Chairs, Chair Design and Chair Designers
born and educated in Spain, currently based in London. Zeed was first presented at Tent London 2010. There is a welded steel and wooden version. Zeed is an excellent chair for chair installations. You can also sit on it when it is put upside down.
Only when I visited the Tecta booth at 2011 IMM Cologne, I realized Bauhaus founder and architect Walter Gropius had designed chairs as well. Here his F51 Chair and Sofa.
Discovered Yves Macaux, a Brussels, Belgium, based dealer who offers very interesting chairs for sale among which this Chair attributed to Joseph Maria Olbrich, one of the Viennese Art Nouveau designers around 1900.
Discovered RetroStart, or rather I believe they found us via twitter. This real Web 2.0 site is a must visit for those who are interested in Mid Century Design. They pointed me to the set of 4 Chaplins by Gerard van den Berg for Montis at Moetkunsten, a Dutch distributor of new and second hand chairs.
Die Zeit Armchair by Otto Wagner is another chair in the important Wiener Werkstätte auction in NYC coming March 3, 2011:
OTTO WAGNER
Rare armchair, for the dispatch bureau of Die Zeit, Vienna, ca. 1902
Beechwood, nickel-plated metal, aluminum, cord, fabric. 30 3/4 in. (78.1 cm.) high Produced by Jacob & Josef Kohn, Austria. Underside stamped with “J. & J. Kohn/Teschen Austria.â€
ESTIMATE $35,000-45,000
via Phillips de Pury & Company.
My view: It seems very similar to the Postsparkasse chair….and already Art Deco.
See for instance the one that was auctioned, but probably held up at Wright in 2006:
According to Wright made by:
Thonet
Austria, 1906
stained beech wood, aluminum, upholstery
21.75 w x 23.25 d x 31 h inchesVienna’s Postparkasse, or Post Office Savings Bank, is Otto Wagner’s most important public commission and a landmark of modern architecture. This project illustrates Wagner’s pioneering use of aluminum as a new and modern material in architecture and design. Produced in a small series exclusively for the board room of the Post Office Savings Bank, this armchair utilizes aluminum both as a durable material for everyday use, and as a detail that fuses the design with overall architectural concept. Signed with manufacturer’s paper label to underside: [Thonet Wien] and stamped: [Thonet].
In 2008 a similar chair fetched $16,250 at Christie’s in a NYC sale.
In London at Christies there was not much interest in two leather upholstered ones in 2007 ($2,559) See Lot.
In 2000 at Christie’s (again NYC) this ebonized with aluminum one fetched $35,250.
Cord versus upholstery vs leather? Thonet vs J&J Kohn – who, mind you, later acquired the certain parts of the Thonet portfolio? New World loving this chair more than the Old World? Many questions…
Curious what this one will fetch in NYC.