George Nelson was, together with Charles & Ray Eames, one of the founding fathers of American modernism. George Nelson studied Architecture at Yale University, where he graduated in 1928. He also received a bachelor degree in fine arts in 1931. A year later while preparing for the Paris Prize competition he won the Rome prize With Eliot Noyes, Charles Eames and Walter B. Ford. George Nelson was part of a generation of architects that found too few projects and turned successfully toward product, graphic and interior design. Based in Rome he travelled through Europe where he met a number of the modernist pioneers. A few years later he returned to the U.S.A. to devote himself to writing. Through his writing in "Pencil Points" he introduced Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Gio Ponti to North America. At "Architectural Forum" he was first associate editor (1935- 1943) a later consultant editor (1944-1949). By 1940 George Nelson had drawn popular attention with several innovative concepts. In his post-war book: Tomorrow's House, for instance he introduced the concept of the "family room". In 1945 De Pree asked him to become Herman Miller's design director, an appointment that became the start of a long series of successful collaborations with Ray and Charles Eames, Harry Bertoia, Richard Schultz, Donald Knorr and Isamu Noguchi