Ward Bennett
Ward Bennett’s career began at age 13, when he quit school to work in New York’s Garment District. At 16, he went to Europe and continued working in fashion. Despite studying painting in Florence and Paris, he was mostly self-taught, with skills ranging from jewelry-making to interior design. “I learn from people,” he said, referencing Hattie Carnegie, Hans Hofmann, and Georgia O’Keeffe as influences.
“I design interiors and furniture and flatware and so forth, but I think the way I live is maybe the most meaningful.”
Bennett’s true passion was the art of living. He eventually settled in New York, where his reputation earned him many high-profile clients. Rolling Stone founder and publisher Jann Wenner, Marella and Gianni Agnelli, and David Rockefeller, to name a few. He began working with Geiger in 1987. The first collaboration—a 20-piece collection—was introduced in 1990. In 1993, Geiger acquired Brickel Associates, for whom Bennett had been the sole designer from the 1960s through the mid-1980s. Recognizing the timeless simplicity and enduring comfort of the more than 150 chair designs, Geiger reintroduced several classics from Bennett’s Brickel era.
Bennett believed in the value of simplicity. From a monograph about Bennett, veteran design editor Pilar Viladas said, “His work fused beauty and utility—he had no use for the former without the latter—in the purest form possible.” He was the first American to use industrial materials for home furnishings. The American Institute of Architects hailed him for “transforming industrial hardware into sublime objects.” Many of his designs are in the permanent collections of MoMA, Cooper Hewitt, and the Smithsonian Design Museum.
