Denham MacLaren - Design Masters New York Wednesday, December 15, 2010 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Sotheby’s, Fine 20th-Century Design, May 2, 2007, London, Lot 73

  • Literature

    British Art and Design, 1900–1960, exh. cat., Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1983, p. 128; Paul Greenhalgh, “British Modern Furniture Designers,” Antique Collecting, Woodbridge, March 1992, p. 7, fig. 5; Christopher Wilk, ed., Western Furniture 1350 to the Present Day, London, 1996, pp. 208–09; Malcolm Baker and Brenda Richardson, eds., A Grand Design: The Art of the Victoria and Albert Museum. London, 1997, p. 344; Charlotte Benton, Tim Benton and Ghislaine Wood, eds., Art Deco 1910–1939, exh. cat., Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2004, p. 352, fig. 33.5

  • Catalogue Essay

    An example of this chair is in the permanent collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK.
    “Denham Maclaren was unique amongst this early Modernist group in that he came from a very wealthy British family. After studying at Cambridge where he gained a boxing blue he went to the Slade School of Fine Art. During the late 1920s he joined Arundell Display, designing furniture for exhibition stands. Maclaren’s most innovative designs were produced during the mid 1930s mainly for his own pleasure, they remain amongst the only pieces produced in Britain that can stand alongside Modernist design on the Continent. On moving into 52 Grosvenor Street, London, which was owned by his family, he set about dividing the house into apartments and furnishing them (see black and white image) in order to derive income from tenants. In the basement he installed a handyman by the name of Voysey who carried out his designs; using glass and metal he produced a number of tables, desks and the zebra skin armchair shown in the black and white image.”
    Paul Greenhalgh, “British Modern Furniture Designers,” Antique Collecting, March 1992

2

Very rare and important armchair

ca. 1930
Glass, leather, chrome-plated metal, wood
26 in. (66 cm.) high


Estimate
$60,000 - 80,000 

Design Masters

15 December 2010
New York