A couple of years ago I found my first Boltabest tray at a thrift store in Florida. It was the large version of the infamous China Shop pattern designed by Irving Harper for The George Nelson Studio.
As I am a collector by nature, I was not satisfied with just one. Turning to my good friend the world wide intraweb, I have since been able to round up several more.
While these were used as cafeteria trays in the 1950’s, it appears that Bolta, the company that manufactured the trays, chose to use designs by several well known industrial and textile designers.
There are these two below, also attributed to Nelson and/or his design studio
Then there is the “Wheels” tray designed by Bernard Rudofsky
The “Babylonia” tray designed by Abel Sorenson
Lastly, there is the mystery “Tempo” tray below, currently on Ebay.
I found a version of this in red last year and have wondered for some time who might have designed the pattern.
For an interesting discussion on these trays, check out the following thread on one of my favorite forums Designaddict
February 1, 2010 at 8:35 pm |
The wheels tray was definitely designed by Bernard Rudofsky, who also founded Bernardo Footwear.