Snake Auction Observer: good furniture, undervalued, or eternal, all selected off LiveAuctioneers.com. This week—an all-timer from Pierre Paulin, Verner Panton’s best stool, some Kartell and Artemide… Immediate auctions at the top, and Quick Hits at the bottom, but first…
Housekeeping:
Norman Foster exhibit at the Pompidou is very good; I mentioned him last week in the newsletter. The 1997 Big Bang exhibit at the Palais Galleria was excellent. Incredibly selected, very direct… best clothing exhibit I’ve seen. The Met when it displays clothes always leaves me a bit flat.
Even the eclairs in Paris aren’t sweet. I don’t think sugar is the problem behind America being 40% pre-diabetic... But I do think this means something.
The first barbershop in New York to offer a $7 haircut will live forever. What small business owner is man enough to face success?
Ferrari — Monaco — Sunday. Will they get it together? Hard to say.
Auctions:
Thonet executive desk, Ill., in-house shipping: A better than decent, and outright new shape from Thonet, founded in Germany in the 1800s and best known for bentwood chairs. Plain, perfectly still looking, and a harsh tinge with the simple nasty white top here. 1960s or so, but looks newer—or a later take on the staid shapes that were everywhere during that era. Nice thing about a big furniture company is pieces can be like this—half ugly, takes chances—because it is in the interest of the company to take risks and advance as they get into a few decades into it. Thonet here was about a century old. The other options for companies lucky enough to survive that long is pivoting to more corporate, practical designs. Same one didn’t sell earlier this year; other Thonet desks, such as the B91 by Marcel Breuer, run between 1,500 and 5 large. Auction also has Probber, glass. $1,500
Lazzeroni for Fasem chairs, Gallotti table, Ill., IHS: Let’s call this a stealth design auction: a table and chair set that looks unremarkable at first and upon closer view has a lot more to it. New to me—the chairs are by Roberto Lazzeroni, a Florentian designer who does much in wood (and is not far off from Wendell Castle), for Fasem, (Italian designer who made some nice work with Matteo Grassi). The table is an Ra Fx from 2004 designed by Pierangelo Gallotti, one of the guys behind Gallotti&Radice, who worked mostly in glass and who I wrote about in issue 40. Not post-modern, just late: the table base’s column narrows up, which is hideous, and the chairs are complicated and massive while being weak. No matter—this has been auctioned before and never sold; the Lazzeronis that sell are different, as are the G&Rs. $1,600
Karim Rashid Cadmo for Artemide floor lamp, Ct., IHS: These lamps, designed sometime around 2006 by Rashid (lots of designs, a graduate of Carleton University in Otawa), are of the same species as the tall Rudi Stern LED lamps (from Uncut Gems) and the totems by Guy de Rougemont (artist), both of which offer a very narrow footprint, some or no light and real aesthetics. All hinting at a future where fonts don’t have serifs and lights don’t come from bulbs and even very tall items don’t have wide bases. This one, though, is optimistic: the curves make it, and looks almost like Steinway Tower, or the one next to it. Artemide is a safe bet always for strong second-tier items—i.e. lamps and towers that are good enough until you get your dream piece, and may be fine until well past then. Probably best known for their Tizio lamps by Richard Sapper. These never sold before; they stick out from ann auction heavy on gilded furniture, and gold leaf, and white. $1,600
Hans Luckhardt DESTA ST16 swivel chair, Chicago: Another masterpiece item from the 1930s, which, the more I think about it, may be the second-best decade for design. It’s all in there: very new, very sleek, very modern, very strong… there is contrast here (very simply, the circle base and the plain chair), a couple colors, and stymied expectations—look at how uncomfortable that seat is—and with so few lines and less fuss. What a perfect, great piece. Luckhardt, German, was an architect and designed items with his brother Wassili (also an architect), including the ST14 chair that’s not as good. They were part of the Glass Chain—possibly the best-named art group there was (actually a correspondence of architects talking ideas).... DESTA is short for Deutsche Stahlmobel… this chair has auctioned recently a couple times, around $900. Part of a very loaded auction that includes lots of lesser-seen Nordic wood items, an amazing Oscar Torlasco lamp, a Nelson & associates wall thing (insane), Probber, Sottsass and a beautiful Alfredo Barbini vase. $500
