Stanley Jay Friedman for Brueton Steel and Granite "Eclipse" Low Coffee Table

Details

Description

Stanley Jay Friedman for Brueton “Eclipse” Polished Steel and Black Granite Coffee Table
American, Circa 1970–1980

Stanley Jay Friedman designed … Read more Stanley Jay Friedman for Brueton “Eclipse” Polished Steel and Black Granite Coffee Table
American, Circa 1970–1980

Stanley Jay Friedman designed the “Eclipse” coffee table for Brueton, the New York maker that made mirror-polished stainless steel its specialty. Each end of the frame rises as a flat panel and rolls over in a generous radius to form a rounded shoulder at the top, while a polished steel floor plate, edged with a narrow band, joins the two ends at the base. The case therefore reads as a continuous steel frame around an open, round-cornered center, its polished surfaces reflecting one another and the room.

Between the shoulders lies a thick, removable slab of polished Black Pearl granite, an Indian black granite flecked with silvery mineral grains. The stone drops into stepped recesses cut into the steel so that it sits flush with the shoulders, giving a single level top of dark stone between bright metal, a contrast that suits the model’s name. Lifted out, the slab reveals a support panel spanning the frame, and the two parts separate for moving.

At 24 inches wide and 14 inches high, the table is scaled for a compact seating group, in front of a loveseat or between a pair of lounge chairs, or for a smaller room where a full-size cocktail table would crowd the floor. The open center takes books, and the polished steel reads as almost weightless against a patterned rug or strong color.

Dimensions
Width: 24 inches (61.0 cm)
Height: 14 inches (35.6 cm)
Depth: 12 inches (30.5 cm)
Total weight: 110 pounds (49.9 kg)

Provenance
Earle D. Vandekar of Knightsbridge

Condition
A tiny frit to the edge of the granite has been invisibly repaired.

Historical Context
Brueton was founded in New York in 1926 as Spanish Metal Arts, a maker of ornamental fencing for Long Island estates. Its turn to modern furniture came in the 1950s, when its principals, Bruno Saudino and Tony Vitale, supplied glass and aluminum tables and seating for Gordon Bunshaft’s Manufacturers Trust Company building at 510 Fifth Avenue (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, 1954), later Manufacturers Hanover. The firm became one of the first American makers to use stainless steel in furniture and built its later catalogue on independent designers, J. Wade Beam and Stanley Jay Friedman foremost among them.

Friedman, born and raised in New York and a graduate of Parsons School of Design, worked for several designers before forming his own atelier in New York in the mid-1970s. Designing for Brueton opened a furniture career of more than twenty-five years, and in 1997 he gave up interior design to concentrate on product. His honors include the DuPont Antron Grand Prize Award, ten Roscoe Awards and Good Design Awards in 2000 and 2002, and he has lectured on the evolution of modernism in America.

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