Snake Auction Observer: good furniture, undervalued, or eternal, selected off LiveAuctioneers.com. This week—Pierre Paulin Norman Cherner, Magistretti, Thonet, Sorianas … Immediate auctions at the top, and Quick Hits at the bottom… but first:
Housekeeping:
Movie night in Toronto on FRIDAY. I will be SCREENING Graveyard of Honour (2002) and discussing it after. Here is the info.
Hit up Midnight Mass Books (DM) for tickets. Nearly sold out. Here is the trailer:
Ferrari… what to say? They simply must get it together.
Back in America—until I go to Canada (scroll up).
Auctions:
Paulin for Ligne armchairs, NYC: Super plain and understated armchairs by Pierre that have a recent look (and are indeed a recent manufacture) but which are an early chair, which he designed in 1953, and which is literally and actually called the TV chair… that year he also did the Ring sofa and the 119 (R&B group), the latter of which doesn’t much look like his work. Sometimes early items point to a designer’s later genius, sometimes the pieces are not quite there yet, sometimes they are hot dogshit… the one in the auction is the most nails of the three and points to the same shapes he’d use later—subtle curves in the back that show up in just about everything he did in the late ‘60s—which, to me, means it is something. And yet the chairs are so plain and boring that they slot in anywhere. No price history, which doesn’t matter since these are mostly retail chairs (run a thou each), and have to mention I did find these beach chairs he made in the completeds (unreal). House has paintings, some very up the middle mid-century—Alto, Eames— and this great, great Gwathmey & Siegel cocktail table. $300
Cherner walnut Pretzel chairs, NYC: Same auction above. Sometimes, though not often, I worry only like the old stuff only give older and/or Italian designers the benefit of the doubt. I’m more critical, not so much as a writer but as a buyer and as a person who edits a newsletter highlighting furniture auctions (and therefore threading out design) of designers who, say, don’t have white hair, or weren’t around in the 1970s, or who were not part of some important movement or who did not get cosigned by a high tier manufacturer. This is not to say young designers—I just don’t seem, I tell myself, to go feet-first on anything new like I do with something older than me. When I run across current work I shrug. Which seems off. This kind of close-mindedness might be taste—sure—and it is definitely not the worst thing in the world, but it is also definitely… something. There’s no way nothing now is any good, or that we’re in some severe retro moment, or even that we’re in a situation in which the best work that’s available will now and forever have been created in a small sliver of time around the moon landing. That’s why I’m glad to see these Cherner chairs. I ran across them searching and really am moved… well, moved in the way I tend to be about an A- piece of furniture that fits in with the rest of the room, and which is on auction, and which is just plainly sitting there might move me. (It’s a lower bar than having to affix the furniture you own to your personality. Your furniture doesn’t have to be the best in the world; but it’s not hard for it to be very, very good.) Which this is. Just great. A simple, easy and open chair, with similar lines to the Branzi Revers I wrote about last week, but with the darker wood it’s warmer and more organic. A little less negative, even, too. The Branzi is wild. Of course Cherner, a wood guy, was born over 100 years ago and has great work that is prominently featured in DWR, and has his own company. Norman is a great name. These run anywhere from a few hundred to a couple grand each; earlier models—originals, by Plycraft from the 60s are sharper and go for more—and there are lucite ones, too. Is there more great furniture out there than we can conceive? Most likely; most definitely. Of course people know about Cherner. But not everybody knows about anything. And just about no one knew anything about furniture even a year ago. Good or not, education or not, the jolt’s all that matters. $350 for the pair; another auction at $350 is selling just one.
Scarpa Soriana, white, NYC: Worst color of the Soriana, which lately have been running in the 5-7 large range, and this exact item having sold (but I guess not picked up) for $7,000 last year in December. I am an American, and love this sofa… but I like it less now that I see it very often. But I still love it… I don’t think this color makes sense for the style, though. The white makes it too Hollywood Hills/pretty/neutered and boring. White leather seating, unless it is in Belly (1998), is cowardice: it is a boring exit from the strictures of personal interior style. Like someone wearing all black. Even the $1,000,000 Royere polar bear sofa is only cool because it’s expensive. The couch itself is too sexy.
