Marc Newson - Design London Wednesday, April 24, 2013 | Phillips

Design

London 25 April 2013 2pm

  • Provenance

    Galerie kreo, Paris

  • Literature

    Simon Mills, ‘Watch this Space’, The Sunday Times: The Magazine (London), 27 November 1994, pp. 62, 65
    Alexander von Vegesack, et al., eds., 100 Masterpieces from the Vitra Design Museum Collection, exh. cat., Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, 1996, p. 172
    Alice Rawsthorn, Marc Newson, London, 1999, pp. 98-101 for computer-rendered drawing
    Conway Lloyd Morgan, Marc Newson, London, 2002, pp. 184-85 for computer-rendered drawing
    Alison Castle, Marc Newson Works, London, 2012, pp. 82-84 for fabrication images and an orange example

  • Catalogue Essay

    The ‘Alufelt Chair’ will be included as reference MN - 8AC-1993 in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of limited edition works by Marc Newson, being prepared by Didier Krzentowski, Galerie kreo, Paris.

    The Alufelt Chair stands out slightly from the other pieces in the aluminium series in that it is not a fully self-contained shape, having no tubular aspect. Nevertheless, Newson felt it shared much of the same vocabulary. Reworking his Felt Chair for the aluminium series offered him a chance to resolve the rear leg detail. He was happy with the Cappellini version of the leg – a simple steel tube – but felt it was ‘foreign’ to the chair (it had been an afterthought). Making the whole piece out of aluminium meant that, following the black hole theme, he could simply extrude the leg – a perfect solution. The Alufelt, along with the Event Horizon Table and the Orgone Chair and Stretch Lounge, was shown at the ‘Wormhole’ exhibition, Newson’s frst solo show in Milan, during the furniture fair of 1994. The show was independently produced by Newson himself. “As long as you do something during the fair, it doesn’t have to be with a gallery, you just need somewhere to show the work. I found a beautiful space in an old building and, being broke at the time, negotiated a reasonable price”. Newson designed spring-activated invitations and assembled them by hand. He recalls that only one or two pieces were sold (a rather disappointing result) but that reactions to the work were generally positive. He continued to sell pieces from time to time over the following years, but ended up going into debt at one point, unable to recoup the expensive production costs. By 2004, all of the aluminium pieces had finally sold out (largely via Galerie kreo in Paris).

    Alison Castle, Marc Newson Works, London, 2012

228

Marc Newson

Prototype 'Alufelt Chair'

circa 1993
Polished aluminium, painted aluminium.
89 x 65.5 x 95 cm (35 x 25 3/4 x 37 3/8 in)
Produced by POD Edition, UK. First of 2 prototypes from the edition of 6 (4 orange versions within the edition). Left-facing side impressed with manufacturer's logo 'MARC NEWSON POD EDITION', 'POD', '1 / 0' and artist's mark.

Estimate
£100,000 - 150,000 Ω

Sold for £194,500

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Design

London 25 April 2013 2pm