Freeman’s Design department is devoted to every major design movement from the past century to the present day, ranging from Art Nouveau and Art Deco through Postmodernism and Contemporary Design & Craft.

Modern Design and Early 20th-Century auctions engage bidders by championing important designers from history’s most innovative design epochs. Modern Design sales focus on works from the International Style to the Studio movements and Contemporary Design & Craft. The department handles a wide variety of celebrated designers, architects, and makers of the 20th century that came to define the various Modernist movements, including manufacturers and makers such as Dunbar, Herman Miller and Knoll, with an emphasis on American Studio Craft luminaries Wendell Castel, Dale Chihuly, Ruth Duckworth, Sam Maloof, Judy Kensley McKie, William Morris, George and Mira Nakashima, Lino Tagliapietra, Toshiko Takaezu, Peter Voulkos, and Toots Zynsky. We regularly showcase international works in addition to American Studio Furniture, Studio Pottery and Studio Art Glass, as well as metalsmiths and weavers of the era. The Early 20th-Century Design auction is devoted to the major international design movements from the late 19th century through the first quarter of the 20th century, including Art Nouveau, Vienna Secession, Arts & Crafts, and Art Deco.

The department boasts one of the industry’s highest sell-through rates for family collections, as well as works by famed New Hope woodworker George Nakashima. The results for works by Nakashima at auction have consistently exceeded estimates and often broken records, most recently with the $239,400 sale of a “Minguren I” coffee table in 2022. Single-owner sales, like the 2020 sale of a rediscovered set of seven windows by Tiffany Studios ($705K), and sales of prominent collections, such as Wharton Esherick from the Hedgerow Theatre Collection ($395K), underscore Freeman’s strength in bringing new-to-market discoveries to international audiences.