Shiro Kuramata - Design New York Tuesday, June 6, 2017 | Phillips

Design

New York Auction 6 June 2017

  • Provenance

    Piacere coffee shop, Yamagiwa Soft building, Akihabara, Tokyo

  • Literature

    Yasuko Seki, ed., Shiro Kuramata and Ettore Sottsass, exh. cat., 21_21 Design Sight, Tokyo, 2001, pp. 199, 211
    Deyan Sudjic, Shiro Kuramata: Catalogue of Works, London, 2013, p. 359

  • Catalogue Essay

    Phillips would like to thank the Kuramata Design Office for their assistance cataloguing the present lot.

  • 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).

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Property from an Important Collection, Tokyo

117

Shiro Kuramata

Rare armchair, from the Piacere coffee shop, Yamagiwa Soft building, Akihabara, Tokyo

circa 1988
Acrylic, painted steel, painted particle board.
33 x 23 3/4 x 19 in. (83.8 x 60.3 x 48.3 cm)
Manufactured by Ishimaru Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan.

Estimate
$15,000 - 20,000 

Sold for $30,000

Contact Specialist
Cordelia Lembo
Specialist, Head of Sale
+1 212 940 1265

Design

New York Auction 6 June 2017