http://sfgate.com/new/schron/old/oct-26-94/ho65759.html (World Wide Web Directory, 06/1995)KAREN LIBERATORE, Special to The Chronicle
For some people in their 20s, who grew up with ``Happy Days'' and ``Grease,'' the return of the '50s with all its weird and wonderful decorative trappings -- from biomorphic plastic ashtrays to fine Italian art glass -- is a dream come true.
``We wished we had grown up with Fonzie and poodle skirts,'' laughs Laura Lunt, 29.
Lunt owns the Schlep Sisters, a San Francisco shop that deals in dinnerware, glass and ceramic accessories from the '30s forward. Pieces from the '50s -- from the ``Tickled Pink'' ceramic plates by Vernon Kiln to campy chartreuse plastic dinnerware from Melmac -- are hot, particularly among people Lunt's age.
As for folks who did grow up in those so-called happier days, people in their 50s, ``They usually walk in and say, `Oh my God! I can't believe someone's paying money for that,' '' Lunt says.
Whatever the reaction -- delight or chagrin -- '50s collectibles are back with a vengeance. Kidney, amoeba and boomerang-shaped aluminum candy dishes, Sputnik-style chandeliers, metal starburst clocks, ceramic panthers with painted gold collars -- everything from high kitsch to fine art can be found in Bay Area collectors' stores.
Vintage Modern is one such San Francisco shop that incorporates '20s and '30s Deco and Moderne designs with the Modernist '40s and '50s. Some of the twentysomething collectors of '50s furnishings and crafts ``are such absolute purists they'd live in an Eichler home if they could,'' says owner Tom Lennon.
Furniture designer Bill Clarke, owner of Jet Age design studio in San Francisco, describes '50s design as ``art coming off the walls and into furniture design. It's wacky but very sculptural in form. The '50s had its own iconography. It was free-form, fluid. To the eye, there was a lot going on,'' says Clarke, who has incorporated the high styling of the '50s into his own modular chairs, tables and couches.
Science and technology were the stars of the '50s.
``There was a fascination with speed, with aerodynamics, exploration in general -- from the Atomic Age and Space Age to the world underseas,'' says Lennon. ``That's why fish, the tropics, the coral reef were also popular designs.''
``The '50s was an era that wanted to take off, literally and figuratively. Look at the fins on '50s cars, they're like rocket ships,'' adds Steven Cabella, owner of the Modern i in San Anselmo, a shop specializing in vintage '50s arts and crafts.
Budding Mr. Wizards could revel in such products as flying- saucer-shaped pole lamps and molecular-inspired clock faces. And, thanks to the discovery of DNA in the early '50s, biomorphic and amoebic shapes became another design theme of the era, played out on everything from patterns on fabrics and rugs to shapes of coffee tables, lamp shades and even vacuum cleaners.
Cabella believes that collectors end up collecting from the era in which they came of age. He concentrates on the work of the many Bay Area designers of the '50s.
Marin designer Luther Conover, for example, is credited with creating the Pacifica school of furniture design of the era, inspired by the Pacific Rim countries, that features materials such as reed, bamboo and wrought iron.
Cabella credits a group of San Francisco female artists with popularizing Lucite, a hard, clear plastic they termed ``a liquid diamond.''
The women include Jan Berry, who made Lucite lamps filled with layers of things such as oatmeal and brass shavings; Emmy Lou Packard, who made Lucite wall panels and abstract sculptures; and Zahara Schatz, who made Lucite jewelry and Lucite dishes ``with things embedded in them,'' says Cabella.
Ceramist Edith Heath is another pioneer designer from the '50s.
Heath, now in her 80s, still runs Heath Studio in Sausalito, and is known for her dinnerware, tiles and art pottery. But she came up with perhaps one of the most enduring design elements ever: the notches in ashtrays that hold smoldering cigarets.
While Heath excelled in clay, other designers and artists found joy in plastic, plywood, Formica, pegboard, Plexiglas, aluminum and copper. Fabric, too, got a boost, as did glass.
Among the innovations was a technique called latticino, developed in the glassblowing studios on the Venetian island of Murano. This was an an intricate, opaque lace pattern etched into the glass itself during the blowing process.
Work by Italian glass artists such as Carlo Scarpa and Archimede Seguso are collectibles, as are the biomorphic bowls and amoeboid blobs created by Paul Kedelv and pieces from Kosta of Sweden, whose signature vase -- heavy, thick and hexagonal -- sported a big round air bubble trapped in the base.
Fabric had its day in the sun, too: Linens and chenille were popular. Designs included huge floral prints celebrating the tropics and other South Seas idylls; geometric circles and squares; arty splotches and splashes; spaceships; stick people; cowboys and Indians.
And, for better or worse, laughs Clarke, Naugahyde got its start in the '50s.
``Design went from the realistic to the outlandishly futuristic in the '50s,'' Lunt says nostalgically. ``It was fun.''
SOME FUN '50S FINDS
Interested in '50s accessories, but don't know where to start or what to look for? Here are just a few of the hot collectibles on sale in Bay Area shops.
Franciscan dinnerware may be known primarily for its ``Apple'' and ``Desert Rose'' patterns, but the Southern California company made a truly '50s collection called ``Starburst,'' in turquoise with a gold crisscross motif. A starter set of four plates, bowls, cups and saucers costs about $125 at the Schlep Sisters in San Francisco.
While most collectors know that Fiesta ware is a '50s best- seller, one color truly makes it so -- a hard-to-find medium green that commands three times the price of other '50s Fiesta colors. A starter set of gray and rose-colored Fiesta ware starts in the $500 range, says Schlep Sisters owner Laura Lunt.
Bright-red, green, purple, blue and shiny silver-colored aluminum drinking glasses and pitchers made by Bascal are cropping up all over the place. A set of six costs in the $20 to $30 range at stores such as the Other Shop in San Francisco.
Anodized aluminum, like that used in Bascal drinking glasses, was popularized by companies such as Mirro. A set of Mirro amoeboid candlesticks and centerpiece platter sell in the $45 range at Vintage Modern in San Francisco.
Mirro also made cocktail shakers. Barware, says Lunt, is popular among her customers. So is anything to do with smoking: big '50s ashtrays, Lucite cigaret cases. Prices vary, starting from the $25 range up, depending on quality.
Italian and Scandinavian glass varies in price from the high art end to below $75. A Murano bird in gold with a red heart bubble inside is $275 at Vintage Modern.
And when it comes to kitsch, there's nothing like a satellite- style chandelier, $400 at Vintage Modern, or one of the snazzy, space-aged pole and table lamps made by the Raymor and the Sightlight companies. A gray metal Sightlight desk lamp with a flying saucer-shaped shade costs $85 at Modern Vintage.
Airbrushing was a technique developed in the '40s and refined in the '50s by such artists as Sherill Graves. One of her airbrushed watercolors of zebras and palm trees goes for $185 at Vingate Modern.
-- KAREN LIBERATORE
DAY: WEDNESDAY
DATE: 10/26/94
PAGE: 1/Z1
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