Auc. Obs 142: Pinto and Epstein, Lynch, Colombo
Hello, furniture only newsletter after today’s essay. Furniture after this quick news roundup.
ONE-BITE NEWS
Fascinating story on Curbed on Epstein and his interior decorator, Alberto Pinto and their relationship; David Lynch’s LA house has found a buyer—here’s the listing, TBD if it comes with the Coconut chair; related: this brownstone on Hicks Street sold for $14.99m—here’s the Zillow—only like one photo.
Obs 142
New era of plastic furniture
Most space age or plastic furniture we think of is round and fun…. the immediate heavy hitters—pieces placed in films, old movies, which show up reliably on good vintage IG accounts—almost feel organic but for their material. Think of the massive Kartell pieces (best seen in this book), Colombo’s guts chair, Wendell Castle’s Molar chair… it’s a confident application of theory: here’s one idea, heres its opposite, together. Simple. Maybe you need to do that to sand the plastic down, so to speak. So it’s not super crazy. And so what about this Marco Zanini chair? From 1986. Rectalinear, deco maybe, an inversion of Castle’s lounge piece:
Zanini worked for Memphis, he created pieces with Ettore Sottsass, its founder, but this piece is not as outre or out of pocket as those ones. It’s just the evolution of the material, to me, very backwards looking, very futuristic. The piece is part of this curator couple’s collection; Joel and Margaret Chen. Joel, a ‘master curator to the stars,’ he also has this IG account/store. Some amazing work on there.
One Zanini chair ended on LA; for $1,000-ish in 2010. Wouldn’t surprise me if he bought it. Strong collection, ends Thursday, LA. Some canon pieces, but many whose provenance comes from the dealer himself. If he likes it… you know? Was more or less the theory behind today’s previous essay. Below the paywall I’ll highlight my favorite standouts from the 282-deep lot of curious, confusing items.
Reminder: no affiliate links beyond the paywall—just S-tier pieces I own, have bought, believe in or recommend to clients. Pieces strong enough to buy now without reservation for your home. A paid subscription accesses this intel—and allows this newsletter to continue.
