Knoll style four prong chrome base executive chair having swivel-tilt mechanism with walnut veneer and oak mortise and tenon box arms design by Arthur Umanoff, manufactured by Madison Furniture Ind., circa late 1970s early 1980s. About the Designer (Arthur Umanoff) Arthur Umanoff (1923–1985) was an American-born industrial designer, noted for his contribution to the American midcentury modern movement. Upon graduating from New York’s prestigious Pratt Institute and the American School of Design in the beginning of the 1950s, around that same time, he became a partnership in a company called Post Modern Ltd., where he was involved in every phase of the design process. The designs that came out of Post Modern were distributed by the Elton Company, which also distributed the designs of Tony Paul, also a partner at Post Modern Ltd, a New York design company that produced and sold modernist wrought iron and wood designs. Throughout the 1960s, he worked closely with the furniture manufacturer Shaver Howard, who put many of his furniture designs into production. Also in the 1960s, Umanoff designed furniture for Madison Furniture Industries and designed clocks for the Howard Miller Clock Company. In the 1970s he designed for Directional, Thonet, Dillingham, Rouse/Jackson and David Morgan. The wrought iron and slat chairs, tables, bars and bar carts that most people recognize as Umanoff designs came out of his work with Shaver Howard, a company for which he designed into the 1970s. Arthur Umanoff believed that design should not only be beautifully constructed and functional, but that it should also be attainable. Using natural materials and new methods to reimagine traditional furniture pieces, he created versatile designs for the home that were celebrated for their quality as for their simplified, functional forms and staying power. Reflecting warmth and practicality, his designs were often imagined in wrought iron, rattan, walnut and birch, imbued with functional details yet retaining a sense of natural elegance thanks to their slender, tapered lines.