At a Van Nuys auction house earlier this month, bidding on a seemingly simple 1940s aluminum and brass floor lamp by Greta Grossman rose to $10,000, then with the crowd buzzing, climbed past $15,000. Then $20,000. And $25,000. By the time the gavel fell and the applause in the room had died down, an unidentified bidder had bought the lamp for $37,500 -- a record for Grossman and a sign of how this pioneering female designer, once a footnote in Midcentury Modern history, is on her way to becoming a household name.
Greta Magnusson Grossman (1906-99) was a prize-winning decorator and furniture...