Design Auction at Dorotheum
14 May '13
Even though a great variety of objects at the design auction on 14th May 2013 claim to be seats of one sort or another – ranging from the fin de siècle to contemporary prototypes – many of them are considered to be art, with only a fine line dividing the everyday object from the work of art.
Gaetano Pesce combines sculpture and painting in his Pratt-Chair, produced in 1984 in New York, in nine different versions. Number 7, now available at Dorotheum, has been valued at 12.000 - 16.000 Euro.
The Monofilo-Chair, designed in 1955-62 by Luciano Grassi, Sergio Conti and Marisa Forlani recalls the drawings of the nineteen-fifties (€ 7.500 – 8.500).
Tom Dixon's amorphous green-yellow MAK chair was actually created from shaped plastic at the Vienna Museum of Applied Art (€ 12.000 – 18.000).
Famous for his unfolding DDR (GDR) egg-seat, the Hungarian-born designer Peter Ghyczy shows a different aspect of his work at this auction. In the late 1960s, he created the Design-Center Lemförde in Germany, which produced the seat ensemble - consisting of a settee, two armchairs, and two stools – now offered at auction. The set of seats is one of only four prototypes (€ 12.000 – 15.000).
A “Pratt Chair (No. 7)”, Gaetano Pesce
A “Monofilo” chair designed by Luciano Grassi
A MAK” Chair, Tom Dixon
A suite of furniture comprising a sofa, two armchairs and two stools designed by Peter Ghyczy
