Isamu Noguchi was born in San Francisco in 1904 but moved to Japan as a child. He returned to the USA in his teens and  enrolled as a pre-med student at Columbia University, but part-time sculpture classes and exposure to the New York art world caused him to leave college and pursue sculpture full-time. He applied for and received a Guggenheim Fellowship after seeing an exhibition of Constantin Brancusi's work, and by 1927 was working in that artist's Paris studio.

Milo Baughman (1923-2003) began his career designing Officers' Clubs while serving in the AirForce during WW2. After the war, he studied at the Art Center of LA and Chouinard, then designed for Frank Bros. modern specialty store before opening Milo Baughman Design Inc in 1947.

Born in 1878 to an aristocratic Irish family, Eileen Gray is considered a leading practitioner of 20th Century Modernism. Gray moved to Paris after visiting the Expositione Universelle in 1900, where she was especially taken with the work of Charles Rennie MacIntosh.After studies at the Academie Julian, Gray relocated to London in 1905, where she learned the art of lacquerwork. This became the focus of her career for the next decade, as she went back to and worked with Seizo Sugiwara.

Verner Panton (1926-1998) broke away from the by-then traditional aspects of Danish Modernism to create his own unique design aesthetic. Space-age, ultra-modern, plastic and colorful, Panton's furniture, lighting, textiles and commercial projects exploded the boundaries of modern design. After stuying architecture at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, he spent 2 years in the offices of Arne Jacobsen, then left on a prolonged tour of Europe in a Volkswagon camper.

Hans Wegner (1914-2007) is among the most prolific, successful, and influential masters of the Danish Modern School. He designed over 500 pieces that were produced variously by Fritz Hansen, P.P.Mobler, Getamae, and Johannes Hansen, and distributed in the USA by Knoll. His Chair #501, widely known as The Chair, demonstrated Wegner's ability to combine the highest standards of form, material, and comfort in a single everyday object, epitomizing the balance of beauty and utility that was the goal of 20th Century Danish design.

Poul Kjaerholm (1929-1980) is an iconic Danish designer whose body of work is unique on many levels, most immediately in his choice of steel rather than wood.as the main structural element. Regarded as a genius, Kjaerholm's severe sculptural lines combined with pragmatic natural materials yielded forms that seem effortlessly and perfectly balanced.