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I’ll be publishing one of these features every day this week. Below is a Lore: a deep dive into a designer or brand’s history, with pricing and relevant items.
Below: Knoll, its important pieces, rough market values, where to get newer repros, second-tier items, knock-offs, etc. Included are price values—deal, steal, and otherwise—too.
LORE 005
Knoll was founded in 1938 by Hans Knoll as a way of getting European design in America. He founded the company in New York (midtown), producing some of his dad Walter’s designs—Prodomo chairs—and soon worked with Jens Risom, the designer. The work and scope grew when Florence Schust, a young woman with an apeshit design education (she met Aalto, Saarinen, worked as an apprentice to Gropius and Breuer, studied under van der Rohe) came aboard. The company really started when Florence arrived. Its early period was characterized by an insane client list—designing offices for the secretary of war (the same guy in Oppenheimer who honeymooned in Kyoto), companies like CBS, Dow Chem. the Fed Reserve… eventually Florence came on full time, married Hans, the company became Knoll Associates. Their heyday, and what they’re most known for, came over the next… 20 years... consists of work by massive, giant designers, often simple, modern furniture. The biggest stuff dropped between 1950 and 1965 and had such a massive footprint it defined the company since. The work is best associated with mid-century modern, or defines it. Which is an affordable design movement that kicked up in the 1950s, and which is still popular today with collectors born before 1979…
At its best Knoll created massive pieces, kept historic pieces in production, launched careers and defined an American aesthetic. Because Knoll did things right for a long time, and had relationships with so many brilliant designers, and rocked like a half-dozen pieces that are massive, undeniable canon, they would be important even if they never made anything new or exciting aftet this golden age.
What happened after Knoll’s golden age was much more interesting. In the 1970s they began putting out avant, expressive furniture: the Venturi/Brown chairs, work by Gae Aulenti and Ettore Sottsass, many Italian design items. In the mid 80s, they also began making more downmarket office furniture: cubicles, chairs, desks, the like—which did very well for them. (Before this they were considered a bit of a luxe brand.) So there was a profit driver, avant work… a healthy back catalog… just about all you could want from a company.
Because Knoll’s footprint is so big it’s impossible to break down every major piece. Instead I’ll list signposts that show how Knoll began then expanded its creative mandate. Moving from Danish rip-off crap to mid-modern to pop modern, avant, brutal, plain, retro… whatever you want to call it, at once more wild and more plain…
Dating Knoll labels
This is how Knoll labeling works:
They were on Madison Ave. until 1961 (img)
On Park Ave. until 1969 (img)
On Fifth Ave. after 1970 (img)
Knoll International after 1969 (see above)
With the key here the addresses. I recommend avoiding dealer-level psychosis and obsessing over labels. These are just chairs and credenzas; unless you need provenance for a profit margin that pays your bills, you can chill a bit. If the labels feel off and the piece looks like shit and is priced high, avoid it. If the labels feel off and it’s priced fair and you like it, buy it. It’s that simple. Just don’t pass off a retro or dupe as the real thing when you sell it down the line—people know; karma’s a bitch.
Key Items:
Expect several canon items to be left out.
Saarinen Tulip: an important, massive table eternally for sale, with chairs to boot. A classic poor people mid-modern masterpiece—Saarinen also designed it around 1956 as a way to weave in the base to the chair—that I think rises above that whole genre. It’s just a simple organic form. As many variations of this (sizes, finishes, heights) as there are bad bootleg T-shirts of Michael Mann’s Heat. Actually, more. In both cases many are fake. These remain in production—as little as $2,200 retail on DWR for a decent sized dining table—but of course recent quality varies… or at least the patina is lacking. Still, not a bad item to buy new; probably, in fact, the best archival item. (They look great new.) Used, prices stagger—bigger tables run for more, older tables run for more, rarer (wilder marble) tables run for more. And fakes abound; probably more fake ones than reals. A few tells to spot real ones: the screws between the top and bottom should not show, the table’s edge should have tapered seams, the leg can only be aluminum (no wood, etc… come on), it should be 28 1/4” high (which is why I never leave my house without a tape measure). There is a list of specific widths here. Prices vary on auction sites, but these have been really cheap this year, frankly; almost nothing individual over $1,000 this year, with a few exceptions—sets of six chairs, a couple marble tables in big sizes near New York, and one 4’ wide one. Retail for that table is about $2,700… which, even then it’s a deal. Some fakes aren’t bad, and older ones produced in the 1960s through the 90s, are practically luxury goods, and are worth paying an above nominal price for. But with the real thing selling for so cheap, don’t buy a fake for over $3-400. For the real fools, let’s say 41” wide, steal under $500, deal under $7, buy for yourself over 8 or 9. (Not as into the chairs.)
