Shiro Kuramata - Design New York Wednesday, December 17, 2014 | Phillips

Create your first list.

Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.

  • Provenance

    For the chromium-plated chair: Wright, Chicago, "Modern + Contemporary Design," March 25, 2007, lot 597
    For the black chair: Wright, Chicago, "Important 20th Century Design," May 20, 2007, lot 381

  • Literature

    Shiro Kuramata and Ettore Sottsass, exh. cat., 21_21 Design Sight, Tokyo, 2011, p. 194
    Gert Staal and Anne ven der Zwaag, Pastoe 100 years of design innovation, Rotterdam, 2013, p. 219
    Deyan Sudjic, Shiro Kuramata, New York, 2013, p. 335, fig. 414

  • Artist Biography

    Shiro Kuramata

    Japanese • 1934 - 1991

    Shiro Kuramata is widely admired for his ability to free his designs from gravity and use materials in ways that defied convention. After a restless childhood, his ideas of being an illustrator having been discouraged, Kuramata discovered design during his time at the Teikoku Kizai Furniture Factory in Arakawa-ku in 1954. The next year he started formal training at the Department of Interior Design at the Kuwasawa Design Institute. His early work centered on commercial interiors and window displays. In 1965, at the age of 31, he opened his own firm: Kuramata Design Office.

    Throughout his career he found inspiration in many places, including the work of Italian designers (particularly those embodying the Memphis style) and American conceptual artists like Donald Judd, and combined such inspirations with his own ingenuity and creativity. His dynamic use of materials, particularly those that were transparent, combination of surfaces and awareness of the potential of light in design led him to create objects that stretched structural boundaries and were also visually captivating. These qualities are embodied in his famous Glass Chair (1976).

    View More Works

PRIVATE COLLECTION

272

Two "Apple Honey" chairs

designed 1985
Chromium-plated tubular steel, painted aluminum, anodized aluminum, leather, vinyl.
Each: 28 5/8 x 18 7/8 x 20 1/2 in. (72.7 x 47.9 x 52.1 cm)
Manufactured by UMS Pastoe, Japan and the Netherlands.

Estimate
$8,000 - 12,000 

Sold for $8,750

Contact Specialist
Meaghan Roddy
Head of Sale
New York
+ 1 212 940 1266

Design

New York Auction 17 December 2014 11am