Charles Stendig

The company was active between 1955 and 1976 and imported a unique selection of modern European furniture to the United States, focusing on contract-grade pieces suitable for commercial use (such as libraries, colleges, hotels, and offices).

The partnership lasted as long as Stendig was in business and included distribution agreements for works from Ilmari Tapiovaara, Tapio Wirkkala, and Eero Aarnio.

[6] On a trip to Zürich in 1957, Stendig stumbled upon a store with Bauhaus-inspired chrome-and-leather furniture by three Swiss designers—Hans Eichenberger, Kurt Thut, and Robert Haussmann—the last of whom owned and ran the shop with his brother.

This trip yielded him the right to import model B9 armchair, used by Le Corbusier in the 1925 Pavillon de l’Esprit Nouveau, and for which they found a signed mold at the Czech factory.

[11] He acquired exclusive distribution rights for the American market to models made by Poltronova, which produced designs by Archizoom, Gae Aulenti, Ettore Sottsass, Superstudio,[12] and Massimo Vignelli and his wife, Lella.

[14] In the early 1970s, Stendig discovered Gufram, founded by the Gugliermetto brothers in Turin, and began importing the pop designs of Giuseppe Raimondi, Guido Drocco Franco Mello and Studio65, and others,[14] icons of the Anti-Design movement in Italy.

[17] Other designers represented by Stendig, Inc. over the years included the Swiss Ubald Klug,[15] Americans Davis Allen and Andrew Morrison,[18][1] and the Swede father-and-son duo Carl Erik and Jan Ekselius.