Known for warm, minimalist designs that combine traditional luxury finishes and techniques with industrial elements, Ward Bennett is said to have combed hardware catalogues for inspiration. His Sled chairs (1968), with tanned leather seats stretched onto chromed tubular steel frames, recall International Style designs by Marcel Breuer, Mies Van Der Rohe, and Le Corbusier. Something of a prodigy, Bennett left school at 13 to work in New York’s Garment District, and went on to design a clothing collection and relocate to Europe—all before reaching adulthood. He later returned to New York and focused on furniture, decorative objects, and interior design, and by the apex of his career in the 1960s, he had cultivated a clientele that included David Rockefeller, Tiffany & Company, and Lyndon B. Johnson. Bennett achieved all this with little formal training, saying simply “I learn from people.”