Jack Lenor Larsen

Jack Lenor Larsen (August 5, 1927 – December 22, 2020) was an American textile designer, author, collector and promoter of traditional and contemporary craftsmanship. He was noted for bringing fabric patterns and textiles to go with modernist architecture and furnishings. Some of his works are part of permanent collections at museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs at the Louvre, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art, which has his most significant archive.

Early life Larsen was born on August 5, 1927, in Seattle, Washington, to Mabel (née Bye) and Elmer Larsen. His father was a building contractor. His parents were Canadians of Danish-Norwegian ancestry who moved to Bremerton, Washington, from Alberta, Canada. In 1951, he earned his Master of Fine Arts degree from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Michigan, and moved to New York, where he opened a studio. One of his first commissions in 1951, was to design the curtains for the Manhattan glass skyscraper Lever House for which he designed a translucent linen and gold metal themed weave to go with the building's plain glass walls. In the late 1950s, Larsen launched a fashion label, 'JL Arbiter', which although successful, was short lived. Larsen Incorporated merged with Cowtan & Tout, the American subsidiary of the London-based fabric company Colefax and Fowler, in July 1997. Some of his collaborators in the 1960s included American glass sculptor Dale Chihuly, whom he convinced to give up weaving glass and try blowing instead, and Estonian-American architect Louis Kahn with whom he designed hangings from First Unitarian Church of Rochester in New York. His textile exhibits are part of the permanent collections at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Art Institute of Chicago, Musée des Arts Décoratifs at the Louvre in Paris, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Some of the private collections of his works are at American architect Frank Lloyd Wright's house Fallingwater, and Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen's Miller house. In 2015, he was awarded a fellowship of the Textile Society of America. The plant selection is themed around red, with red-colored plants such as 'Lord Baltimore' hibiscus and Acer palmatum 'Sango kaku'.

Death Larsen died on December 22, 2020, at his home in East Hampton, NY. He was 93.

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