Greta Magnusson-Grossman

Greta Magnusson-Grossman was born in Helsingborg, Sweden, in 1906.

Her career included architecture, interior design and furniture design. In the 1920s, she completed her one-year woodworking education in Helsingborg and was awarded a scholarship at the prestigious Stockholm Kunsthochschule Konstfack, where she studied furniture, textiles and ceramics design.

In 1933 she was awarded the second place for furniture design by the Stockholm Craft Trade Association, making her the first female winner in this category.

That same year, Grossman opened with her Konstfack fellow student Erik Ullrich Studio, a store and a design workshop in Stockholm and married the jazz band frontman Billy Grossman. In 1937 Grossman designed a cot for the Swedish princess Birgitta for a group exhibition in the National Museum of Stockholm. In 1940, she emigrated with her husband to America and settled in Los Angeles.

There she opened a furniture, lighting and interior design workshop in Beverly Hills. In addition to her business, she also designed pieces for companies such as Sherman Bertram, Modern Line, Barker Brothers and Glenn of California.

Between 1949 and 1959, Grossman designed numerous homes in California, often collaborating with landscape architect Garrett Eckbo.

The floor area of most of the buildings was less than 140 square meters and many were built on stilts, providing exceptional views. During the 1950s, she taught industrial design at the Art Center School and the University of California, Los Angeles. In the late 1960s, Grossman retired from design and architecture.