The Hopmi Theater Folding Chair by Gerrit Thomas Rietveld


I’ve featured the discovery of the Hopmi chair in 2008.

Later I’ve featured the re edition of a certain number of new Hopmi Chairs. A friend of mine bought one of them so I have my own photo of that one.

Now I found out that there is a sequel. There seem to exist several Hopmi Folding Theater chairs. Van den Bruinhorst is a Dutch curator, dealer and restaurateur of mid century furniture in Kampen and has one of the folding chairs for sale.

About the Chair:

Bent and welded steel with special patented joints called “Torpedo” nuts, plywood and beach. The frame, seat, arm- and backrests with the original monochrome paint. Marked “Hopmi” with a small transfer underneath the seat. Dim.: 56 x 46/55 x 90,5 cm

From 1932 – 1934 a small locks- and Bicycle parts factory called Hopmi worked together with the furniture manufacturer U.M.S. in the city of Utrecht, making modern tubular furniture. One of the main characteristics of this furniture was a special joint called the “Torpedo”- nut ,with which the furniture could be taken apart in small particles.

The Dutch architect and designer Gerrit Th. Rietveld made two designs for Hopmi, a folding chair for the cinema Vreeburg in Utrecht and a dining chair. In 1932 the Rietveld folding chair was also used in a new Remonstrant church at the Diepenbrockstraat in Amsterdam. For this occasion the chair was adapted with a more curved (ergonomic) seat, arm- and backrest. We don’t know if and in what way Rietveld was involved in these adaptions. The chairs in our collection is the adapted version from the Amsterdam church in its original condition.

Provenance:
Remonstrant Church, Diepenbrockstraat Amsterdam, 1932
Private Dutch Collector 2001

About the Callery

Gallery History
The gallery was founded by Aagje Voordouw and Ad van den Bruinhorst. Ad began working as a vintage design dealer in 1992 after he studied fine arts. Being a great admirer of the modernist movements from the twenties and thirties, he focused on Dutch Design from the interwar period.

Through archival research and restoring the objects in person he became an expert in this field. This expertise was valued by his customers, the avid collectors, but also came to the attention of museum curators, documentary makers, art historians and publishers. He was asked to perform in documentary films, to participate in museum exhibitions, to write articles for art magazines and to be a speaker at symposia.

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Chairs!
gje