Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen
chair from the Museum of Modern Art Organic Design Competition
chair from the Museum of Modern Art Organic Design Competition
USA, 1940
Honduran mahogany, upholstery 32½ h × 18 w × 22 d in (83 × 46 × 56 cm)
Among the most important furniture designs of the 20th century, Eames' and Saarinen's prize-winning entry for seating in the famous Organic Design in Home Furnishings competition held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1941 was comprised of various armchairs, a sectional sofa and the present side chair. With their single-piece compound-moulded plywood seat shells, the chair designs were exceptionally innovative and signalled a totally new direction in modern furniture.
Signed with applied manufacturer's label to underside: [Fine Furniture Heywood Wakefield Est. 1826].
provenance: Sylvia Schoenbaum, Bloomingdale's Inc., New York | Gift to Ben Sanford, A.S.I.D., 1945 | Private collection, Canada | Neuman Trust Collection
exhibited: Organic Design in Home Furnishings, September 1941, Museum of Modern Art, New York
literature: Organic Design in Home Furnishings, Noyes, ppg. 15, 29 illustrates this example