Side Gallery

Furniture designer Don Shoemaker was born in Nebraska to an affluent family. During the 1930s, he studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. In the late 1940s, he married and subsequently, on his honeymoon, fell in love with Mexico. He loved the country so much that later in the 1940s, he moved to Mexico with his wife. Shoemaker lived and painted in a town called Santa Maria de Guido, overseeing the City of Morelia in Michoacán.

Don and his wife Barbara lived in harmony with nature, growing many rare plants in their greenhouse. Don became inspired by the tropical woods of Mexico and began to manufacture furniture from these precious timbers. What began as a small factory in the late 1950s became known as Señal S.A and grew to where Don employed more than a hundred skilled artisans. Soon he became an important figure in the economic and cultural life of his adopted town. Señal S.A brought new wealth and an economic boost to the town, and Dom was known for his warm and charitable heart.

The furniture designed for Señal S.A by Don were modern interpretations of traditional Mexican furnishings. Many of his iconic designs were inspired by traditional Mexican woodwork. The pieces made from Cocobolo, a Mexican rosewood, and other precious woods were highly sought after. The furniture was exported to showrooms in Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, and large Mexican cities. His designs were liked very much by wealthy Mexican families who had complete sets decorating their homes.

His most well-known designs include the Sling Sloucher chair, Sling Swinger chair, the Suspension stool, and his Coffee tables, which were also very popular. Don Shoemaker’s furniture, chairs, tables, and decorative objects remain popular worldwide. 

Don passed away in 1990 and handed the business over to his son George, George however, died in the early 2000s, and the company disappeared.

Clara Porset born in Cuba (May 25, 1895 – May 17, 1981), was a furniture and interior designer who lived and worked in Mexico for the best part of her working life, and it is there she is considered a pioneer in furniture design.

Born into a wealthy Cuban family in 1895, Porset had the opportunity to travel and, as a result, collected a wide range of artistic and political influences. She studied in New York from 1911 to 1914 and attended technical courses in architecture and design in her home country of Cuba. In 1925, Porset returned to New York City and continued her studies in art, architecture, and design at Columbia University's School of Fine Arts and the New York School of Interior Design.

In the latter part of the 1920s, Porset traveled to Europe where she met Bauhaus teachers Walter Gropius and Hans Emil "Hannes" Meyer, with whom she remained in contact for many years. From 1928 to 1931, she studied architecture and furniture design at the designer and architect Henri Rapin's Paris studio and attended classes at the École des Beaux-Arts, the Sorbonne, and the Louvre.

She returned to Cuba in 1932, where she served briefly as artistic director of the Escuela Técnica para Mujeres (Technical School for Women), but due to her outspoken political views, she was forced to leave Cuba in 1935. She then moved to Mexico, where she met and married the painter Xavier Guerrero. Through their partnership, she was introduced to the folk arts and the prominent artists of the country, who in turn influenced her career. The couple collaborated on a proposal for the Museum of Modern Art's (New York) 1940 competition, Organic Design in Home Furnishings. The pair were the first time Latin American designers included in the museum's call for proposals.

In the 1950s, Ruiz Galindo Industries (IRGSA), regarded as the best furniture manufacturer in Mexico, considered Porset, the finest designer. They hired her to design and develop furnishings for architectural projects they had going on in Mexico. She signed a contract to develop two collections: The E-series (quality wooden office furniture) and H-series (metal office furniture). These lines became popular in Mexico due to their: quality, high design, durability, and relatively low cost.

In 1952, Porset curated the exhibition Arte en la vida diaria: exposición de objetos de buen diseño hechos en México (Art in Daily Life: An Exhibition of Well-Designed Objects Made in Mexico) at the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes (Mexico City).

Porset returned to post-revolutionary Cuba in 1959. President Fidel Castro commissioned her to design the furniture for the school of Camilo Cienfuegos, an institution symbolic of the new society envisioned by revolutionaries. Before returning to Mexico in 1963, she also created furniture for several other universities after her plans to establish a new design school in Cuba were not comprehended.

In 1969, designer Horacio Durán founded an industrial design program at the Escuela Nacional de Arquitectura (now part of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM) and invited Porset to give a seminar. She continued teaching for the remainder of her life.

The Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes recognised Porset as a pioneer of modern Mexican design by awarding her a Gold Medal in 1971. The Clara Porset Design Prize has been awarded to Mexican design students since 1993.

