Biography
"The former wrestler and largely self-taught furniture designer Russell Spanner created three lines of residential furniture (Ruspan Originals, Catalina and Pasadina) that reflect the Canadian furniture industry of the fifties: solid and earnest but with enough personality to transcend its manufacturing compromises. He made it a virtue to reuse (and eventually, continuously improve) standard components, thus creating a recognizable style.
Spanner Battery Separator Company was founded in the early twenties by Russell's father, grandfather and uncle, initially to make wooden battery boxes and, later, battery boxes. As the demand for battery boxes declined, the company phased in furniture manufacturing. Russell, who had studied architectural drafting at Toronto's Northern Vocational and Technical School, joined the company as night foreman in 1941, three years after the firm's name was changed to Spanner Products. His designs had an impact only after his father, Albion Spanner, retired in 1948 and Russell and his brothers, Doug and Oliver (Herb), took over the firm.
Russell's first line, Ruspan Originals, aimed at young post-war families, also found flavour with the chic hostesses of the day. a 1953 Canadian Homes and Gardens article shows well-known women using Originals dining chairs. It became Spanner's most extensive line, ultimately featuring twenty-eight modular pieces that could be combined in a myriad of ways.
Two years later, Spanner followed up with the aesthetically more refined Catalina line. Distributed through Eaton's, Simpson's and independent retailers, it appears most frequently in the collector's market. Spanner reached the apex of his design career by 1953, with the Pasadena line, the centrepiece of which is a cork-topped table, No. 534.
By the late fifties, the business's rapid expansion and changing taste conspired against the family-run firm. Spanner reinterpreted the prevailing Scandinavian style and was awarded by the NIDC but not by buyers. The firm produced contract furniture for hotels and motels and laboratories that often exhibited more verve than was customary or, perhaps, necessary or practical. By 1961 Spanner had parlayed his factory-floor skills into a position as plant manager at Ontario Store Fixtures in Toronto. Two years later, the assets of Spanner Products were auctioned off."