Max Gottschalk

Who was Max Gottschalk?

Max Jules Gottschalk was born in 1909 in St. Louis, Missouri. Following his graduation from Washington University in late 1930s, he moved to the Dominion of Newfoundland where he worked as Chief Technical Advisor of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Reconstruction. The Newfoundland government assigned him the task of designing workshop furniture for the agricultural community of Markland. His designs combined modernist principles with the use of natural materials. The onset World War II ended the government's economic reconstruction programs and Gottschalk’s work.

Gottschalk returned to the United States, moving to Tucson, Arizona and became a professor of industrial design at Pima Community College’s new Modern West Campus.

His artistic interest included oil painting and mid-century modern industrial design which combined "natural" materials like leather with commercial products such as aluminum tubing and steel. The result: beautifully proportioned work that embraced and embodied both the southwestern aesthetic and Modern design principles. Gottschalk often worked with leather that was irregular and flawed, celebrating the material's imperfections.

His earnest productive artistic period starched from the 1950s to this death in 2005.