In June 1988, founders Mark Pollack, Rick Sullivan and Susan Sullivan, all alumni of Jack Lenor Larsen, launched their new venture - POLLACK & ASSOCIATES - with a memorable collection of 22 textile designs targeted to the high-end contract interiors market.
Since then, the line has flourished and expanded into the residential and hospitality markets, as a more decorative aesthetic was combined with the company’s solid technical foundation. Today, the wide ranging collection is celebrated for fabrics that easily cross the lines of these individual segments, fabrics marked by sophisticated design, intricate construction, nuanced color palettes and timeless elegance.
Now in its twenty-eighth year, POLLACK continues to thrive under the creative leadership of Rachel Doriss, VP and Design Director. The collection boasts over 500 patterns, as classics mingle with new designs that are brought to market with enviable consistency.
The company merged operations with Weitzner Limited, a highly regarded wallcovering company known for its innovative designs in 2011. With a worldwide following, POLLACK continues as a privately held boutique company and currently employs approximately 70 people in its New York City headquarters and showroom and its Jersey City, NJ warehouse
By the time he left his namesake company in 2012, Mark Pollack had spent twenty-four years as its Design Director, and had firmly established his reputation as one of the industry’s most original and widely recognized talents. Drawing equally on his background in and sustaining passion for the fine arts, and his meticulous understanding of fabrics’ technical construction, Mark explored never-tried options. Mills around the world welcomed this challenge and professionalism, and partnered with the POLLACK studio to produce some of the most innovative, beautiful and well-crafted fabrics in the trade.
One of the most distinguishing characteristics of a POLLACK textile is the subtle presence of the designer’s unique hand. While CAD speeds up the design process, Mark cautioned that there is an important difference between designing a pattern and designing a textile. “The tools of a textile designer’s trade are not just the pattern. It is the yarn, the yarn twist, the finish, the color, it’s everything.’’ That the whole cloth, both what we see and how it performs, is important remains one of the legacies of this exacting artist.
A 1976 graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, Mark turned to his alma mater for both talent - recruiting graduates, including Rachel Doriss, for the POLLACK studio - and inspiration, as seen in the two highly successful collections drawn from artifacts in its museum’s archives. In 2008, he was awarded the school’s Athena Award for Alumni Achievement, one of numerous honors that Mark has received; BOY Awards, profiles in Interior Design, New York Home and HomeStyle magazines, inclusion of his widely published designs in many gallery and museum exhibits and collections are among his other accomplishments. The catalogue for the National Design Triennial at the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum summarized, “Mark Pollack’s commitment to experimentation in a field known for its pragmatism is quite extraordinary. A full 20 percent of his designs are never realized - a design investment repaid in full by the stunning beauty of those that are.”