Charles Hollis Jones

American, 1945
He designed a comfortable writing chair for Tennessee Williams in 1968, received a commission for 40 tissue boxes, 40 waste baskets and many mirrors from Frank Sinatra, created furniture and accessories for Lucille Ball, Diana Ross, Dean Martin and Johnny Carson. He designed a four-poster bed for Sylvester Stallone and JLo owns his “Trelliage” coffee table. Furniture designer to the stars Charles Hollis Jones pioneered the use of acrylic and Lucite in his designs beginning the 1960s, the golden age of plastics. Born in Bloomington, Indiana in 1945, Jones began his career while still a teenager when he visited Los Angeles at the age of 16, and talked his way into a job designing retail store display furnishings for a local furniture manufacturer. He returned to Indiana and immediately after graduating from high school, relocated permanently to Los Angeles, where he continued to work for his summer employer. Six months later, he became head designer for the prestigious furniture and accessory showroom Hudson-Rissman, where he developed his first designs for acrylic and metal furnishings with invisible joints that became his trademark.  After seven years, he left Hudson-Rissman and established his own firm, CHJ Designs. Hollis Jones cited his fascination with acrylic as stemming from its unique properties, “It’s shatter-proof, first of all. And the most important thing it does: it carries light. Glass reflects light. Lucite holds it and carries it. If you play with it, you can make a lens to look at something in space. It’s that good. It’s purer than crystal.” Southern California Modernist architect John Lautner was a great admirer of Jones’ work, engaging him to work on 13 houses with him. For interior designer Arthur Elrod’s iconic Palm Springs home, Charles Hollis Jones contributed 40 pieces. Jones recalled Lautner’s words, ‘Charles, I can design an obstruction, design me a vista,’ and I would do chairs and things like that, and I did lots of Lucite tables. He thought my work made his work show off.’ Charles Hollis Jones lives in Los Angeles and continues to design furniture and decorative accessories.
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