Elsie Caroline Krummeck | |
Other Names: | Elsie Krummeck Crawford |
Birth Date: | December 5, 1913 |
Birth Place: | New York, New York |
Death Place: | Los Angeles, California |
Field: | Painter |
Spouse: | Victor Gruen, Neil Crawford |
Alma Mater: | Parsons School of Design |
Elsie Caroline Krummeck (1913–1999) was American artist and industrial designer.[1]
Krummeck was born on December 5, 1913, in New York City.[2] She attended the Parsons School of Design. She began her career by designing exhibitions for the 1939 New York World's Fair.[3] In 1940 she married the architect Victor Gruen with whom she had two children.[4] The couple created the firm Gruen & Krummeck.[5] In New York the firm worked on creating specialty shops including Barton's Bonbonniere on Broadway.[3]
The firm relocated to Los Angeles, California.[6] There they worked on a number of commercial projects including the designing buildings for Grayson Clothing, R. H. Macy & Co., Joseph Magnin, and Milliron's.[7] Krummeck and Gruen divorced in 1951 and their firm dissolved around the same time.[8]
Krummeck career focused on planters, outdoor sculpture and street furniture in the L.A. Modernist style.[9] She had an association with the Architectural Fiberglass company that produced some of her designs.[10]
In 1958 she married the architect Herbert Neil Crawford. They divorced in 1972.[11]
Krummeck died On May 29, 1999, in Los Angeles.[2] [3]
Krummeck's work was exhibited in the 1951 show Good Design at the Museum of Modern Art.[12] Her work was also included in the 1994 show Goddess in the Details--Product Design by Women at the Pratt Institute and the 1998 exhibition L.A. Modern & Beyond at the Pacific Design Center.[3]
Several of her pieces are in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art[13] and the Museum of the Art Institute of Chicago.[14]