The Untold Art History of Gratz Pilates Equipment – Guest Blog by Caitlin Clancy
We’re so excited for this week’s guest blog post written by Caitlin Clancy!
Caitlin is the owner and founder of Classical Pilates with Caitlin, a Brookline, MA-based studio that also offers virtual lessons. With certifications from U.S. Pilates LLC, Balanced Body, and the Pilates Method Alliance (PMA), Caitlin is deeply committed to helping her students, from true beginners to seasoned instructors, rebuild their mind-body connection through Pilates. Her approach focuses on whole-body strength, balance, and flexibility, guiding each student to experience the harmony of movement with a personalized touch, whether online or in person. Check out her studio here!
Read on to learn about the incredible history behind Gratz Pilates, the first manufacturer of Pilates apparatus. And then check out Caitlin’s other guest-post about George Hoyningen-Huene: The Photographer Who Captured Pilates’ Legacy…
Discovering the History of Gratz Pilates
Here is a fun photo of me from some time ago in mid-September (let’s not count the years) attempting the “flagpole” with friends at The Dia Foundation’s Walter De Maria’s The Lightning Field in Western New Mexico. Gosh, remembering back, this was a spectacular landscape and breathtaking, almost otherworldly, example of Land Art to experience.
As I was thinking about what to write in this blog, I discovered that the artist Walter De Maria (1935-2013), the creator of The Lightning Field, had a surprising connection to Gratz Pilates, the maker of the new Reformer and Ladder Barrel that were delivered to my studio a few weeks ago.
In my excitement about this new equipment, I got curious and started to read about the Gratz Pilates Company. My heart sang as I learned the history of this amazing company, its early clients, and its direct link to Twentieth Century Art and Design. We’re talking Art Deco, Mid-Century Modern, Abstract Expressionism, and Conceptual Movements in Art and Architecture — all movements that the Gratz company had a foothold in!
Formally known as Treitel-Gratz Co., Inc., Gratz was founded in 1929 by Frank Gratz, an MIT-trained structural engineer, along with his partner Edward Treitel, the company’s salesman. Treitel-Gratz was a custom metal fabrication shop located on East 32nd Street in New York City. The company came up with concepts, designed industrial prototypes, architectural metal components, furniture, and sculpture for many (and I mean MANY) of the world’s greatest architects, designers, and artists, as well as for one remarkable first-generation instructor of Joseph Pilates in the 1960s.
David Rosencrans, the former President of Gratz Pilates, describes Frank Gratz as “a brilliant engineer. People could come with ideas, and he could figure out how to make them — the metallurgy, the alloys. He did structural engineering in metal.”
Iconic Design Collaborations and the Barcelona Chair
One of Treitel-Gratz’s early commissions included the interior metal elements of Radio City Music Hall in 1932. Frank Gratz even famously turned down a design by Frank Lloyd Wright for cafeteria chairs for the Guggenheim Museum, stating that the design was flawed and that the chairs would be weak and uncomfortable. Evidently Write “blew his top”…
In the 1930s and 40s, Treitel-Gratz fabricated and supplied the military with chairs and aircraft consoles.
In the mid-1950s, Frank Gratz’ son, Donald Gratz joined the family business and their workshop moved to Long Island City, New York. Gratz manufactured and produced several recognizable classic Mid-Century Modern furniture pieces. In 1948, Treitel-Gratz became the first company in the United States to manufacture Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona furniture for Knoll. This iconic Barcelona Chair was originally designed in 1929 for Mies van der Rohe’s German Pavilion at the Barcelona Exposition.
Have you ever seen the Barcelona chair? It will never go out of style. The Barcelona chair is so elegant in its simplicity with chrome plated flat steel, perfectly curved framework and an almost cantilevered seat.
A Legacy in Art and Architecture
The Architect, Charles Gwathmey (1938-2009) said in a New York Times 2003 article about Gratz Industries, “They are the last of a breed,” … “They have remained true to an ideal, and the ideal is quality. They do not compromise. They are craftsmen – very dogmatic, very precise.”
Not only Architects, Gratz has done work for all sorts of famous artists. Here are just a few with links next to their names – see if you recognize any of these works of art – all produced by or in collaboration with Gratz (formally known as Treitel-Gratz).
Gratz Pilates’ history is intertwined with that of many famous artists. Here are just a few who worked with Gratz (formally Treitel-Gratz):
The Pilates Connection
In the late 1960s, after Romana Kryzanowska, former student and first generation teacher for Joseph Pilates had taken on the task of running his New York City Pilates Studio after his death, approached Gratz Industries to fabricate new Pilates equipment based on the proportions and dimensions of the original “apparatus’” ~ the reformer, the cadillac, the wunda chair, ladder barrel and more, that Joseph Pilates himself had used.
Over the years, Gratz, now known as Gratz Pilates has become one of the principal manufacturers of Pilates equipment. In 2014, after 80 years in New York, the Gratz factory moved to Philadelphia.
Circling back to the photo of me “flagpoling” in the Lightning Field, Walter De Maria was yet another artist who worked in collaboration with Gratz Industries. Evidently in 1974, Gratz Industries built a smaller version of the Lightning Field as a prototype for the 1977 Lightning Field in Western New Mexico. ‘Small Lightning Field’ was located in Northern Arizona on land that was privately owned and “had 35 stainless steel poles with pointed tips, each standing 18 feet tall and 200 feet apart, arranged in a five-row by seven-row grid.”
The Dia Foundation’s Walter De Maria, The Lightning Field, built in 1977, that still exists today, consists of 400 stainless steel poles with pointed tips, arranged in a rectangular configuration 1 mile x 1 kilometer grid, each 220 feet apart. Each pole is 20 feet and 7.5 inches in height.
I hope you have enjoyed reading this newsletter and learning about Gratz Pilates, formally known as Treitel-Gratz!
Here is a picture of Walter De Maria at Gratz Industries. So neat!
About the author:
Caitlin was introduced to Pilates in the early 1990s, started teaching in 2016, and founded her own brick and mortar studio, Classical Pilates with Caitlin in 2023.
Caitlin is certified by U.S. Pilates LLC through the Classical Pilates USA Teacher Certification Program, the Balanced Body Comprehensive Pilates Instructor Certification, and the Pilates Method Alliance (PMA) certification.
Caitlin comes from an arts background, she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in Modern Dance from Sarah Lawrence College, a Master of Arts in Teaching degree in Art Education from Tufts University and had a 16 year career at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Resources:
– The New York Times, Heavy Metal, April 13, 2003. By Charles Gandee
– The New York Times, Donald Gratz, Metal Craftsman, Dies at 68, November 27, 2003
– Modernism Magazine, Gratz Industries The Great Unknown, by Sandy McLendon, pub. date unknown. This article was found as a PDF on the Rhinebeck Pilates Website.
– The Gratz Pilates Website pilates-gratz.com
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