Vladimir Kagan

About

Vladimir Kagan (1927-2016) is a German-born American designer, one of the most celebrated in America.

Kagan created his designs with upholstery, wrought iron, cast aluminum, and especially organically sculpted wood in works that became hallmarks of his career. 

Vladimir Kagan moved to the United States in 1938. Early on, he focused on painting and sculpture, but he gravitated to architecture and design in his formative years. He studied architecture at Columbia University and in 1947 joined his father, Illi Kagan, a master cabinetmaker, in his woodworking shop. Kagan's early commissions included work for the delegates' lounge for the first United Nations headquarters in Lake Success, New York, in the 1940s. Then, in 1948, he opened his first shop in New York. 

Today, connoisseurs and museums avidly collect his designs, and he has been awarded numerous prizes. His work can be seen in the permanent collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Vitra Design Museum and Die Neue Sammlung in Germany, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.