Jack Lenor Larsen
Jack Lenor Larsen (1927-2020), internationally known textile designer, author, and collector was one of the world's foremost advocates of traditional and contemporary crafts. His awards are many and his designs are in collections of international museums. Larsen is associated with schools and art centers worldwide.
Jack Lenor Larsen

Photo courtesy of Shonna Valeska, @shonnavaleska
Jack Lenor Larsen founded the firm that bears his name in 1952. Over the past seven decades, Larsen - the company - has grown steadily to become a dominant resource for signature fabrics. The "Larsen Look" which began with Mr. Larsen's own award-winning hand-woven fabrics of natural yarns in random repeats has evolved to become synonymous with 20th century design at its pinnacle.
Known as an innovator, Larsen has won many awards and is one of only four Americans ever to be honored with an exhibition in the Palais du Louvre. More than a weaver, Mr. Larsen was a scholar, world traveler, and an authority on traditional and contemporary crafts. His home, LongHouse, located on 16 acres in East Hampton, NY, was built as a case study to exemplify a creative approach to contemporary life. He believes visitors experiencing art in living spaces have a unique learning experience--more meaningful than the best media. Inspired by the famous Japanese shrine at Ise, LongHouse contains 13,000 square feet, and 18 spaces on four levels. The gardens present the designed landscape as an art form and offer a diversity of sites for the sculpture installations.
A Note from our Founder and Artistic Director
For a long time now, I have been a maker - often of the less usual and with some success - for a time. While mid-century furniture endures, my cloths are in shreds, their successful exhibits long forgotten.
LongHouse - on the other hand - transcends, each year more splendidly. Best are the trees - both the giant oaks each year so knowingly pruned as to become bare-leaved - our finest sculpture and my favorite place of prayer. Next best, are the many trees planted long ago and now surprisingly, beautifully mature.
Friends used to ask about a Master Plan to which my response was, "I don't know yet what will be given us," recalling the ancient proverb: Be an open bowl that some opportunity might fall in! Now we see the coming together of the gardens, both the organic and the structured (manmade). And approximately subordinate, as is the evolving sculpture, an understatement so rare these days.
PS: In the same breath, I express gratitude for our memorial trees - both those given us and those dedicated - which each year becomes more noble.
- Jack Lenor Larsen, 2019
Learn More About Jack
- Watch this PBS NYC Arts Profile on Jack and LongHouse
- Watch HANDMADE IN AMERICA: Jack Larsen
- Click to view Larsen design "A Living Archive" at The Minneapolis Institute of Arts.
- Read about Larsen Inc.
- Read about Jack Larsen in Interior Design Magazine, August 2013
- Download Jack Lenor Larsen's Biography
- Download high-res B+W portrait of Jack Lenor Larsen by Paul Godwin.
- Paul Godwin Copyright + Contact Info
- Download high-res color portrait of Jack Lenor Larsen by Shonna Valeska.
- Shonna Valeska Copyright + Contact Info
- To view some of the magazine articles written about LongHouse Reserve and Jack Larsen please visit our Media page.
- Interview with Jack Larsen by Patricia Malarcher of Surface Design Journal.
Mr. Larsen's most recent book, Learning from LongHouse was published by Pointed Leaf Press in 2016.
Jack Lenor Larsen's LongHouse by Molly Chappellet was published in 2010 by Chronicle Books.
Both books can be purchased at INstore.