Carlo BUGATTI

Chair
(1902)

Medium

wood, painted and gilt vellum, copper

Credit Line: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased with the assistance of Paula Fox, the NGV Women's Association and the NGV Supporters of Decorative Arts, 2008

Gallery location: Not on display

About this work

This chair design was first exhibited in Carlo Bugatti’s ‘Snail Room’ interior at the First International Exhibition of Modern Decorative Arts in Turin in 1902. Bugatti exhibited four interiors, all of which represented a major shift in his design aesthetic from the 1890s. Within a few years Bugatti had transformed his heavy, rectilinear furniture into plastic, curvilinear forms entirely wrapped in vellum. This chair dispenses with chair legs, incorporating the seat and back rest into one resolved, sinuous form. The radical design anticipates the cantilevered chair forms in tubular steel by Mart Stam, Marcel Breuer and Mies van der Rohe of the 1920s.

Artwork Details

Medium

wood, painted and gilt vellum, copper

Measurements

97.0 × 45.0 × 40.0 cm

Place/s of Execution

Milan, Lombardy, Italy

Inscription

inscribed in red paint on rear of backrest Bugatti

Accession Number

2008.96

Department

International Decorative Arts

Credit Line

National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased with the assistance of Paula Fox, the NGV Women's Association and the NGV Supporters of Decorative Arts, 2008
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of Digitisation Champion Ms Carol Grigor through Metal Manufactures Limited

Gallery location

Not on display

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Carlo BUGATTI Chair (1902)

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Carlo BUGATTI

Chair
(1902)