Free Snake Auction Observer 082: Tom Wolfe's furniture book; cheap patterns... Hoffmann, Corbu
Chairs, vases, mirrors, tables...
Early May—great time of the year. I would rate this week’s auctions a solid 6.75 out of 10. There are some statement pieces, lots of seating, kitchen stuff. No housekeeping. On the block:
Four sets of chairs
Vases, mirrors
One very big table
Some architectural models
Couple dozen rugs
Obs. 82
No-name faux shearling chairs, Ct.: Tues morning... Anonymous chair here, no designer, the look dates it to the early 1960s, maybe… Very quickly… it’s the texture here. The texture is nice. Though the lines are more domestic than a Royère… this is an accessible version of an Ours Polaire… i.e., with some Danish and La-Z Boy influence. Less arresting in dark blue, almost neutral. It’s nice to see a piece of mid furniture that puts a great one in context. The Polar Bear can’t be broken down in a sentence, but so much of its magic comes from its color… the white doesn’t work on this chair (too much going on with the arms)… but even with the unfortunate design decisions here it’s still pretty charming. Not a lot going on in this auction aside from this nice Bega table. $3,200
Stephens for Knoll 1300 chair, Mass.: Wed… and you can go even deeper on patterns. One would think there is an even deeper diffusion of colors. But I’m not an expert on that. Patterns do have a caste to them. Not as many patterned items from France, some from Italy—Maralungas—and patterned items are often either very old (or old-looking; retro Victorian furniture), or modern American. And the modern patterned furniture is either an affordable variant or a crazy one… fun or accessible… occasionally, though not always both. There are fancier patterned sofas—I’m thinking of the toile chair in Sierra’s Q&A the other day—and there are more difficult/experimental ones, like this Eames Compact:
What a masterpiece. What a great couch. I think the Eames works better than the chair above in the auction, since with the Compact the contrast between the form (pretty conservative and strait-laced sofa) and color (evident) is massive… but then again such contrast is to my taste. The one above has a nice Finnish-American thing going on. Bill Stephens did this chair for Knoll; other work is harder to find. The chair slots in with a nice back catalog of items that are derivative of foreign design (Finland), but which also Americanize them. The big dogs are Jack Lenor Larsen, a worthy subject of an in-depth Lore, and Alexander Girard, whose output might be at its market nadir… JLL’s work was fancy, like toile… but as the items have hit auction and vintage stores many have begun to look degraded and cheap. They deserve better; but they can’t really be reupholstered. These Stephens chairs don’t sell for much; $200
Dialogo by Scarpa for B&B chairs, Mass.: What a great set of chairs. The steel here is not… definitively “Italian.” Looks very 1930s. They’re also in very good shape. And so there’s a juxtaposition. Also the armrests: completely for show. You can’t put your arms on those things. Just a beautiful statement, as well as a beautiful chair, regal in the way that the best B&B Italia furniture can be. There are other Dialogos that are more common, without the arms:
About Tobia Scarpa: Bastiano (some produced in Finland), the Soriana, the Monk chair, a bed... the 925… so many hits. I haven’t seen these on auction before… a couple have sold, sometimes for peanuts, sometimes for like $800 each. some of the best purchasable items in the world are made from white ABS plastic. The house is selling the Stephens above and has a few other amazing items for auction:
Ittala Glass birds (just perfect)
1990s Pizza Hut lamp (with provenance) and lots of other glass..
With this set of 4 asking $300 and the Snake Lock of the Week.
WWII julep cup by Searce prototype, Ct: I love the Tom Wolfe book about furniture, “From Bauhaus to Our House,” though I suppose it is very reactionary. Maybe not politically; but he just doesn’t believe in modernist seating or architecture. It’s a tricky book, the thing… it’s very short, almost like John McPhee’s “Oranges”… but it’s a long screed. It’s so good. It’s Tom Wolfe shooting from the hip, because he feels like it, about furniture. And then throwing the hammer down. He spends a lot of time shitting on very good stuff. As a reader… it is great. Wolfe’s book doesn’t believe in punitive design: he doesn’t like concrete blocks, or items that speak to and acknowledge… industrialization, or were built with industrialized techniques… i.e., lots and lots of things since the ‘30s. Published in 1981, he saves his vitriol for things made in the 1930s honestly—there is scant if any criticism of Italian and French (even American) design since the 1960s. It is instead about the Barcelona chair, and the young professionals who at the time would save up for them. (If they did…)
There are a lot of strong points in the book. Wolfe likes the fancy stuff and collected it. He might have even loved it. He asserts in places that the strictures by Gropius and the minds that followed him were, in some ways, naked careerism: our view of the world now, he makes WG and co say, is that ornamentation is bourgeois and unnecessary, and, therefore wrong. And that we should design your office buildings and universities, or your important institutions will be left in the dust. It’s clearly not that simple (I’m oversimplifying it a great deal; he has a grudging respect for Bauhaus’ ideas and daps them up for having made changes), but one sees the roots of the derision pretty clearly. Wolfe is advocating here for some honesty… couldn’t they just say they wanted to make concrete slab buildings? Couldn’t they just admit to the provosts or the people approving construction that this was a scam? Why wasn’t anyone else pointing out that all these people who were writing checks had been suckered? But then Wolfe always cuts to people’s motivations, and always creates a dynamic (in his reporting, anyways) of an elite class of thinkers and the people with money who draft behind them. And so it’s as much a critique of furniture as it is of striving. Part of me, when I re-read this book recently, understood Wolfe to be saying that Gropius and Bauhaus were secret bourgeois strivers… but could not admit it. Or at least the people not eating at restaurants so they could buy Barcelonas secretly wanted to be bourgeois… but then Wolfe thinks that about lots of people. It is evident that Gropius and co., after they got to America, wanted to work and make money. But who can blame them for that? What else is there to do during the day?