This theory, that white sofas suck ass, runs counter to my ideas, expressed in earlier newsletters explicitly and in subsequent ones as leitmotif, that all furniture, regardless of style or popularity, works in some context or other so long as it has a point of view and is confident. Of course current trends don’t affect timeless pieces of design. It’s just that leather shouldn’t be white. It goes against nature. This will go for either $6,400 or above $8,800. $1,500
Frattini (attrib.) oak, lacquer table, Hudson: One of these Frattini pieces that look super old, like the 836 chair, which is a reminder that despite his Italian name and plastic bonafides (the list is endless… we can start with the nesting tables and the cord lamp) the designer was actually born in the 1920s. This table is very decent (morally—can’t explain) and confident, with loud detailing—the little divots on the legs—and a sort of time clash between the craft wood and top lacquer… not sure this is by GF; I dug around in the depths of Italo web and the only other result is the same table on a Chairish also out of Hudson. Auction is heavy on cursed regency and Deco furniture, albeit with nice plastic, a couple Eames loungers and these perfectly upholstered Baughman chairs. Price is right even if it’s designed by some jerkoff; $400
Mourgue Bouloum chair, Hudson: From the auction above, this Bouloum (mistakenly called a Djinn in the listing) is one of the best pieces of furniture I’ve come across in an auction lately, in league with the anamorphic greats (Cardin mirror shaped like a guy, the Pillola lamps for all you creeps who don’t like to exercise)… but this one, in particular, jumps out because many French and Italian pieces tends to be displayed and sold only in primary colors, but this one is a light color pistachio… soft. It works. Sells for $700, $1,500, in between. Bouloum (and Djinns, which are this guy’s head as a headrest on a sofa) are not only primary colors, but they’re always pretty bright. Is this crap fake? Maybe. Probably. Probably not. But through it we see why so many other classic items (Boby) get done up with this treatment (pathetic app colors), and further down that line we see why companies that, say, hire engineers to disrupt the pots and pans industry stick to these colors. It’s a little softer and more palatable than superior (primary) colors. Ultimately, though, the designs for the pots and pans web companies don’t work; this chair does, because it’s shaped like a guy. You can’t app color the life out of a person, only out of an industry. Still, to be sure, they are trying. Snake Lock of the Week; $350
Hoffmann and Haerdtl chairs, Chicago: More Thonet, the 811 from 1928 or so designed by Josef Hoffmann, a massive architect born 200 years ago who designed the Kubus (wrote about it here:)
and this jardiniere for bieffeplast) and Oswald Haerdtl, whose work I don’t really like. Chair doesn’t look like other Thonet pieces; and indeed other 811s are thatched and made out of bentwood. This one, with the holes almost looks like it’s made by Artemide or something. One can’t say enough good things about this specific type of out-of-time furniture…
Which we can say is, oh, a piece that looks 50 years ahead of its time. Such pieces are the hourglass neck that let people set up their rooms in a couple different styles. They also show the limits of style descriptors, and, more broadly, of language. Part of a great Wright auction (Boyd mountain chair, Van Keppel low table); one listed before in 2018 and never sold. $500
Tomasa chair by Simon Gavina, NYC, flat shipping: Perfect avant wood chair here that looks backwards on 15th-century backwards looking chair here, designed as an homage to Paolo Uccello, the painter—the one with the horses, the other one with the horse… Chair made in the 1980s, or so, by what the auctioneer says is Simon Gavina, but which is really Studio Simon, which was a series of designs produced by Dino Gavina, an Italian designer, around the 80s. The studio’s since been acquired by Cassina, but this one is original Studio Simon, which makes this sort of like the Scat pressing of Vampire on Titus. These never end for any money; $1,400
Quick Hits
Ettore Sottsass Ultrafragola mirror, NYC, $2,500 (you’ve seen it)
Bennett for B&B Italia landscape chaise, NYC, $300 (perfect… perfect)
Deganello for Cassina AEO lounges, NYC, $500 (airport style.. evil)
De Sede grey leather loveseat, $350, Hudson NY (a fine get-me-over couch)
Tall Magistretti for Artemide Chimera lamp, $200 Hudson (classy)
Zeischegg sinus ashtrays for Helit, $50, Chicago (looks like Colombo, perf.)
Yrjo Kukkapuro for Newly blue swivel chairs, Chicago $4,400 (LORE next wk)
Roto ashtray by Colombo for Kartell, $200, NYC flat ship (Roto for an answer)
Solid chrome floor lamp, Kovacs/photoshoot style, $280, NYC flat (deal)
George Sowden Palace for Memphis chair, Pitt., $650 (former NSA contractor)
Thanks for reading.
Snake