Any serious Dansk collector should include a trip to the Sam Kaufman Gallery as part of a trip to the Los Angeles area.\u00a0 I had the pleasure of visiting him and his gallery over the winter break on a road trip down to Southern California.<\/p>\n
First of all, the collection.\u00a0 If both of my cameras hadn’t broken before my trip, I’d have better photos, but the iPhone did a good job.\u00a0 You can see from the photos that the collection is quite extensive.\u00a0 He’s got a great selection of Jens Quistgaard for Dansk mills as well as those by other designers.\u00a0 As I wrote about in my previous post<\/a>, he’s got some very rare mills that are highly sought after by serious collectors, some I’ve never seen in person and it was great to be able to hold them in my hand.\u00a0 They are also displayed beautifully.\u00a0 Each mill sits on it’s own little shelf on the 8’x8′ wall, painted cream or ecru color to offset the mills’ wood.\u00a0 It’s a display Sam himself designed and had built for the collection.\u00a0 And of course, the whole thing is for sale…<\/p>\n Then there’s the rest of Sam’s gallery.\u00a0 The place is filled to the rafters with cool stuff.\u00a0 Lots of smalls and furniture, much of it I didn’t recognize (that is, rare pieces).\u00a0 He’s got a ton of ceramics by Stig Lindberg and others, as well as art pieces large and small. \u00a0 I didn’t have a lot of time to go through everything, but one could spend a lot of time there.<\/p>\n One of the most interesting pieces in the shop for me was a rosewood walking stick designed by Jens Quistgaard.\u00a0 There were only 6 made, and they were given to the top Dansk executives by Quistgaard himself.\u00a0 Sam has the whole story on it, and there is one for sale currently if anyone is interested.<\/p>\n And speaking of Sam, what a great guy.\u00a0 He’s full of enthusiasm, information, and entertaining stories on Quistgaard and much more.<\/p>\n If you are planning to visit, you can find the contact info here<\/a>.\u00a0 Even if the gallery is closed, you can see the mills – they are near the front door.\u00a0 The neighborhood is very cool, too.\u00a0 They are right near the super hip Swingers Diner, the Grove, close to all the LA modern stores like Denmark 50 and Modernica, and the Melrose shopping district is close by as well.\u00a0 A great place to visit.<\/p>\n\n\t\t