WASHINGTON – Norman Polsky, Hon. FASID, well known for his philanthropy that included substantial grants and gifts to the American Society of Interior Designers Foundation, passed away on September 2, 2010, at the age of 86.
The founder of Fixtures Furniture, Polsky and his wife Elaine established nine endowments for leading interior design organizations, including ASID, in 1982 in honor of their son Joel, who died unexpectedly. In 1990, they established the Polsky Family Supporting Foundation, which has nearly 50 endowments today across a broad range of areas and has been a major contributor to the ASID Foundation. Polsky was made an Honorary Fellow of ASID in 1993.
Polsky’s contributions to the ASID Foundation include:
- The Joel Polsky Academic Achievement Award – an annual award that recognizes outstanding undergraduate or graduate student’s interior design research or thesis project.
- The Joel Polsky Prize, which recognizes outstanding academic contributions to the discipline of interior design through literature or visual communication.
- A matching grant to bring the Joel Polsky-Fixtures Furniture/ASID Endowment Fund to $1 million by 2011 in order to support the profession’s most critical social and environmental needs, particularly in the area of sustainability.
“The ASID Foundation will forever be grateful for the generous support that Norman showed for the foundation and the entire interior design profession,” says Penny Bonda, FASID, ASID foundation chair. “Norman will be deeply missed throughout the design community and our thoughts are with his family.”
More details of Polsky’s life can be found in his obituary in the Kansas City Star at http://bit.ly/d7D3ZP and in a forthcoming article in ASID ICON.
About ASID
The American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) is a community of people—designers, industry representatives, educators and students—committed to interior design. Through education, knowledge sharing, advocacy, community building and outreach, the Society strives to advance the interior design profession and, in the process, to demonstrate and celebrate the power of design to positively change people’s lives. Its more than 36,000 members engage in a variety of professional programs and activities through a network of 48 chapters throughout the United States and Canada. Visit www.asid.org to learn more.