Alvar Aalto - Design New York Thursday, June 9, 2016 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Office of the designer, Turku
    Acquired from the above, 1940s

  • Literature

    Thomas Kellein, ed., Alvar & Aino Aalto: Design, Collection Bischofberger, exh. cat., Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Bielefeld, 2005, p. 103
    Mateo Kries and Jochen Eisenbrand, eds., Alvar Aalto: Second Nature, exh. cat., Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, 2014, p. 533 for a similar example

  • Catalogue Essay

    This large version of the folding screen was not in serial production.

  • Artist Biography

    Alvar Aalto

    Finnish • 1898 - 1976

    In contrast with the functionalism of the International Style (as well the neoclassicism put forward by the Nazi and Soviet regimes), Alvar Aalto brought a refreshing breath of humanism to modern design: "True architecture exists only where man stands in the center," he wrote. Aalto designed furniture in stack-laminated plywood composed of Finnish birch, which was cost-effective and lent warmth to his interiors. Aalto also revived Finnish glass design with his entries in the various Karhula-Iitala glassworks competitions throughout the 1930s.

    In 1936 he won first place for a collection of colorful, wavy vases in various sizes titled Eskimoerindens skinnbuxa (The Eskimo Woman’s Leather Breeches). The vases were an immediate success and the most popular size, now known as the "Savoy" vase, is still in production today. Aalto's freeform designs, in harmony with human needs and nature, anticipated the organic modernism of the 1950s and 1960s; in particular, his innovations in bent plywood had a major impact on designers such as Charles and Ray Eames.

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44

Large folding screen

1940s
Pine, metal wire.
71 x 81 1/2 x 1 in. (180.3 x 207 x 2.5 cm) fully extended
Manufactured by O.y. Huonekalu-ja Rakennustyötehdas A.b., Turku, for Artek, Helsinki, Finland.

Estimate
$8,000 - 12,000 

Sold for $15,000

Contact Specialist
Design New York
+1 212 940 1268

Design

New York Auction 9 June 2016