Whether shaping steel into elegant lines or coaxing color across paper, Muriel Coleman distilled form to its purest essence—each piece, whether furniture or watercolor, a testament to modernism’s timeless grace and the artist’s unerring eye for beauty. Muriel Evelyn Coleman (1917–2003)Pioneering American designer, Muriel Evelyn Coleman, was a master of turning limitation into beauty. In the years following World War II, when traditional materials were scarce, she embraced the challenge—transforming rebar, metal rods, and industrial strips into graceful, modern furniture of striking simplicity. A member of California’s Pacific Design Group, Coleman’s work captures the optimism of mid-century modernism, where clean lines met inventive spirit. Each piece is a study in restraint and proportion, revealing how necessity can give rise to timeless elegance. Honored in the Autry National Center’s California’s Designing Women, 1896–1986, Coleman’s designs remain as relevant and desirable today as when they first emerged, treasured by collectors for their history, rarity, and enduring style. Though celebrated for her influential mid-century furniture, Muriel Evelyn Coleman also expressed her vision through the delicate medium of watercolor. Her paintings, often capturing architectural forms and evocative landscapes, reveal the same refined sense of proportion and restraint that defined her design work. With a confident yet fluid hand, she balanced structure and spontaneity—allowing light, shadow, and pigment to mingle in a way that brought depth to her subjects. These works offer collectors a rare glimpse into Coleman’s broader artistic practice, where her modernist sensibilities meet the lyrical possibilities of watercolor. While Coleman exhibited in New York City, San Francisco, at the National Academy of Design, and the National Association of Women Artists, her paintings have not been shown for 40 years. Created at height of her career, “Self-Portrait” is the rarest of her originals. It is the only one of its kind in the world, as she never created another piece in her likeness.