While attending Samuel J. Tilden High School, he took a part-time job in a used-furniture store, and was inspired to try his hand at drawing ideas for furniture.
[4] 1940 was the beginning of American modernism, a time characterized by young designers with talent, initiative, and a willingness to take risks with new ideas.
In 1947, when showroom space wasn't available in Chicago’s Merchandise Mart, he took his line to Grand Rapids, then the center of the furniture manufacturing industry.
His elastic sling chair and Nuclear upholstered groups were chosen for MoMA’s Good Design exhibition in 1951,[8] and he won several prestigious Roscoe industry awards.
Taking the concept further, he introduced “nuclear furniture”—which included occasional tables with interchangeable pedestals, in different shapes and sizes that could, like seating, be clustered in varying configurations.
By the 1970s, Harvey Probber, Inc. had opened trade showrooms in major design centers across the country,[12] and had relinquished the residential market for the larger and more lucrative contract furniture field.
The above text was adapted from the foreword to the exhibition catalog, Harvey Probber: Modernist Furniture, Design, and Graphics written by author and historian Judith Gura, and is used with her permission.