MOSS
Murray Moss & Franklin Getchell · A Scrapbook

The reading room

Every source behind this site, annotated.

The archival spine of the scrapbook — profiles, interviews, oral histories, and press. Items marked “paywalled” are worth the click anyway.

  1. Murray Moss — Wikipedia The factual skeleton: Chicago origins, Columbia and NYU, acting career, Shamask 1978–1990, MOSS chronology 1994–2012, Moss Bureau. Verified against primary bios.
  2. MOSSBUREAU — About/Press Their own current shopfront. Full Murray and Franklin CVs, the complete awards list, and a curated wall of press quotes from Metropolis, NYT, Washington Post, Interior Design, IHT and more. The single best primary source for both men's careers.
  3. Design Miami/: Murray Moss & Franklin Getchell (2022) The definitive joint interview — the godfathers of collectible design on the pickle-jar x-ray tube, Tupperware as business model, Nymphenburg, Leonardo da Vinci, KAWS, their disruptive Design Miami/ debut, and the Achille Castiglioni inscription. Also announced Design Miami/ x MOSS, selling pieces from their private collection.
  4. What MOSS Means to Me — Design Miami/ A testimonial chorus: Alexandra Lange, Constantin & Laurene Boym, Dung Ngo, Fernando & Humberto Campana, Gaetano Pesce, Harry Allen, Hella Jongerius, Sarah Natkins — and Maarten Baas's full account of Where There's Smoke…, including "space shuttle launch platform."
  5. Legendary Moss Gallery Is Memorialized in a New Book — Architectural Digest (April 2018) Mayer Rus's history of the store on the publication of Please Do Not Touch: the founding inventory, Harry Allen's museum-staged interior, the legendary parties, the 1999/2005 expansions, and the 2012 shuttering. "The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long."
  6. Murray Moss: The Radical Gallerist Who Transformed Design — The Grand Tourist podcast (June 2024) Long-form conversation with Dan Rubinstein: Lincolnwood childhood, acting, fashion, the store's "Machiavellian manipulation" of display, living with Parkinson's, and the one worthless object he loves. Full transcript online; also on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
  7. Murray Moss Moves to America — 1stDibs Introspective (June 2017) Written by Murray himself: leaving Manhattan after 46 years ("we lived at court"), falling for Torpedo House at first sight, Alice Washburn's architecture, the stove-less kitchen, Stop & Shop culture shock, and object-by-object documentation of the house. The funniest primary source.
  8. The House Where Everything Is For Sale — Upstate Diary (Issue 7) Tony Moxham interviews both men at home, photographed by Don Freeman: daily 4am re-curation via towel-dragging, the Suicide Suite, most-hated objects, the house-gallery by appointment, gardening conversion, and the Alice Washburn research project. Room-by-room object captions are an education in themselves.
  9. Leaving the Shop, Not Curating, Behind — New York Times (Oct 2012) The Times' account of closing retail and opening Moss Bureau. Paywalled (403 to automated checks; opens fine in a browser with a subscription). Paywalled — no URL-free alternative found.
  10. Please Do Not Touch — Rizzoli, 2018 The memoir-compendium by Murray Moss and Franklin Getchell with Dung Ngo: the store's whole saga told "with giddy delight." Not linkable — buyable. The essential artifact. Book — no URL. Rizzoli / booksellers.
  11. Georg Jensen Reflections (Rizzoli, 2014) · Baccarat: Two Hundred and Fifty Years (Rizzoli, 2013) · Tertium Quid (August Editions, 2013) Murray's authored trilogy on heritage houses and the philosophy of objects. Books — no URLs.
  12. Press superlatives wall (via MOSSBUREAU) "Arguably the best design store in America" — NYT, 2003. "Once in a hundred years…" — Washington Post, 2003. "Best design store in the world" — IHT, 2007. "Pied Piper of avant-garde design, the Soho Savonarola of Sottsass, the Don King of Droog" — Interior Design, 1999. Collected at source [2].

Gaps & next passes

Known holes this archive hasn't closed yet: auction results and documented prices for specific MOSS-sold pieces; the full exhibition list of the 2005 Moss Gallery; Centovini and Inoteca-era restaurant press; the New York Magazine "Inside a Design Icon's Colonial Castle" feature; Modern Magazine's RISD lecture coverage; and Issue 13 of Upstate Diary on the press-photo collection. A second research pass can chase all of these.