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Everything about Raymond Loewy totally explained

Raymond Loewy (November 5, 1893 - July 14, 1986) was one of the best known industrial designers of the 20th century. Born in France, he spent most of his professional career in the United States, where he influenced countless aspects of American life. Loewy became a U.S. citizen in 1938. He married Viola Erickson in 1948. They had a daughter, Laurence. Laurence Loewy continues to manage her father's interests in the United States.

Early life

Loewy was born in Paris in 1893. An early accomplishment was the design of a successful model aircraft, which won the James Gordon Bennett Cup in 1908. By the following year, he was selling the plane, named the Ayrel. He served in the French Army during World War I, attaining the rank of captain. Loewy was wounded in combat and received the Croix de Guerre. He boarded a ship to America in 1919, with only his French officer's uniform and forty dollars in his pocket.

Early work

In Loewy's early years in the U.S., he lived in New York and found work as a window designer for department stores, including Macy's, in addition to working as a fashion illustrator for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. In 1929 he received his first industrial design commission, modernizing the appearance of a duplicating machine by Gestetner. Further commissions followed, including work for Westinghouse, the Hupp Motor Company (the Hupmobile styling), and styling the Coldspot refrigerator for Sears-Roebuck. His design firm opened a London office in the mid 1930s.

Pennsylvania Railroad

In 1937 Loewy established a relationship with the Pennsylvania Railroad, and his most notable designs for the firm were their passenger locomotives. He designed a streamlined shroud for K4s Pacific #3768 to haul the newly redesigned 1938 Broadway Limited (also by Loewy). He followed by styling the experimental S1 locomotive, as well as the T1 class. Later, at the PRR's request, he restyled Baldwin's diesels with a distinctive "sharknose" reminiscent of the T1. While he didn't design the famous GG1 electric locomotives, he improved its appearance by recommending welded construction, rather than riveted, and a pinstriped paint scheme to highlight its smooth contours.
   In addition to locomotive design, Loewy's studios performed many kinds of design work for the PRR, including stations, passenger car interiors, and advertising materials.

Studebaker

Loewy began his long and productive relationship with Studebaker in 1939. Loewy and Associates was contracted to provide design services for the automaker during the waning years of the Great Depression. His designs first began appearing on late 1930s model Studebakers. Studebaker also adopted his clean, uncluttered logo design, replacing one in use since the turn of the century.
   During World War II, government restrictions on in-house design departments at Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler prevented official work on civilian automobiles. Because Loewy's firm was independent of the nation’s fourth-largest automobile producer, no such restrictions applied. This permitted Studebaker to launch the first all-new postwar automobile in 1947, two years ahead of the "Big Three". His team developed an advanced design, featuring flush front fenders and clean rearward lines. They also created the Starlight body, featuring a rear window system wrapping 180 degrees around the rear seat.
   In addition to the iconic bullet-nosed Studebakers of 1950 and 1951, the team created the 1953 Studebaker line, highlighted by the Starliner and Starlight coupes (publicly credited to Loewy, they were actually the work of his deputy, Virgil Exner), which have consistently ranked as one of the best-designed automobiles of the 1950s in lists compiled since by Collectible Automobile, Car and Driver, and Motor Trend. At the time, however, the Starlight was ridiculed as bizarre (very similar from front or back), while the '53 Starliner, today recognized as "one of the most beautiful cars ever made", was almost as radical in appearance as the 1934 Airflow, and beset by production problems, besides. To brand the new line, Loewy also modernized Studebaker’s logo again by applying the “Lazy S” element.
   His final commission of the 1950s for Studebaker was the transformation of the Starlight and Starliner coupes into the Hawk series for the 1956 model year.
   He was called back to Studebaker by the firm's new president President, Sherwood Egbert, to design the Avanti. In the spring of 1961, Egbert hired him to help energize Studebaker's soon-to-be released line of 1963 passenger cars to attract younger buyers. He agreed to take the job, despite the short 40-day schedule allowed to produce a finished design and scale model.
   He quickly recruited a team consisting of experienced designers, including former Loewy employees John Ebstein and Bob Andrews, and Tom Kellogg, a young student from Art Center. The team sequestered themselves in a house in Palm Springs, California leased for the purpose. Each team member had a role: Andrews and Kellogg handled sketching, Ebstein oversaw the project, and Loewy served as the creative director and offered advice.
   Once the Avanti hit the market, it became an instant classic and has many devotees today; others consider its front end styling peculiar. It has been produced in limited quantities over the years by a succession of small independent companies, never with real commercial success.

Loewy designs

Bibliography

  • The Locomotive: Its Aesthetics (1937)
  • Never Leave Well Enough Alone (1951) ISBN 0-8018-7211-1 autobiography
  • Industrial Design (1979) ISBN 0-87951-260-1Further Information

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