George Lewis Graff (sometimes spelled George Louis Graff) was an American industrial designer active in the 1920s and 1930s.

Kentucky Derby Trophy

Graff's most famous work is the

Kentucky Derby Trophy The Kentucky Derby Trophy is a set of four trophies that are awarded to the winning connections of America's most famous race: the grade one $3,000,000 Kentucky Derby. The owner receives a gold trophy while the trainer, the jockey and the breeder w ...

first presented in 1924 (and in continuous use since).

Work for Dura

From at least 1929 onwards, Graff was employed by the Dura Manufacturing Company of Ohio. Dura produced cast metal products for other manufacturers for which Graff frequently did the design work. Graff designed a series of clocks for

Westclox Westclox was an American manufacturer and is a current brand of clocks and alarm clocks. The company's historic plant is located in Peru, Illinois. Early history as United Clock Company Charles Stahlberg and others from Waterbury, Connectic ...

, the LaSalle models, six different cases sharing the same clock movement were introduced in 1931 and produced until 1934. The clock movements were supplied by Westclox, while Dura made the cases; these are often referred to as Dura models.

Telechron Telechron is the name of a U.S. company that manufactured electric clocks between 1912 and 1992. "Telechron" is derived from the Greek word''tele'' meaning "far off," an''chronos'' "time," thus referring to the transmission of time over long distan ...

and

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...

also made clocks using Dura cases, and Graff did a pair of designs, the 711 and AB712 that were produced for both companies from 1931-1936.http://en.allexperts.com/q/Antique-Clocks-3526/2010/4/Telechron-Telalarm-Series.htm Several of Graff's designs for Dura were awarded

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...

s; US patent number 80,619 filed in 1929 is for a latching refrigerator door handle, while three sequential patents filed in 1931, US patent numbers 85,929 thru 85,931, are for "electric candle" designs;

art deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

incandescent light fixtures or portable lamps styled to resemble candles. The patent applications state that Graff lived in

Toledo, Ohio Toledo ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Lucas County, Ohio, United States. A major Midwestern United States port city, Toledo is the fourth-most populous city in the state of Ohio, after Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati, and according ...

during this period of his career.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Graff, George L. American industrial designers Year of birth missing People from Toledo, Ohio