Lucia DeRespinis Receives 2008 RRK Award

Lucia N. DeRespinis, designer and educator was awarded the 2007 Rowena Reed Kostellow Award for her dedication and teaching of three-dimensional design. The ceremony took place at the Knoll Showroom in New York on January 25, 2008. The Award recognizes people who advance the principals of design that Rowena Reed Kostellow developed and rewards those who have excelled with the application of those ideas. “The committee selected Lucia because of the beauty of her personal work and teaching. She consistently applies the principals of abstract design she learned from Miss Reed,” says Tucker Viemeister, Rowena Fund Chair.

Lucia has been an Industrial Designer for over fifty years and is an Adjunct Professor at Pratt where she studied with Rowena. She is renowned for picking the pink and orange color scheme for Dunkin’ Donut’s — based on her five-year-old daughter’s favorite colors. She was in the Bard Graduate Center’s exhibition and major publication: Women In Design/1900 – 2000. She worked for Sandgen and Murtha, Delco Tableware International, Minners & Co. and with George Nelson Associates, where she worked on the amazing 1959 American Exhibit in Moscow designing the exhibition with a team of 8 from the Nelson office plus Charles and Ray Eames, Buckminster Fuller, and Bill Katavolos. And the clocks she designed while at the Nelson Office are still available at the MoMA store!

Lucia N. DeRespinis joins the other champions of the Abstract Principals of Visual Relationships who have received the award, including Gina Caspi, Ivan Rigby, Eva Zeisel, Gerald Gulotta, William Fogler, Eugene Grossman, Ralph Appelbaum, James Fulton, Louis Nelson, Judy Collins, Bruce Hannah, and Ted Muehling. These teachers, entrepreneurs and designers embody the mission of the fund: to encourage and guide a systematic educational approach to all forms of visual expression, which is inspired by Rowena’s teaching.

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