Michael van Beuren was born in New York in March 1911. He arrived in Mexico in 1937 looking for opportunities, keen to work as an untitled architect. First, he spent a season in Acapulco, took over the construction and interior design of the Flamingo's Hotel bungalows, and headed to Mexico City. His first jobs in the capital were a series of houses that would carry numbers 1, 2, and 3 on Liverpool Street.

Once settled in the country, Van Beuren realized that it would be difficult to practice architecture without going under the title of an architect. Still, with his skillset and the knowledge he acquired in the Bauhaus, he ventured into the furniture industry. He offered Mexican society a new type of design, contemporary in nature and adapting to the modern architecture that was starting to dominate the design society of Latin America.

In the late 1930s, he began to design furniture with his colleague of the Bauhaus, the German designer Klaus Grabe. They formed a small company that operated under the name of Grabe & Van Beuren.

Following the formation of his first company, Michael van Beuren created Domus, a second furniture firm and probably his best known. The brand opened its first store at number 40 on Hamburg Street in the 1940s; this company served as an umbrella for various brands that flooded the Mexican market with exciting designs and a much more international and modern approach, leaving behind the "Mexican style" created in the search for a national identity.

In 1941, Van Beuren participated in the Organic Design for Home Furnishing contest, organized by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. This contest, for the first time, included Latin American designers. This contest was where the pair formed by the marriage of Clara Porset and Xavier Guerrero and the trio formed by Michael van Beuren, Klaus Grabe, and Morley Webb won an award. After this, the chaise lounge that Michael had named Alacrán went for sale in Bloomingdale's for 69.98 dollars.

In 1950 Fredderick T. van Beuren, Michael's brother, was appointed to overlook the production side of the workshop to make it more efficient and increase the scale to actual factory size. The company then became Van Beuren S.A of C.V. Within five years, Van Beuren, S.A of C.V was already able to produce in series, which allowed them to make several lines simultaneously and preserve quality.

In addition to Domus, Van Beuren produced other successful lines, which were developed at a time when Mexico was looking for a more international aesthetic. For example, the Calpini brand was reported to have a strong Bauhaus influence, according to Espacios magazine in 1951, and Descapóls in 1961. It was one of the more famous lines of the period and had significant sales success in The Port of Liverpool.

Michael van Beuren continued designing and retired to live in Cuernavaca, where he died in 2004. Today his furniture represents one of the most fruitful moments of furniture production in Mexico and has become an essential part of Mexican twentieth-century design history.

Frank B. Kyle was an American sculptor and furniture designer from Minneapolis, though he mainly lived in California, Kyle moved to Mexico City in the early 1950’s and opened a gallery in the south of the city, in the neighborhood of La Florida where he exhibited his furniture pieces and sculptures. Kyle´s furniture designs included elegant dining sets, chairs, tables, lamps and screens. One of his trademarks was the exceptional lacquer finish that he provided to some of his furniture lines. His work was used for residential, office spaces and Hotel interiors, using innovative combinations of unique designs, new materials and superb craftmanship.

Kyle’s showrooms provided his clients with an integrated interior design atmosphere, creating what would be known today as a concept store, he combined his furniture pieces with quirky lamps, screen prints, tapestries, batiks, exotic oriental accessories, etc. Some of his furniture lines would include enamel accents or capricious bronze ornamentation, which were designed by Kyle and commissioned to mental workshops such as that of Pepe Mendoza.

Cynthia Sargent was a mid-century textile designer. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the spring of 1922, later in life, Cynthia studied dance and painting from Joseph Albers, block-printing, and art history with Robert Motherwell, Meyer Schapiro, and other well-known artists of the day.

Cynthia married an architect named Wendell Riggs, and in 1951, the two emigrated to Mexico, where they built a legacy of art and design. Through her textile Works and entrepreneurial endeavors, she fostered a sense of community and a new respect for artisanal work.

The couple started up the firm Riggs-Sargent, which developed many successful lines of printed and handwoven fabrics. During the first year of their business endeavor, they both were invited to participate in a crafts exhibition organized by Clara Porset and held at Museo Bellas Artes. 

Rugs became the main focus of their studio at the beginning of the 1960s and the primary seller at Riggs-Sargent. Cynthia designed the work and supervised the handhooking. The rugs were extremely popular with decorators, and the press described her work as paintings in wool “…which you hang on the floor.”

They also established the Bazaar Sábado and the organizations Club Pro Arte and the Centro de Diseño, galleries and gathering places that promoted the work of the city´s artists and designers. Cynthia Sargent died in 2006, but her work continues in its popularity, and its beauty never fades.