Terence Harold Robsjohn-Gibbings was among the first of those named as "furniture designers". His longtime companion was Carlton Pullin.

British born, Robsjohn-Gibbings studied architecture at London University. He afterwards worked briefly as a naval architect, designing ocean liner interiors, and then as art director for a motion picture studio. In 1926, he became a salesman for an antiques dealer who specialized in Elizabethan and Jacobean furniture, and Robsjohn-Gibbings was assigned prominent accounts such as Elizabeth Arden and Neiman Marcus.

In the late 1930s and in the Forties, he was the most important decorator in America. After opening a shop on New York's Madison Avenue in 1936, Robsjohn-Gibbings proceeded to design houses from coast to coast for such scions as tobacco heiress Doris Duke, Alfred A. Knopf and Thelma Chrysler Foy.

The design work of T. H. Robsjohn Gibbings is hallmarked as a modern mixture of the classical elements of Ancient Greecian design and of Art Deco period design. It features mosaic floor reproductions, sculptural fragments, and sparse furnishings, all combining to achieve his trademark brand of modern historicism. He disliked the prevailing tastes of the day. He likewise considered Bauhaus-style modernism a fraud.

T. H. Robsjohn-Gibbings much preferred the visual vocabulary of the classical world, particularly ancient Greek furniture and design. Robsjohn-Gibbings' look was widely emulated, and from 1943-56 he worked as a designer for the Widdicomb furniture company in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

In 1960, he met Greek cabinetmakers Susan and Eleftherios Saridis, and together they created the Klismos line of furniture, which drew heavily on classical forms. It is still in production. Robsjohn-Gibbings eventually moved to Athens, where he became designer to Aristotle Onassis.