George O'Brien, the Tiffany Designer

George O'Brien, who as design director of Tiffany & Company brought modern designers like Elsa Peretti into its fold and who as home furnishings editor of The New York Times edited its first book on home design, died on Wednesday at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. He was 78.
The cause was pulmonary failure, following a heart attack suffered on Monday morning, said his sister, Nancy Krantz.
The son of a truck driver and a schoolteacher, Mr. O'Brien served as a sergeant in the Army in Japan in the late 1940's before returning to Berkeley, Calif., his hometown, to attend the University of California.
After graduating, he moved to New York, where he worked in the publications department of the Museum of Modern Art in the 1950's before joining The New York Times. He served as the paper's home furnishings editor from 1961 to 1964. The next year, Mr. O'Brien edited "The New York Times Book of Interior Design and Decoration," which featured homes that he had published in The Times Magazine before he left the paper to become the modern living editor of Playboy in 1965.
By 1967, however, Mr. O'Brien had become disenchanted with dispensing design advice amid centerfolds and sex tips. Instead, he made another abrupt career move, succeeding his former companion, Van Day Truex, as the director of design and development of Tiffany.
Mr. O'Brien retired from Tiffany in 1978, and, not surprisingly, was replaced by Mr. Truex. He then worked as a freelance writer and editorial consultant for The New York Times. Mr. O'Brien was also a design consultant for private clients and organizations like Britain's National Trust, for which he created a collection of home furnishings and accessories based on antiques in historic English houses.

TIFFANY & CO. Elsa Peretti Open Wave earrings

TIFFANY & CO.Tiffany 1837 Circle bracelet

TIFFANY & CO. Atlas pendant

Wednesday, November 11, 2009