John Vaossos lived in Norwalk and helped establish the Silvermine Guild of Artists, serving as president of the guild for 10 terms, in 1936, 1940-47, and 1949-55. He designed the five-branch tree logo (painting, sculpture, drama, music, and dance) for the Guild along with the Gifford Hall Complex. Vassos raised significant funds for Silvermine using his considerable influence with RCA, where he worked as a designer for almost four decades.
John Vassos was a highly regarded artist, industrial designer, illustrator, inventor, interior designer, architect and social commentator. He was a pioneer in the field of Industrial Design along with Norman Bel Geddes, Raymond Lowey and Eliot Noyes among others. Vassos studied at the Art Students League, while supporting himself doing window design and assisting with stage designs for the Ziegfeld Follies. In 1933, Vassos was hired by RCA as the chief industrial design consultant for their product line. He designed the first 45 rpm record player in 1948, the first RCA color television camera in 1953, as well as various RCA transmitters. In 1938, Vassos founded the American Designers Institute (ADI) and became president again in 1948.
Vassos moved to Boston, Massachusetts in 1919, where he attended the Fenway Art School at night. He studied alongside American artist John Singer Sargent and worked as an assistant for Joseph Urban. In 1924 he moved to New York, where he attended the Art Students League of New York, studying under George Bridgman, John Sloan, and others. He opened his own studio creating window displays for department stores, like Wanamakers, murals, and advertisements for Saks Fifth Avenue, Bonwit Teller, and Packard Motor Cars in his unique black and white illustrated style. At the same time, he illustrated a series of books by Oscar Wilde for E.P. Dutton followed by others including Phobia on which he based his life-long design focus on psychology, his area of expertise as noted by Fortune Magazine's list of top designers in the country. He entered the emergent field of industrial design and was hired by rapidly-growing RCA Victor, under the leadership of David Sarnoff, who discovered Vassos while painting murals at the WCAU skyscraper in Philadelphia.The company had recently acquired Victor Phonograph, built Radio City, and owned NBC Broadcasting, but needed to amplify and modernize their radio manufacturing business. By hiring Vassos, an up-and-coming industrial designer who created their first Styling department, launched Vassos on a four-decade relationship with the company for whom he designed hundreds of items, while also consulting for numerous other clients like Coca-Cola, Waterman, Universal Artists, Remington, and the United States Government. Vassos's work as an interior designer included the Chrysler Building apartment of photographer Margaret Bourke-White, Nedick's Hot Dog stands, displays for RCA in department stores and the World's Fair, and many others for which he employed modular furniture. He eschewed trendy styles like the extreme-streamlined look, popular in the 1930s, and favored the clean, modern look unadorned with unnecessary elements. He expressed his design philosophy for magazines like Pencil Points and in lectures on modern design and art. Although he was hailed as a top designer in the United States during the 1930s, he slipped away from the spotlight of his industrial design peers like Raymond Loewy, Henry Dreyfuss, and Norman Bel Geddes, largely because he did not open a large firm. Unique among the industrial designers of the 20th century, his work was focused on the intersections between interior decorating, furniture design, and the shapes of phonographs, radios and televisions. His contributions include creating a futuristic living room including television, the slide rule dial on radios, emphasis on the haptic experience of media (knobs and buttons), and the "user experience," years before this term was coined.
Vassos lived in Greenwich Village and the Upper West Side of New York City with his wife, Ruth Vassos, and settled in the Silvermine neighborhood in Norwalk, Connecticut in the 1930s. He was an influential leader of the Silvermine Guild.
Credits:
Silvermine Arts Center