It can be difficult to divorce the tone from the analysis with Wolfe. But it’s a treat to have someone write on furniture with such ease and capcity. As for whether brutalism or (superficially) simple design is really ugly… well, taste is taste. But it’s clearly not. Personally, I can’t disagree with him more. I don’t think he’s responsible for the right-wing veer towards classical architecture… straight lines are very beautiful. There are many beautiful punishing buildings in Ottawa.
It’s hard to not internalize some of Wolfe’s case. Gilded is nice. Ornamentation can be beautiful. Life is about extras. Who needs austerity? If there is a moral case to be made against redundancies, extras, gildedness, well… I don’t know if it extends into regular workers’ homes.
These feel correct to me. They’re julep cups, born from 1940s World War II metal rationing… gilded and simple. Enough embellishment in the design that nobody’s being punished. Brutalism, then, was needed. You can’t have your whole hut look like this, but some can. Mid or high hundreds; house has a great Jensen coffee set, chantilly flatware and some fiestaware. $200
Hoffmann occasional table, NJ: Josef Hoffmann is one of the best; one of his occasional tables listed and sold last week:
This one is lighter and simpler. It is gripping. Auction says it’s from 1905, which feels staggering. It’s so spare. There is also somewhat of a demonic Michael Graves element to this thing, with the black balls and light wood. Nothing really like this by Hoffmann has sold before. House, near N.Y., selling what they describe as an important private collection; indeed… also on the block is this sharp Art Deco pedestal table, lots of silverware (Ponti; Rohde, plus Tiffany serving articles) and this underpriced Arts & Crafts table. $700
LC3 chairs, Corbu for Cassina, Md.: Ends Sat… The 1980s variants with the perfect cushions and leather and dimensions, though the sofa is better, because it spills out. (One is ending in a week and a half.) Has the beautiful etching on the metal (and in very great shape) too. While it is hard to find more automatic chairs, they are also very… canonical. Or perhaps, they just aren’t that shocking. And so if you’re looking to make a statement you will need to freak the other parts of your hut (lamps, tables, paint, dining chairs, accessories…). But doing so is a fun task. These have been going for good money lately, $1,000 or so each. House has lots of grandma furniture, some great rugs (this Chinese Nourmak, this Tibetan and an Indian Sarouk are my favorites) and a deep selection China, some of which defies description, e.g. this export Scotsmen plate. Too good. $750 for the pair
Gariboldi for Ginori ceramic vase, Me.: I love this thing. It looks like a water jug. Growing up there was a family story about how a relative in the old country walked from Mosul abroad with their life savings (probably gold; it was a century ago) in a hot water bottle. They left it on the bus when they got to town. Then someone found it and everything was OK. I love that story. This thing looks exactly like what I have imagined for years that water bottle to be. More germanely… it shows the breadth of influence under Ginori, the since 1735 Italian… porcelain house. (The guy who founded it wasn’t named Richard.) Gariboldi (Giovanni) was a sculptor, started with RG in his teens. He made so much beautiful work… what stands out to me is this table setting (super modern), and this mirror:
That feels like a major piece. Endless… House also has:
Samuel Calder vase (not bad)
Very old-world Bitossi ceramic ashtray (really good)
A perfect coffeemaker, a McIntosh stereo and a Nauga Monster—good auction. $50
Supertest restroom mirror, Ontario: Ends Sunday… A beautiful mirror, almost Milan 1976. It must be noted here that the item is marked “Canadian Pittsburgh industries Limited” on the back. I think it’s a paint company. None of the other items in the lot have that marking, everything else is gasoline ephemera. There is no kitsch here because of the font (and the word super); not that far off, this late at night, from the Gariboldi mirror above. $25(Cad)
Quick Hits
Crinion for Knoll chairs, $1,800, Ill. ends Tues… (nice early Knoll wood)
FLW fallingwater model, $140, Pa. (strange)
Kita Wink for Cassina chair, leather base?, €200, Belgium ends Wed… (fascinating color choice here with the base; makes no sense. Pictured)
Borsani D70 sofa, €1,400, Italy (in Europe, but too good not to share)
Aulenti Jumbo table, $4,600, Mass. (magisterial piece, just perfect)
Ginori porcelain plates, $50 Bk. ends Sat… (nice ‘70s mod design here)
Saarinen Tulip chair pair, $100, Maine (textbook; below value)
Venini Cardin vase, $200, Maine (one of his best… designed by Ludovico Diaz de Santillana… also one of the best)
FLW Guggenheim model, $375, NJ (Pesce said this is the only real building in NYC)
Thanks for reading.
Snake