Art Deco CHAIRS 1920-1940
Painted chair designed by Rietveld for a military club in 1932.
Modernist and Art Deco: About 1917, Dutch architect Rietveld, trained by father as a joiner, designs his first chair under- influence of Lloyd Wright, dispensing with traditional joints – type that becomes known as ‘Red and Blue’ (see CONSTRUCTION.) With other members of group associated with de Stijl magazine, believes ‘the machine contributes to the spiritualization of life’.
In 1919, Gropius established Bauhaus school of art and design at Weimar, moving to Dessau, 1925. Breuer- steel-framed ‘Wassily’ chair, 1925; Stam makes tubular metal and leather chair by Breuer 1924.
cantilevered chair, 1924-6, with versions by van der Rohe and Breuer also contending for first place. Van der Rohe designs Barcelona chair as exhibition piece, 1929 – still in production. Equally famous is Breuer’s steel and wood chaise longue, 1932.
In France, Le Corbusier works along similar lines, but pushed to perimeter of 1925 Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes – more decorative than modern industrial – devoted mainly to what is now known as Art Deco: Ruhlmann’s elegant armchairs and sofas with inlaid frames, Defrene’s three-piece suites upholstered in tapestry, the frames carved and gilt. Le Corbusier and Perriand design grand confort easy chair (1926) with tubular steel frame, leather upholstery, consistent with ‘beautiful equipment’ concept.Art Late 1920s and 1930s seat furniture combines best and worst of functional modernist and extravagant Art Deco styles, best elegantly streamlined, worst flashy and vulgar. Most distinguished work from Scandinavia, where trim chairs with seat and back forming continuous curves are designed about 1925 by Asplund, followed by Klint’s hand-made look, and Aalto’s use of steamed and bent plywood for cantilevered frames.
Modernist: Oak, ash, beech, walnut; birch plywood; tubular steel, leather, woven textiles.
Deco Chair, influenced by primitive African furniture, 1920s
Art Deco: Mahogany, walnut, rosewood, steel, fine leathers, suede, tapestry, printed textiles, wool moquette, uncut moquette.
Modernists reject traditional methods. Rietveld – a competent joiner – abandons mortiseand-tenon joints, making ‘Red and Blue’ armchair by screwing together, face to face, six uprights, four stretchers, two seat rails, a back rail, two narrow boards as arms and two wide ones as seat and back. Breuer, Stam, van der Rohe, Le Corbusier devise continuous shapes in tubular steel, thus obviating joinery. In 1930s, Breuer uses aluminium strips.
Art Deco essentially traditional, however novel in appearance; frames joined with mortise-and-tenon or dowel joints.
Modernists reject extraneous decoration, but are not brutalises as has been said; they see chairs, settees, chaises longues as forms of abstract sculpture, beautiful in themselves. Some designers, e.g. Rietveld, make use of contrasting colours; others, e.g. Kline, rely on the natural grain of the wood and on undyed leather.
Art Deco, while not neglecting line and form, puts great emphasis on decoration –marquetry in exotic woods, metal inlay, carving, lacquering. When cheap furniture trade attempts to reproduce effect of faintly decadent glamour, the result has all the charm of smeared lipstick.
Modernist: Natural woods, waxed or French polished and rubbed down to semi-matt. Early tubular steel nickel-plated, later types chromium-plated. Upholstery often made as separate units – squab cushions, pads.
Art Deco: Woods either natural colours or stained. Cheaper versions highly polished or cellulose sprayed. Better types very skilfully upholstered, cheaper ones badly finished. More traditional types, neither distinctly modern’ nor ‘Art Deco’, often supplied with loose covers (for further details, see the Box at the foot of this page).
Being the ‘antiques’ period nearest to the present, and the one in which mass-production came into its own, the 1920-40 period might be expected to offer a wide and inexpensive choice. In practice, the best modernist and Art Deco seat furniture is at least as expensive as that of other periods, and second-best that is worth having is hard to find; but auction sales in houses furnished in 1930s can provide excellent opportunities.
The practice of fitting loose covers dates back to 18thC, when – especially in France – sets were changed with the seasons. Nothing that early now likely to be concealed, but interesting chairs and settees dating from 19thC onwards can be found with original upholstery hidden and protected by tatty chintz covers.
Rosewood stool by Eileen Gray, 1920-5
Aluminium chair with plywood seat by Breuer, 1932.