Postmodern Folding Chairs With Triangular Red Seats, Set of Four Circa 1985 Italy

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Postmodern Folding Chairs with Triangular Red Seats, Set of Four
Circa 1985
Italy

Each of these four folding chairs is … Read more Postmodern Folding Chairs with Triangular Red Seats, Set of Four
Circa 1985
Italy

Each of these four folding chairs is built from two triangles and a double black line. The seat is a broad triangle of scarlet laminate with its apex projecting forward, notched at the back edge where the uprights pass through it, and above and behind it a smaller triangle of the same laminate is set point-downward as a back rest, carried at the head of two slender parallel uprights. A fine black edge finishes the laminate, so every panel is drawn in outline against the red.

The frame is slim flat metal bar lacquered black, arranged as a scissor action and pivoting on exposed bolts, with plain T-shaped bars front and back for feet. A tubular catch at the back locks the chair open, and once released the whole thing folds absolutely flat, the two triangles closing against the frame so that the folded chair is a single flat object a couple of inches thick.

The effect is all graphic economy: no color but red and black, no curve anywhere, and no detail that is not doing structural work. From the front the chair reads as an arrow standing on a stem, and from the side as a pair of crossed diagonals.

These are wonderfully useful chairs to own. Set all four around a small kitchen or breakfast table for a room that wants a jolt of color, use one or two as desk or occasional chairs, or keep the set folded in a closet as the party seating you actually want people to see. A single chair standing open in a corner or a hallway works as sculpture on its own. The red is bright enough to carry a neutral room and sharp enough to hold its own against black, white, chrome, or pale wood, and the set would look particularly good with other Memphis-era pieces or against a plain modern interior.

Dimensions
Height: 28 inches (71.1 cm)
Width: 16⅝ inches (42.2 cm)
Depth: 17 inches (43.2 cm)
Seat height: 18¼ inches (46.4 cm)

Marks
Unmarked. One frame retains the ghost outline of a rectangular paper label, now lost.

Provenance
Earle D. Vandekar of Knightsbridge.

Condition
Good condition throughout, all four sound and folding freely. Scattered chipping and wear to the black lacquer of the frames, chiefly at the T-shaped feet and the pivots, and light scratching and scuffing to the laminate consistent with age and use. No breaks or repairs.

Historical Context
Folding chairs of this kind belong to the wave of geometric, primary-colored furniture that followed the founding of Memphis in Milan at the turn of the 1980s, when designers turned decisively away from the functionalist grammar of the previous generation toward strong color, flat planes, and forms chosen for how they read rather than how they sit. Laminate, cheap and available in saturated color, became the characteristic material of the moment, and the folding chair, a type with a long utilitarian history, was a natural subject for redesign along those lines.

The chairs are unmarked, though one frame retains the outline of a rectangular paper label formerly applied to it, so the set left the factory labeled and the labels have simply been lost. On the evidence of the type, the construction, and the palette they are most likely Italian, or made for the Italian market, and datable to the middle or later 1980s; no designer or manufacturer has been established.

Ref: NY11164-imr See less