Red-blue chair
designed (1917); manufactured (c. 1970)
- Credit Line
- National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, 1970
© Gerrit Rietveld Estate/Pictoright, Amsterdam. Licensed by Copyright Agency, Australia
- Gallery location
- Not on display
About this work
Deeply influenced by the painter Piet Mondrian and the rectilinear furniture designs of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, Gerrit Rietveld aimed to express a pure, ascetic functionalism in his furniture designs. This chair was first produced in stained wood but Rietveld subsequently painted it red, blue and yellow. During the 1920s the chair came to be identified with the influential Dutch design movement De Stijl, now regarded as one of the first major modern design movements. Purged of all ornament and stripped back to its barest structure, Rietveld’s Red-blue chair is a play on verticals and horizontals, an abstract, architectural construction that has since become an icon of early twentieth-century modernism.
Artwork Details
Purchased, 1970
© Gerrit Rietveld Estate/Pictoright, Amsterdam. Licensed by Copyright Agency, Australia
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