Any credenza: many different variations of these, and many still in production, but the Florence Knoll credenzas, IMO, are the best—these are the harsher officey designs with sharper edges (marble tops) and starker materials (maybe rosewood; always treated). They are simple and great, confident and… pretty masculine. The Knoll site says she designed them in 1961 as a way to get storage space into offices after she moved executives over from desks to tables. True? Probably. The earlier ones Knoll did were almost… Danish. Walnut and so on—those can go for more, but to me they are redundant items and it is better to purchase a Kofod Larsen or something tambour from overseas as those have more character. The best of Florence’s credenzas (we should pause for a second and realize that this brand is probably what it is only because of this broad) link golden-age Knoll and the exciting work that came after better than any other piece. Simple, modern and both slightly harsh and challenging. It’s cool that such an up-the-middle piece can look so futuristic. These list on ecom sites like 1stDibs for a good 8 or 9 large; on LA they tend to run under a couple of grand. Dates don’t seem to be the wedge here, but something else; a nice one from 2010 went for $3,500 recently (because it was black and those are hard to find), more than others that were older. Steal under $1,300, deal under 2, buy it for yourself over that.
Venturi chairs:
This is where it begins and ends for me; this chair, brought out as a series of chairs, number, by Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, who made them in the 1983 or ‘4 (discrepancy between the MoMA site and Knoll’s site… an example of this:
but moving on…) as a sort of neo trad thing… or piece of furniture criticism. There are a lot of them. These are the styles:
Queen Anne, Chippendale, Hepplewhite, Sheraton, Art Deco, Gothic Revival, Art Nouveau, Empire
I think that’s it. There’s no list of all of these chairs together; not on a museum or Knoll site. Only in this newsletter.
Moving on… this chair is among the greatest … pieces of criticism on furniture… and discussion of furniture there is—a statement in another medium. I discovered this chair I want to say a decade ago, from Jim Walrod—didn’t know him, but he mentioned them in an interview—they were avant at the time; now they are more palatable.
Prices vary, these things because they are masterpieces do not run cheap. They haven’t been retro’d but there are also not really any fakes. Too hard to make. Sheraton style might be hardest to find; the most popular ones have the grandmother pattern, either Chip or Queen Anne. These run stupid prices, like 8,000, $16,000 on retail sites—and they rarely show up, obviously, at flea markets and the like. Still, a pair of Chips sold for $3,000 (before fees) on LA just this year; and a set of 3 Chips in the grandmother pattern sold for $7,500. Steal considering. The occasional Queen Anne and Sheraton sell as one-offs for about that, $1,500. It’s been a decade since I found out about these chairs and they still floor me now as much as they have then. Always reorienting to see one. This is Knoll’s masterpiece; they existed as a company so they could underwrite it and produce it correctly. No big furniture company since has made anything this good. (Probably no designer either if we are being real. But that’s a topic for another newsletter.) Steal under $1,600, deal under $2,200, buy for yourself over that….
