Shiro Kuramata - Important Design London Wednesday, April 25, 2018 | Phillips
  • Literature

    Shiro Kuramata 1934-1991, exh. cat., Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, 1996, p. 174
    Yasuko Seki, ed., Shiro Kuramata and Ettore Sottsass, exh. cat., 21_21 Design Sight, Tokyo, 2001, pp. 195, 212
    Deyan Sudjic, Shiro Kuramata: Catalogue of Works, London, 2013, p. 339, fig. 444

  • 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 the SOSEIKAN House, Takarazuka, Hyogo

111

Lot offered with No Reserve

Pair of 'Hammer House' hammers

designed circa 1985
Steel, painted steel, painted wood.
Each: 5.5 x 28 x 2.5 cm (2 1/8 x 11 x 0 7/8 in.)
Manufactured by WEST, Osaka, Japan. Each impressed with facsimile signature Shiro Kuramata/W/WEST.

Estimate
£200 - 300 •‡

Sold for £4,000

Contact Specialist
Madalena Horta e Costa
Head of Sale
+44 20 7318 4019

Important Design

London Auction 26 April 2018