Stillman House by Marcel Breuer at auction with Wright
19 November '15
On November 19th Wright presents the Stillman House by Marcel Breuer at auction. A masterpiece
of modern architecture and art — with murals designed by Alexander Calder and Xanti Schawinsky, the sale represents a rare opportunity to own a house by one the world’s most important modernists.
The Stillman House features prominently within Marcel Breuer’s prolific architectural career. Located on 2.78 acres less than 2 hours outside of Manhattan in Litchfield, Connecticut, the modern home is comprised of three different commissions completed by the architect between 1950 and 1953: a main house, a studio and a swimming pool. The main house features Breuer’s signature use of glass, color and natural materials and employs the efficiency of his long house design, which he devised with Walter Gropius while teaching at Harvard in the late 1930s and early 1940s. The swimming pool features a floating staircase and cantilevered diving platform, the latter a design element that Breuer would mirror for the entrance canopy of The Whitney Museum a decade later.
In addition to being built by one of the greatest architects at the peak of the 20th century, the Stillman House features a 22-foot Alexander Calder-designed mural adjacent to the swimming pool as well as an interior mural, Sound Waves by Bauhaus member Xanti Schawinsky. Schawinsky’s mural was featured on the cover of Interiors magazine in 1953.