Odds and Ends
Sottsass work:
another one. Knoll and E.S.’ working relationship was fruitful: Mandarin chair, Memphis lounge, Shift table, a slightly less dope Memphis club chair, the Westside and Eastside pieces, Spyder table. Here’s a piece about Sottsass I found in an interview with Walrod I re-read in winter:
When I was working on a story about Gaetano Pesce. One might think there’s a hypocrisy here, of a radical person working for a massive company, but I’m not sure there is. Design, maybe because of its logistics, can be steered by companies. From the company’s point of view, well, it’s not their fault they became popular making good design. Which is why they’re hiring Sottsass. From the design point of view… even the most avant garde—or perhaps I should say cerebral… or inventive, or thoughtful, or poppy; post-modern?—designer and architect takes inspiration from business, and checks (seems to me at least) in ways that people in other other creative fields don’t. Both are mercenary: their work isn’t some higher-level form of expression. It’s meant for the real world, and in the real world creativity is exchanged for money. It’s a company that makes their illustrations exist. Just read Venturi’s Learning from Las Vegas: it’s a very non-judgmental book.
Which is what’s so fascinating about Knoll. They’re essentially the most obvious furniture company there is, but much of their of work, for a long time, has been outré and challenging. Work that does not fit in, immediately with their aesthetic history—but which does in spirit, point of view, creativity. A cliché, but the truth. In a sense, this is how furniture functions, and why I think Knoll is the perfect company to highlight during Snake Launch Week. Parts of furniture are underground and hidden and hard to immediately connect to, and a jolt to discover, and parts are so shamefully historic and present—these things have been selling in massive stores for half a century to the entire middle class—that the notion of gatekeeping, alt, underground etc, withers away. Anyways, Knoll is both. .
ES began his relationship with Knoll in 1983, three collections; hard to say what his best item was—maybe the Shift table:
Which barely sell anywhere, not even on most ecom platforms. Mostly, what ends up being available are Eastside and Westside chairs and tables, which themselves almost always run north of $5,000. But hey, a Shift table sold on LA for $1,100 recently—think about that—and occasionally other Knoll items of his, like the Spyder, or the Mandarin, run at that rate. Jaw on the floor here; not major work from a brilliant artist, but perfect work. Sottsass is an artist; getting anything from him (that like, has practical spatial value) is a steal if it’s around $1,000, is worth it under $1,700 and is a fair price/judgment call when over $2,2 or $2,300.
Nakashima work:
The greatest carpenter, or at least the greatest non-Levantine carpenter, the best carpenter based out of Pennsylvania there ever was… GN’s output for Knoll was slim, a chair (Straight), a table and a tray—simpler and less involved than his beds or his desks, and far from his work with big slabs of wood… and, if we’re being honest, much, much less important. The chair and table are from 1946, and are decently priced (chair in the three figures on the Knoll site at the moment), and on auction it now and then sells in the low hundreds. Hard to believe you can get a Nakashima for that little. Steal under $500, deal under $600, fair price up to retail, buy for yourself after that.
Pollock executive chair: the exec chair, designed in 1965 (same year Bud Selig was born) by Charles Pollock (fascinating guy), is a major piece and classic Knoll ‘60s canon. But it’s too quiet; I don’t prefer it. I concede it is much more cloying in person. Execs come in a wide range of colors—there’s one on 1stDibs reupholstered with candy pink naugahyde…—the best ones look expensive, what with their rich leather. Only a lower-tier piece compared to the very absolute highest highlights in Knoll’s body of work. But it had a massive footprint, and was everywhere. Prices are down on these, they’ve been auctioning this year for a few hundred. Steal under $290, deal under $420, buy for yourself over $500.