Paulin F-444 lounge chairs, Chicago: You get into a designer and then over them and get into them again—it works this way with music and art, let’s say, but design especially, I feel, and regarding the great designers, or, I should say, the ones who work for a long time and stay good for about that long. In those cases much of their work doesn’t much in common at first glance, though they are all threaded through the designer. I suppose they all speak to each other, but a random selection of two often fails the “did the same person design these?” test. This is Paulin? In any event, people are very smart and the average person with eyes and a brain can understand and make the connection between this item and another one by him if they’re given a minute. This one is special, it’s from 1963, coming after his Mushroom chair but before the Ribbon. But much more spare. Also in leather, though this one, in simple and dull and even quiet mesh, stands out. Made for Artifort, a Dutch company—they did the Ribbon, and the ABCD too. Would pair well with the Kagan Erica chair that’s also on the block. These don’t come up that often, and run around 2 large. $1,500
Verner Panton 270H stool, Chicago: Panton always seems less exciting than his name, which includes every color under the rainbow. I always, though, believed he could do great things, though he died 15 years ago… this stool may rise well above the rest of work (he’s Danish, he has lots of plastic chairs, some mushroom lamps and some nice hanging lamps). It sits in the timeless realm of insanely simple and strong direct… I can’t say masculine… artistic? true? furniture. What a masterpiece. This was made in 1965…. for Thonet. Of course… few list, none have sold—they come with the 270F, an armchair, and those run, as a pair, around a thou. Priced lower than the auction’s other lots (which are fairm albeit premium), and as such, receives the distinct honor of the Snake Lock of the Week; $400
Kartell combo ashtray trash can, CT, IHS: Great, simple accessory, not a molecule out of place, and two things, like many Kartell trash cans. Can’t find a name for this or another one for sale. This one is the the exact same color red as the door to Domino the sex worker’s shared apartment (with redhead roommate) in Eyes Wide Shut, the documentary, which I caught this weekend at a theater here in Paris. I think I might have seen it once before at Metrograph, and before that in theaters opening night. (I was vegan back then and snuck in a bag of Bar-B-Q flavored Doritos, which had come out that week, and tried not to crunch them during the racier scenes.)
A month ago I was researching Kubrick for work and caught the documentary about Stanley Kubrick’s boxes—that’s the title, it’s on Vimeo—which contains a scene and an anecdote about the director enlisting his nephew to photograph thousands of doors and going through sheafs of photos for the exact right color and shape door for the Domino character’s apartment. Not exactly overkill, but a distraction? Is the door really that important? There’s a to-do about Kubrick and how perfect and rewatchable his films are. How much of that is the door? Many other directors create shambling work that’s just as perfect. Anyways, I was wrong—at the theater the door very much jumped out. Probably a Dante thing. Big screen’s really about 3/4 of movie making. Anyways, no designer on this one, and so in line with what makes Kartell work: nostalgic, pragmatic, not campy, almost grim, very minimalistic and loud color, a take on an obvious, existing shape. Trash cans at school look like this; they always have. No price history, seller also has Mogensen, a nice Johansen mirror, and some great Danish Pendants, like this one by Wohlert and Bo and an even stronger one by Jo Hammerborg. $50
Quick Hits:
Venturi for Swid Powell turkey carvers, Fl., $1 (nuff said)
Mangiarotti Saffo for Artemide lamp ~1970, Chi., $300 (quiet, minimal, sweet)
Francois Monnet console for Kappa, Chicago $1,000 (we’ve all seen this)
Sottsass Malabar cabinet, Chicago $2,000 (wild to see stateside)
Swid Powell playing cards dinner set, Wash. state, $100 (Steal)
Poul Henningsen Panton-style lamp, Denmark IHS (great Danish pendant)
Baughman-style bench (metal), CT IHS, $50 (classic second-tier item)
Four Piretti Castelli Plia chairs with marking, CT IHS $60 (important, great)
Thanks for reading.
Snake
Love to see Chicago get some love in this issue. Wright and Hindman are giants, but the vintage reseller scene there is great too.