Rena Rosenthal (1880–1966) was a trend-setting American retailer and businesswoman. Known principally for her exclusive

Madison Avenue Madison Avenue is a north-south avenue in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, New York, that carries northbound one-way traffic. It runs from Madison Square (at 23rd Street) to meet the southbound Harlem River Drive at 142nd Stree ...

retail shop in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, she was an influential arbiter of taste and fashion in the interior decorating world, particularly during the introduction of

modernism Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

to North America. Cigarette stubbers WHW

Biography

Born Rena Kahn in New York City, Rena Rosenthal was the oldest child of Jacob (Jacques) and Eugenie Kahn and sister of architect

Ely Jacques Kahn Ely Jacques Kahn (June 1, 1884September 5, 1972) was an American commercial architect who designed numerous skyscrapers in New York City in the twentieth century. In addition to buildings intended for commercial use, Kahn's designs ranged throug ...

. Rena Rosenthal was a promoter of

applied arts The applied arts are all the arts that apply design and decoration to everyday and essentially practical objects in order to make them aesthetically pleasing."Applied art" in ''The Oxford Dictionary of Art''. Online edition. Oxford Univ ...

in the modernist style whose patronage helped launch the careers of such noted designers as

Donald Deskey Donald Sidney Deskey (November 23, 1894 – April 29, 1989) was an American industrial designer. Biography Donald Sidney Deskey was born in Blue Earth, Minnesota. He studied architecture at the University of California, but did not follow ...

, Tommi Parzinger, Ernst Schwadron and Russel Wright. She established the Austrian Workshop, later Rena Rosenthal Studio and then Rena Rosenthal Gallery. She retailed exclusive handcrafted glass, porcelain, fabric, metal and wood objects for home adornment through her shop at 520 (later 438)

. Many of these items were sourced in her father's and husband's native Austria; her shop distributed wares from the Wiener Werkstätte and from the Viennese designer Werkstätte Hagenauer Wien, Karl Hagenauer. She introduced the work of Austrian enamel artist Mizi Otten to North America, and was an early promoter of English potter and painter T. S. Haile. Despite much published misinformation to the contrary, Rena Rosenthal is not associated in any way with the "backward R/forward R" trademark (of Richard Rohac) found on Vienna bronze objects. She loaned German pottery and Austrian metalwork items to the Worcester Art Museum's third annual exhibit of modern decorative arts, in 1929. While she is known now principally for her exclusive retail shop (regular advertisements were seen in ''House & Garden (magazine), House & Garden'' and ''Harper's Magazine, Harpers'' magazines), her business was listed over the years in New York directories under "Painters & Decorators" and "Gift Shops", and in Chicago under "Art Goods." Rena Rosenthal was an influential arbiter of taste and fashion in the interior decorating world, particularly during the introduction of

to North America. She handled art works that ended up in collections of notable individuals like Geoffrey Beene and institutions such as the Cooper-HewittCooper-Hewitt
/ref> Smithsonian Design Museum.

Literature

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rosenthal, Rena 1880 births 1966 deaths Businesspeople from New York City American people of Austrian-Jewish descent American people of French-Jewish descent 20th-century American businesspeople