Early March, a false spring, a week with scant new listings—not sure why—but many up on the block now, a regular workweek in which your humble narrator got sick (not that sick; I don’t get sick; first time getting sick in two years) thus delaying the newsletter by one (1) day. Still, rare light auction day Tuesday; I dropped a couple of the best ones on my stories, found through my Instagram. Follow me there.
A steady week of auctions; lots of American modern, some Italian, some 1920s and ‘30s. As always, buying furniture on auction, if done right, is always a deal; reading about these auctions allows for the widest possible range of goods. I think so. To expect below:
A few dozen undervalued items, of which I’d say maybe a third (half?) are canon… much Knoll, some 1920s, some 1970s…
Lots of lighting, especially, a few great chairs, lots of seating and storage esp. around NYC
Best magazine rack I’ve seen in a decade
An 100-year old design updated and (perfectly made) for like $50. Pretty gaudy but in a good way. Insane price too
But first, Housekeeping:
The good butcher hut on Smith Street has beef neck again (finally) but still doesn’t carry trachea. In fact no one does. You can’t buy it by mail; you can’t buy it in Midtown. It is easier to get country things (like fishing supplies) in Manhattan than one would think, but not trachea. Does anyone know where I can get it? I think I asked this a month ago, but things change.
Played records on my friend Will’s “For Your Health” radio show last week. Here is the Mixcloud archive. I also made a YouTube playlist of the songs without my talking. No Spotify as many tunes are only on YT.
Not sure if there will be an interview Friday (because of St. Patrick’s Day). If there is not, there will be an essay.
Disappointed but not surprised with Ferrari’s tactics and strategy. How do you start off on the front line and come away with those points? The answer is this: The Scuderia is a gerontocracy. Still—optimistic.
Auctions Observed:
Bill Stephens for Knoll chair frames, Pittsburgh, ends Wed.: There’s a case to be made here that all things we look at are decorative art; or perhaps not all, but anything worth looking at for a long enough time and which we remember afterwards. These Knoll chair frames by Bill Stephens have an emptiness to them without their cushions and feel like that. At first they reminded me a bit of Noguchi’s Portal (but not really); in truth the chairs are very much similar to the Polistano chair:
Which is a cool Brazilian item from the 1950s that has good micro-viral (thank you architects_need). Is the ass-less Stephens version better than the version with a working seat? Judge for yourselves:
Probably. The ass-less one is prob. as good as the arbitrary cold items Donald Judd put up around his crib. Or, maybe not so much, but to me it’s about as good. No real price on this, obviously, auction is heavy on bad glass and worse paintings, but includes some fine storage options (listed in Quick Hits) and a curious Scarpa lamp shaped like an Elsa Peretti bracelet. $50
van der Rohe MR10 Cantilever chair for Knoll, NJ: You can sense from the leather and angle and degradation (and some light internet research) that this item sits sometime after the oil crisis but before the 2000s, but the dating on these things more or less requires a plastic sticker, which this thing doesn’t have. Plus, some cracked leather. As this era of vdR goes for about 5-600 with a label (sometimes per chair) and half that without, at $150 (and local to New York) this is 5/7ths deal. A highlight from a confusing auction that is empty but for a nice marble sculpture of what might be a woman in a hijab and a quarter of the above chairs, priced exorbitantly.
Mourgue Bouloum chair, NJ: This specific item has not been sold within 75 miles of New York City for under $1,500 in years; generally it goes for more than that, or is further away. This is such an automatic buy it’s ape-crap. Olivier Mourge… discussed often in this archive. Part of a fine auction that gets the Royal Curation Treatment (thanks) in Quick Hits. $900
Thiani and Dal Lago Drive lamp for Bieffeplast, NJ: There is room for a good book about design items that have a purely industrial aesthetic: lamps, like this one, that were, before being churned out of the factory, on submarines and lighthouses. And simple ABS storage that municipal services use, and power-surge proof works that got remixed by Artemide. The story on this one: Adam Thiani and Alberto Dal Lago the designers, Bieffeplast the editor, sometime in the early 1970s (debate over ‘70 or ‘74), the key here’s the signal light lattice work (is that the right word? sound off in the comments) on the glass. Another Drive lamp is L shaped; they’re table lamps. Dal Lago had a few other hits—this thing, looks like a vending machine prize—and Thiani seems to be spelled a couple different ways so the jury is out on him. (Together, they also collaborated on a hi-fi. Don’t buy stereo systems based on the designer.) Runs about $4-500 on auction, part of a strong one with a healthy complement of fine modern items, my favorite selections (and the biggest deals, like stuff for nothing) from therein populate QH below. $400
Many more deals after the jump…
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