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KEEPER OF A
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tangible way. Ross and his wife and business partner, Molly McCombs, operate an online design COLLECTIONS bookstore called Modernism101 from their home in Shreveport, where they have lived since 2009. Ross’s journey as a bookseller began in the early 1990s at book shows and conventions around Austin, Texas. As a University of Texas journalism student, he fell in love with the writers of the Beat Generation, the “new journalism” of Tom Wolfe, and also with his future wife. After graduating, he and McCombs each pursued careers as graphic designers, and Ross made a “pivotal” decision to begin buying and selling books. He initially specialized in pulp fiction paperbacks of the “hardboiled detective” variety, but his professional interest in graphic design eventually crept into his FROM SHREVEPORT, RANDALL ROSS PEDDLES RARE DESIGN BOOKS ACROSS THE GLOBE collecting. He began to pursue rare and out of print design books, while McBy Chris Jay Combs pursued a similar interst in photography books and ephemera. The couple would spend long weekends together Modernism101 proprietors Randall Ross and Molly McCombs specialize in buying and selling materials relating to on book-hunting road trips the Bauhaus, the influential German trade school that was open from 1919 to 1933. Photo courtesy of Randall Ross. to Dallas, Houston, and San t was a Friday morning in late February of 2014, In less time than it would take to get in and Antonio, bouncing from one bookstore to the next, and Randall Ross was digging through a box of out of brunch at a busy restaurant, Ross had res- then retire to the hotel to pore over their best finds. loose catalogs, warranties, and owner’s manuals cued a piece of design history from the wait- They called these outings “working the triangle,” in at an estate sale when something caught his eye. ing maw of a landfill and placed it with a grate- reference to the three cities’ locations respective to Aus“I recognized it for what it was, which ful collector on the other side of the globe. tin. was a very significant piece of information “On days like that, I feel like the keeper of a sacred “I was like: ‘I know this stuff is out there,’” Ross said. design produced by Knud Lönberg-Holm and Ladislav flame,” he said. “But other days, I just feel like a pro- “I’ve always had this hunting and gathering instinct. Sutnar around 1952,” Ross said. fessional recycler.” To me, the idea of driving around all day looking for To the vast majority of estate sale shoppers, the HonRoss grew up attending swap meets, garage sales, books is a dream.” eywell Thermostats sales catalog would have been just and flea markets with his mother in West Texas As their expertise grew more focused on midanother old magazine retrieved from the depths of a towns like Lamesa, Abilene, and Sweetwater, where century design and architecture, so did the dusty workbench. Had it not attracted Ross’s attention, he was especially drawn to old books and periodicals Modernism101 collection. The duo had a knack for it would likely have wound up in a garbage bin. of any kind. unearthing materials related to the biggest names in He took the catalog home, scanned the cover, and “I was always looking for portals into the rest of mid-century architecture, including Louis Kahn, e-mailed it to Adrian Täckman, an architect and the world, and to me they were newspapers, films, Richard Neutra, and Frank Lloyd Wright, as well design historian in Copenhagen who has built an and books,” Ross said. “Books were really the thing as designs produced by commercial artists like Paul archive relating to the career of Lönberg-Holm. Täck- that made me feel connected to the rest of the world. Rand and Herbert Bayer. The only problem was that These days, books connect him to the world in a more no one wanted to buy the design books. There was alman immediately purchased it for his collection.
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