Ross Littell
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Littell won a four-year scholarship to the Art Center College of Design. After interrupting his studies in 1943 due to a military requirement, Littell resumed his studies at Pratt Institute in New York, graduating with honors in graphic and industrial design.
From 1949 to 1955, Littell collaborated with William Catavolos and Douglas Kelly to design furniture, textiles and tableware for Laverne Originals, using materials such as leather, glass and marble. Their T-shaped chair, designed in 1952, won the American Institute of Decorators award for best furniture design in the United States and is part of the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Art Institute of Chicago.
In 1956 Ross Littell opened his own design studio which worked for both private commissions and for major manufacturers including Knoll and Herman Miller. In 1957 Littell was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Italy for a year. While in Italy, Littell became fascinated by the study of textures and prints, taking over two thousand photographs of various patterns which served as inspiration for his own fabric collection. In 1959 his textile design Criss-Cross for Knoll was awarded an award from the American Decorators Institute. In 1960 Littell moved to Copenhagen and then back to Italy where he worked for European manufacturers such as Unika Vaev and DePadova. At this time Littell concentrated even more strongly on textile design.