Anna Castelli Ferrieri (1918 - 2006)

Anna Castelli Ferrieri was an Italian architect and industrial designer. She is most known for her influence in the use of plastics as a mainstream design material and her work with Kartell, an Italian contemporary furniture company. Ferrieri was born in Milan on August 6, 1918 and died June 22, 2006 at age 87. Ferrieri studied […]

Gae Aulenti (1927 - 2012)

Born as Gaetana Aulenti, a native of Palazzolo dello Stella (Friuli), Gaetana Aulenti (Gae, as she was known, is pronounced “guy”) studied to be an architect at the Milan Polytechnic University, Faculty of Architecture and graduated as one of two women in a class of 20 in 1954. She grew up playing the piano and […]

Achille Castiglioni (1918 - 2002)

Achille Castiglioni (Italian pronunciation: [aˈkille kastiʎˈʎoni]; 16 February 1918 – 2 December 2002) was an Italian designer of furniture, lighting, radiograms and other objects. Castiglioni was born on 16 February 1918 in Milan, in Lombardy in northern Italy. He was the third son of the sculptor Giannino Castiglioni and his wife Livia Bolla. His elder brothers […]

Joe Cesare Colombo (1930 - 1971)

Cesare “Joe” Colombo was until 1949 educated at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, the academy of fine arts, in Milano as a painter and studied afterwards until 1954 Architecture at Politecnico di Milano University. In 1951 he joined the Movimento Nucleare, founded by Sergio D´Angelo and Enrico Baj. The following four years Colombo was […]

Marco Zanuso (1916 - 2001)

Marco Zanuso was born in Milano (Italy) May 14, 1916. He was one of a group of Italian designers from Milan shaping the international idea of “good design” in the postwar years. Trained in architecture at the Politecnico di Milano university, he opened his own design office in 1945. From the beginning of his career, […]

Gio Ponti (1891 - 1979)

Ponti’s parents were Enrico Ponti and Giovanna Rigone. He did military service during World War I in the Pontonier Corps with the rank of captain, from 1916 to 1918, receiving the Bronze Medal and the Italian Military Cross. Gio Ponti graduated with a degree in Architecture in 1921 from the Politecnico di Milano University. Also in […]

Ettore Sottsass (1917 - 2007)

Ettore Sottsass was born on 14 September 1917 in Innsbruck, Austria, and grew up in Milan, where his father was an architect. He was educated at the Politecnico di Torino in Turin and graduated in 1939 with a degree in architecture. He served in the Italian military and spent much of World War II in a […]

Craig Strickland (1986 - 1970)

Craig Strickland Country singer Craig Strickland is missing and feared dead after he and a friend went on a duck hunting trip in Kay County, Oklahoma, during a violent storm last weekend. Their boat was found capsized in Kaw Lake north of Tulsa just after midnight on Monday morning. The remains of Strickland’s friend, 22-year-old Chase […]

Carrie Fisher (1956 - 2016)

Carrie Fisher Actress Carrie Fisher, whose grit and wit made “Star Wars’” Princess Leia an iconic and beloved figure to millions of moviegoers, died Tuesday in Los Angeles. She was 60. Her death was confirmed in a statement issued by the publicist for Billie Lourd, Fisher’s daughter. “It is with a very deep sadness that […]

Alfred P. Sloan (1875 - 1966)

Alfred P.Sloan (/sloʊn/; May 23, 1875 – February 17, 1966) was an American business executive in the automotive industry. He was a long-time President, chairman and CEO of General Motors Corporation. Sloan, first as a senior executive and later as the head of the organization, helped GM grow from the 1920s through the 1950s, decades […]

Zora Arkus-Duntov (1909 - 1996)

Zora Arkus-Duntov (December 25, 1909 – April 21, 1996) was a Belgian-born American engineer whose work on the Chevrolet Corvette earned him the nickname “Father of the Corvette.” He is sometimes erroneously referred to as the inventor of the Corvette, although that title belongs to Harley Earl. Zora joined General Motors in 1953 after seeing the […]

Virgil Exner (1909 - 1973)

Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Virgil Exner was adopted by George W. and Iva Exner as a baby. Virgil showed a strong interest in art and automobiles. He went to Buchanan High School in Buchanan, Michigan then studied art at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana but, in 1928, dropped out after two years […]

Harley Earl (1893 - 1969)

Harley Earl was born in Hollywood, California. His father, J. W. Earl, began work as a coachbuilder in 1889. The senior Earl eventually changed his practice from horse-drawn vehicles to custom bodies and customized parts and accessories for automobiles, founding Earl Automobile Works in 1908. Earl began studies at Stanford University, but left prematurely to work […]

James Buchanan Duke (1856 - 1925)

James Buchanan Duke, known by the nickname “Buck”, was born on December 23, 1856, near Durham, North Carolina, to industrialist and philanthropist Washington Duke and his second wife, Artelia Roney Duke. Washington Duke (1820–1905), had owned a tobacco company that his sons James Buchanan Duke and Benjamin Newton Duke (1855–1929) took over in the 1880s. In […]

Phebe Sudlow (1831 - 1922)

