RELEASE: 20/21 DESIGN
20/21 DESIGN At Christie’s London Led by an inaugural Evening Auction at King Street London Jeremy Morrison, Senior Director, 20/21 Design, London comments MID-CENTURY FRENCH DESIGN FROM AN IMPORTANT PRIVATE COLLECTION The Evening Auction features a selection of mid-century design from an important private collection featuring furniture by André Arbus, Jean Royère, Jean Prouvé and Charlotte Perriand. The rare suite by Arbus, illustrated left and right, comprise a pair of lounge chairs (estimate: £70,000 -100,000, BRAZILIAN DESIGN The auction will also offer a selection of Brazilian design, which rarely appears in auction in Europe, and will feature works by the Campana Brothers, Oscar Niemeyer and José Zanine Caldas. The highlight of the group is a rare and early work , the Peixe bench (Estimate £80,000 – 120,000), created in 1989 by Humberto and Fernando Campana and presented by them as part of their Desconfortável (uncomfortable) collection of furniture at the Nucleon 8 Gallery in São Paulo. The exhibition presented a group of tables, chairs and screens made with steel sheet and represented the beginning of a new chapter for Brazilian design. With sheets of welded steel used to make a bench shaped as a large fish, this work exemplifies the brothers’ humour and gift of revealing the inherent poetic qualities of the material. Commenting upon the raw finish of the metal surface, Humberto observed "the idea was to take advantage of the error, to see poetry in the error." Born in Belmonte on the southern costa of Bahia, José Zanine Caldas was a self-taught artist, designer and architect. The present lot is a rare bench circa 1975, which articulates the principles that guided his vision of furniture making (estimate: £18,000– 25,000, NORDIC DESIGN The Evening Auction also features a strong group of works by leading Swedish, Finnish and Danish designers. These include a desk set from the 1970s, comprising two trays, a pen holder, a ruler, a letter opener and a magnifying glass by Henning Koppel for Gerog Jensen (estimate: £4,000 – 6,000, Further highlights from the Nordic section include a pair of ‘Mix’ club chairs, model ‘4396’, designed in 1931 by Kaare Klint, who is acknowledged as the founding father of Danish Modernism (estimate: £60,000-80,000, ITALIAN AVANT GARDE Highlights from the Italian Avant-garde section of the sale include a significant group of vessels and vases by Ettore Sottsass, as well as an early ‘Poltrona di Proust’ armchair, designed in 1978 by Alessandro Mendini, this example executed early 1980s (estimate: £40,000-60,000, In 1978 Mendini presented his first examples of ‘re-design’, whereby recognisable existing chair types were altered through the application of improbable surface treatment. This action aspired to remove any pretensions of Modernism by suggesting that the meaning and value of a design could be communicated solely through apparently superfluous decoration. In the case of this design, examples of which were first exhibited in 1978, the decoration determined by Mendini was motivated by the impressionistic brushstrokes of a Pointilist painting by Paul Signac. For the first four or five chairs that were created, a projection of the Signac artwork was directed upon the chair, permitting the artist to replicate the Signac brushstrokes, reworking the chair’s identity as both canvas and frame to Mendini’s Postmodernist statement. CONTEMPORARY GLASS BY YOICHI OHIRA Christie’s evening Sale 20/21 Design is pleased to present a selection of works by the renowned Contemporary glass designer Yoichi Ohira, carefully selected by a private collector in Milan: Mrs. Norma Cortellini. Ohira’s understanding for the tradition and history of glassmaking in Murano, combined with his distinct imagination and Far Eastern aesthetic, situates him as one of the most original and skilled glassmakers. Mrs. Cortellini collected these pieces with enthusiasm and an acute understanding of Ohira’s sensibility and skills. A fortuitous discovery brought Ohira to Venice in 1973. Having worked as a glassblower in Japan since 1969, Ohira came across a book called Murano which illustrated the use of ancient glassmaking techniques in a small island near Venice, Murano. Excited and amazed by the fine glass, he moved to Venice and completed a degree in Sculpture at the Fine Art Academy, with a dissertation entitled ‘The Aesthetic of Glass’. The vessels in this collection articulate Ohira’s fascination with the distinctive metamorphic qualities of this medium. Glass has been used for centuries to mimic characteristics found in precious stones. Ohira takes this aspect further, creating pieces that evoke the reflection of the water of the canals in Venice (lots 240, 245, 248, 252), marble and stone (lot 238, 239) or eggshell and lacquer (lot 241). With other vessels, like Petali (lot 243) or Nostalgia (lot 249), Ohira conveys the tensions between transparency and opacity, interior and exterior through the expert use of a vast array of techniques. 20/21 DESIGN: 1900 TO NOW AT SOUTH KENSINGTON The 28 October sale Feature works include a fine selection of Art Deco figures by Demetre Chiparus led by ‘Fan Dancer’ (estimate: £70,000-90,000, PRESS CONTACT: Alexandra Deyzac | 02073892265 | adeyzac@christies.com Please click below for the complete eCatalogues South Kensington - 28 October King Street - 4 November King Street Friday 31 October 9.00 am - 4.30 pm Saturday 1 November 12.00 noon - 5.00 pm Sunday 2 November 12.00 noon - 5.00 pm Monday 3 November 9.00 am - 8.00 pm Tuesday 4 November 9.00 am - 12.00 noon South Kensington Friday 24 October 9.00 am - 5.00 pm Saturday 25 October 11.00 am 5.00 pm Sunday 26 October 11.00 am - 5.00 pm Monday 27 October 9.00 am - 7:30 pm Tuesday 28 October 9.00 am - 12 noon AUCTION: Tuesday 4 November 2014 6.00 pm. Lots 201-342 Tuesday 28 October 2014 2.00 pm. Lots 1 - 150
Christie’s King Street, 4 November
Christie’s South Kensington, 28 October