Aulenti Jumbo table: Not an odd or an end, but a major piece, this one Gae Aulenti, the massive Milanese architect, designed in 1965, released by Knoll 7 years later. Seems to be the defining marble piece of the past 60 years; it is one of the rare modern pieces that cuts across millenia. Man, it’s good. Comes in a few colors, none matter as all are marble. Aulenti also did an eponymous collection for Knoll (smoother, streamlined). The best marble Jumbos run in the high four figures, and double that, like $20K, on 1stDibs; they auction in the mid-thousands, on a good day, on LA. A steal is under $5,000, a deal under $7,500, and, with these prices, buy for yourself after that…
Boeri sofas:
Boeri has a handful of recognizable items for Knoll: the Brigadier (boxy, far right), the Strips sofa (center; perfect), the Lunario table (off-balance) jumping to mind most immediately. At the top of the list, or neck and neck with any of these is the Gradual sofa (left), a modular piece from either 1970 or ‘71 that comes in a raft of colors, sizes. Like the Pollock, black leather may be best here. It’s restrained, but not dull, which is hard to do with that shape. Almost looks like a Roche Bobois… French. Most of Boeri’s products tends to stay overseas; her couches seem to be shuttered there, even though they were made by Knoll. If her work could be found domestically with more ease she’d be considered one of the greats. (She is, but only by very deep design people.) On retail sites this stuff runs in the mid-thousands; lately the Lunario has been running under $1,000 on auction. The Gradual has bounced around in price, auctioning at $1,200 to double that; hard to explain the discrepancy, frankly. That happens sometimes when there are not many auctions. Lunario is a steal at that price; the Gradual’s worth it under $1,300, fair under $2,000 and still decent at $2,500.
Gehry power play chair:
Gehry, the architect, is polarizing to architecture people. But that’s not my beat. I think he’s cool—or fine; there is something very swag about sketching out a building in five minutes. I think he does that. And he has a few hits. A healthy amount of disrespect and idiosyncrasy should be granted to all artists. To be sure, not everything works—the other pieces for Knoll in this set—the hat trick, cross check, high sticking and face off (what is up with these names? who approved this? I guess he’s Canadian, but still)—just don’t use space correctly and fall flat. None are as good as the Power Play. This is his best one, it was designed in 1990, it is free and easy, almost natural. These are avail. new still from Knoll—retail spots sell it for $9,000—and they sell on ecom sites for around 6 large, and on auction for 2 or 3, which seems like a fine price.
van der Rohe back catalog:
Knoll keeps a lot, but not all of vdR’s work in print, and the collab seems somewhere between a service—items staying available to enrich the world—and straight check cashing. Unfortunately most the collection is mid or beat, with the Barcelona series especially bad (straight up unsalvageable) and some of the MR chairs, like the lounge, which are just... behind his best stuff. But who can quibble? There are a few hits, most notably the Brno and the armless MR. They both leave an empty space when you look at them. Runs like two thou new (for the armless wicker MR, which is the best thing they do), less used, as in in the low hundreds. Steal under $250, deal under $400 each, buy for yourself over $600, but avoid fakes.
Cesca chairs:
The most automatic chair ever made, designed by Marcel Breuer in 1928… simple, spare, modern, a little timeless (what with the thatches) and has been duped to within an inch of its life. Dupes are everywhwere; don’t pay anything for them; you can find them on the street if you look hard enough. I did. The real ones were produced by Thonet until the ‘50s, then Gavina (Italy) took over, then in 1968 Knoll bought that factory and has had the license since. So should be a Knoll Int’l label if there is one. These run 3 or 4 each on LA, but are mostly sold in lots. New they run $1,000; seems like an easy decision and a small premium for authenticity. Steal anywhere under $240, deal under $375, take the L and buy new over $400.
Trix, Bob Haussmann Mirror chairs:
These are apeshit; the couple (he studied under Gerrit Rietveld, nuff said) designed them in 1988, towards the end of the golden age of Knoll’s Medici era… this chair is a great example of the company’s reach. It feels disrespectful to call such an item minor—but nothing’s minor, some items just aren’t everywhere. Retails for real money—$5,000, 7,500 or so, but rarely comes to auction and there are not many on ecom sites. Without the mirror backing they auction for under 2 large, and with the mirror they run around retail. Fair price, though. In this case retail might be underpriced. Steal if under $4,000, honestly, steal if under $6,000.
The rest:
Many other items that don’t make the cut—the Barcelona, Joe D’Urso table, the tote bag, the truck—are just less exciting to me. Thanks for reading. Paying subscribers will receive a Lore once a month. Upgrade your subscription to ensure further work.
Sami Reiss
A pleasure to read