Gerald Summers & Marjorie Butcher: Makers of Simple Furniture, 1931-1940

Gerald Summers (1899-1967) is one of the most important furniture designers of the twentieth century. He was born in Alexandria, Egypt, and worked as an engineer before beginning his career as a designer. In 1931, together with his partner Marjorie Butcher (1909-1996), he opened the company Makers of Simple Furniture in London. For almost a decade, the company produced a wide range of furniture for the modern home. In 1940, wartime exigencies brought an end to the enterprise, whereupon they turned their energies to Gerald Summers Ltd, a supplier of engineering parts. Martha Deese is an authority on Gerald Summers. She earned a master's degree in decorative art history from the Cooper-Hewitt Museum / Parsons School of Design, New York, and worked for three decades as an administrator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Her groundbreaking 1992 article published in the Journal of Design History remains the definitive work on the designer.