A PAIR OF WASSILY CHAIRS,designed by Marcel Breuer with brown leather straps and tubular chrome frame. Dated approx 1960's Furniture designer and architect Marcel Breuer (1902-1981) was born in Hungary but later went on to study and teach at the Bau...
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Lot 221
Estimate: €600 - €1,000
Result: €1,200
Lot 221
Estimate:
€600 - €1,000
A PAIR OF WASSILY CHAIRS,designed by Marcel Breuer with brown leather straps and tubular chrome frame. Dated approx 1960's Furniture designer and architect Marcel Breuer (1902-1981) was born in Hungary but later went on to study and teach at the Bauhaus in Dessau. In 1925 while he was an apprentice at the Bauhaus he designed the Wassily Chair. Inspired by the handlebars of his bicycle he began to design furniture using tubular steel, the seamless manufacturing of which had only recently been invented by German steel manufacturer Mannesmann. Although not specifically designed for Wassily Kandinsky, he was always an admirer of the chair and Breuer made one for his office. In its first production run in the late 1920s the chair was known as the Model B3 and was originally designed with fabric. Manufactured by Thonet the chair's simplicity of design was so different that it failed to find favour with the public. Thonet ceased production of the chair during World War II. In the 1960s Gavina of Bologna, Italy began to reproduce the chair but this time it was upholstered with leather and named The Wassily Chair. It was hugely successful. Gavina were eventually taken over by Knoll of New York who still produces the chair today. The Wassily Chair received an Award of the Museum of Modern Art in 1968 and in 1982, it was recognized as a ''Piece of Art,'' in Germany. It is a testament to the power of good design, a chair born of industrial evolution in the 1920s still looks as modern and innovative in the 21st Century as it did at the turn of the last.
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