SANTA BARBARA, CA.- University Art Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara just published PAUL TUTTLE DESIGNS by Marla C. Berns. Paul Tuttle (19182002) was arguably one of the most prolific and consistently original designers of the second half of the twentieth century. His corpus of furniture designsincluding chairs, tables, seating, lamps, desks, and easelswas immense and innovative; and his interior designs and architectural projects were remarkable for their refinement and elegance. In this, the first comprehensive study to critically examine Tuttles career and oeuvre, Marla C. Berns, art historian, director of the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History and former director of the University Art Museum, UC Santa Barbara, focuses on Tuttles passionate commitment to solving design problems in his own determined and unique way. The University Art Museum mounted a major retrospective of Tuttles work in 2001.
Unable to attain the education he desired through normal channels, Tuttle apprenticed himself to design luminaries Alvin Lustig, Welton Becket, and Thorton Ladd. Later in his career, he worked part of each year in Switzerland, initially doing commission work and later working on contract for the preeminent Swiss furniture design company, Strssle International. Berns sensitively examines the significant phases of Tuttles career and the designs that were produced during a fifty-year endeavor to achieve an essence, which Tuttle would referred to as, That rare time when you can bring something to full fruition, a full sense of realization. Also included in the volume is an essay by Michael Darling (assistant curator, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles)examining the relationships between Tuttles work and that of other preeminent twentieth-century designers. Kurt Helfrich (curator of the Architecture and Design Collection, University Art Museum, UC Santa Barbara) has also contributed an essay considering Tuttles few, but nonetheless remarkable, architectural projects. The entire volume is lavishly illustrated with photographs spanning Tuttles career. Available for distribution through the University Art Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara.
