A pioneer of modern furniture and interior design in Mexico, the Cuban-born designer Clara Porset spent her early years studying art, architecture and design at Columbia University in New York, and later at the Sorbonne University in Paris.

Known for her radical politics, Porset was expelled from Cuba multiple times and ultimately settled in Mexico in 1935, where she spent much of her career investigating the intersection of tradition and modernity. She frequently visited local craft workshops, occasionally with Josef and Anni Albers who visited her annually, and used this research to inform her furniture designs for architects, including Luis Barragan, Enrique Yanez and Max Cetto.

A fierce proponent of historical craft traditions, she developed contemporary versions of classic Mexican vernacular forms, such as the butaque chair, a lowslung, wooden frame chair —itself a hybrid of Spanish and Pre-Colombian archetypes. Like Michael van Beuren, she also won a prize at the Organic Design in Home Furnishings competition in 1941, which she entered with her husband, the Mexican artist Xavier Guerrero, but he was given sole- credit for the design in the exhibit’s publication.

By the 1950s, Porset was a fully recognized figure in the Mexican design scene; a visionary designer and curator known for her continual efforts to reconcile traditional craftsmanship with industrial manufacturing. She dedicated her life to teaching, which she did until her death in 1981, leaving an indelible mark on both her students and the history of Mexican design.