A relatively unsung female designer was a significant influence on the breezy, mid century style for which California is known. Greta Magnusson Grossman emigrated to America from her native Sweden (where she was already a prolific industrial designer and architect) in 1940. She arrived claiming that all she needed in her new LA home was a ‘a car and a pair of shorts’. The unique approach she brought with her from Stockhom was an instant hit . She opened a store in Beverley Hills selling ‘Swedish modern furniture, rugs, lamps and other home furnishing’ and counted Greta Garbo among her A list clients.

Grossman designed at least fourteen homes in Los Angeles, one in San Francisco and one back in Sweden. Most were set on stilts, often on hilltops with wonderful views through entire walls of glass. They were open plan and featured lots of built in shelving – a woman’s touch perhaps?

Grossman’s furniture design mixed bright textiles and wood with black plastic and iron. Dainty proportions and asymmetrical lines set her work apart and were hugely influential. She designed a groundbreaking and successful range of lamps for Barker Brother and produced super stylish work for Glenn of California, Sherman Bertram, Martin/Battrud and Modern Line.

Greta Magnusson Grossman has been described as an ‘overlooked radical’ who apparently didn’t care for a ‘grand exit or long memory’. She lived quietly in retirement following the death of her jazz musician husband, dying herself in 1999. As she walked around her adopted hometown, an elderly widow, I wonder if it amused her to see the extent to which its iconic look was, to some extent, hers.