Phebe W. Sudlow (July 11, 1831 – June 8, 1922) was a pioneer for women in the education field and was the first female superintendent of a public school in the United States. Phebe Sudlow also became the first female professor at the University of Iowa in 1878, despite having no formal college degree. Phebe W. […]

Samuel Francis Smith (1808 - 1895)

Samuel Francis Smith was born in Boston, Massachusetts on October 21, 1808. Smith gave Lowell Mason the lyrics he had written and the song was first performed in public on July 4, 1831, at a children’s Independence Day celebration at Park Street Church in Boston. The song, titled “America”, was first published by Lowell Mason in […]

Maria Sanford (1836 - 1920)

Maria Sanford was born in Saybrook, Connecticut. Her love for education began early; at the age of 16 she was already teaching in county day schools. She graduated with honors from Connecticut Normal School (now Central Connecticut State University), using her dowry funds for tuition. She rose in the ranks of local and national educators, […]

William Rice (1816 - 1900)

William Rice was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, the third of ten children of David and Patty (née Hall) Rice. His first job was as a grocery store clerk in Springfield, at the age of 15. By age 22, he had purchased the store from its owner. In 1838, Rice traveled to Texas in search of […]

Thelonious Monk (1917 - 1982)

Thelonious Sphere Monk (/θəˈloʊniəs/, October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer. Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including “‘Round Midnight”, “Blue Monk”, “Straight, No Chaser” “Ruby, My Dear”, “In Walked Bud”, and “Well, You Needn’t”. Monk is the second […]

Oscar Peterson (1925 - 2007)

Oscar Peterson was born to immigrants from the West Indies; his father worked as a porter for Canadian Pacific Railway. Peterson grew up in the neighbourhood of Little Burgundy in Montreal, Quebec. It was in this predominantly black neighbourhood that he found himself surrounded by the jazz culture that flourished in the early 20th century. […]

Coleman Hawkins (1904 - 1969)

Coleman Hawkins was born in Saint Joseph, Missouri, in 1904. Although some sources say 1901, there is no evidence to prove an earlier date; instead, there is record of Hawkins’s parents’ first child, a girl, being born in 1901 and dying at the age of two, possibly the basis for the mistaken belief. He was […]

Earl Hines (1903 - 1983)

Earl Kenneth Hines, universally known as Earl “Fatha Hines (December 28, 1903 – April 22, 1983), was an American jazz pianist and bandleader. He was one of the most influential figures in the development of jazz piano and, according to one major source, is “one of a small number of pianists whose playing shaped the […]

Andy Razaf (1895 - 1973)

Andy Razaf (December 16, 1895 – February 3, 1973) was an African-American poet, composer and lyricist of such well-known songs as “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and “Honeysuckle Rose”. Razaf was born in Washington, D.C. His birth name was Andriamanantena Paul Razafinkarefo. He was the son of Henri Razafinkarefo, nephew of Queen Ranavalona III of Imerina kingdom in Madagascar, […]

Thad Jones (1923 - 1986)

Thad Jones was born in Pontiac, Michigan, on March 28, 1923, to Henry and Olivvia Jones, a musical family of 10 (an older brother was pianist Hank Jones and a younger brother was drummer Elvin Jones). A self-taught musician, Thad began performing professionally at the age of 16. He served in U.S. Army bands during […]

Fats Waller (1904 - 1943)

Against the opposition of his father, a clergyman, Waller became a professional pianist at the age of 15, working in cabarets and theaters.[citation needed] In 1918 he won a talent contest playing Johnson’s “Carolina Shout”, a song he learned from watching a player piano play it. Fats Waller became one of the most popular performers of […]

Dizzy Gillespie (1917 - 1993)

John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie (/ɡᵻˈlɛspi/; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, and singer. AllMusic’s Scott Yanow wrote, “Dizzy Gillespie’s contributions to jazz were huge. One of the greatest jazz trumpeters of all time (some would say the best), Gillespie was such a complex player that his contemporaries ended […]

Count Basie (1904 - 1984)

William James “Count” Basie (August 21, 1904 – April 26, 1984) was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. His mother taught him to play the piano and he started performing in his teens. Dropping out of school, he learned to operate lights for vaudeville and to improvise accompaniment for silent films at a […]

Ella Fitzgerald (1917 - 1996)

Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917 – June 15, 1996) was an American jazz singer often referred to as the First Lady of Song, Queen of Jazz and Lady Ella. She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing and intonation, and a “horn-like” improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing. After tumultuous teenage […]

Arthur Marx (1921 - 2011)

Arthur Marx was a nationally ranked tennis player before he was 18. While he was attending the University of Southern California, he won the National Freshman Intercollegiate Tennis title at Montclair, New Jersey. At the Tri-State Tennis Tournament, the event that evolved into today’s Cincinnati Masters, Marx reached the singles final in 1941 before falling to […]

Al Shean (1868 - 1949)

Al Shean (12 May 1868 – 12 August 1949) was the stage name for comedian Abraham Elieser Adolph Schönberg, although other sources give his birth name variously as Adolf Schönberg, Albert Schönberg, or Alfred Schönberg. He is most remembered for being half of the vaudeville team Gallagher and Shean, and as the uncle of the […]