ALLAN GOULD (1908-1988)
Available Work | Biography
Biography • Allan Gould (1908-1988)
Allan Gould was born and raised in New York City. He graduated from Dartmouth in 1927 where he served as the art editor of the college’s yearbook. In 1928 Gould returned to New York where he worked in advertising during the day and studied at the Art Students League in the evening. He received his first teaching position at Albion College in Albion, Michigan in 1930. There he met his future wife, Alice Dineen, who was one of his students. The couple returned to New York where they were married in November 1932.
In 1931 Gould began exhibiting in New York at G.R.D. Gallery. In an exhibition of his work along with two other artists in the spring of 1931, the critic Edwin Alden Jewell praised Gould for having “painted the most beautiful chicken wire this reviewer has ever come upon in a gallery.” (New York Times, May 3, 1931) This quote shows Gould to be at the forefront of Regionalism as he painted local scenes like Farm Landscape and Doors near his Bearsville, New York home. Gould also exhibited at the John Becker Gallery in New York in 1933. As a sign of his success, Gould in 1935 was asked to teach design along with Gilbert Rohde at the Design Laboratory, the WPA’s effort to establish an American Bauhaus in New York.
Both Allan and Alice Gould won several post office mural commissions through the Treasury Department in the 1930s. Gould executed two murals: Gathering Tobacco for the Roxboro, North Carolina Post Office in 1938 and Source of Power for the Greenville, Kentucky Post Office completed in 1940. Source of Power is a Precisionist view of multiple industrial buildings and freight cars. It was composed through snapshots Gould took while visiting Greenville. Gould then executed the painting at his Bearsville home near Woodstock, New York. At the time his mural received national coverage in the press, including a reproduction in Life Magazine in its January 27, 1941 issue. Gould’s mural was noted for its unique geometry and lack of human figures, both in keeping with the Precisionist style. A plum teaching position at the University of Southern California led Gould to exhibit California Landscape in the California section of the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939.
In the 1940s Gould’s creative interest expanded to include furniture design. Through his relationship with Gilbert Rohde established at the Design Laboratory, Gould was asked to design for Herman Miller where he created the “Compass Chair” in 1941. He was a lead designer in the firm and was in competition with George Nelson to take over Rohde’s position upon his retirement. In the 1940s Gould also designed the complete line for Functional Furniture Manufacturers. When the United States entered World War II, Gould served with the Army Corps of Engineers where he was stationed at Camp O’Reilly and Fort Brooke in Puerto Rico. He was discharged in November 1945 but stayed further in Puerto Rico to design bamboo furniture for the Puerto Rico Development Co. In 1948 his designs using the abundant and sturdy material of bamboo were noted in a Department of Agriculture circular from 1948 on the expanding use of bamboo in Puerto Rico for farming, furniture, and architecture.
Having experienced notable success as a furniture designer, in the 1950s Allan Gould established his own company, Allan Gould Designs, Inc, based in New York. One of the company’s early designs, a side chair with a steel frame and a plastic cord seat, was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in 1955. The company had show rooms in New York City at 166 Lexington Avenue at 30th Street and in Chicago’s Merchandise Mart. Furniture design provided Gould with a steady income.
Gould returned to Puerto Rico to live the last decade of his life and passed away just a few months short of his 80th birthday.