SuiBy Russell Flinchum (Rizzoli, 1997), 224 pp. On Oct. 5,1972, industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss and his wife, Doris Marks* were found in a car, killed by self inflicted carbon monoxide poisoning. Earlier that year, Marks had been diagnosed with liver cancer, and they apparently decided to kill themselves before her pain became unbearable. Dreyfuss (1904-1972) was one of this century's great industrial designers. He had a role in shaping objects ranging from Bell telephones to John Deere tractors. Schooled in the principles of Ethical Culture and motivated by a professional ethos of usefulness, Dreyfuss's last design was his own end. Suicides make you wonder: What sustains life? When Dreyfuss and Marks killed themselves, were they fulfilling or contradicting their ideals? We can't be sure. But we do have Dreyfuss's work to examine. "Henry Dreyfuss Directing Design: the industrial designer and his work, 1929-1972," a recent exhibit at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City, draws attention to a man whose works were usually very good and almost always subtle. Industrial designers—the people who shape our cars, our refrigerators, our computers—usually dwell in the background. You usually don't read much about them outside the professional press. (Business Week magazine is a laudable exception, honoring good industrial design in an annual awards issue.) If you pay attention, you can see designers' aims in their machines. When you hold a Braun electric shaver, you'll notice it is different—deliberately unornamented, austere. You might well wonder why these electric razors (or any Braun products) are different from those of other firms. ...
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