Alvar Aalto - Design London Tuesday, September 20, 2016 | Phillips
  • Provenance

    Private collection, Finland
    Acquired from the above by the present owner, 1999

  • Literature

    Pirkko Tuukkanen, ed., Alvar Aalto Designer, Vammala, 2002, pp. 8, 24, 107
    Thomas Kellein, ed., alvar & aino aalto. design, collection bischofberger, exh. cat., Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Zurich, 2005, p. 187
    Maija Holma and Markku Lahti, Alvar Aalto: A Gentler Structure for Life, Helsinki, 2008, p. 100

  • Artist Biography

    Alvar Aalto

    Finnish • 1898 - 1976

    In contrast with the functionalism of the International Style (as well the neoclassicism put forward by the Nazi and Soviet regimes), Alvar Aalto brought a refreshing breath of humanism to modern design: "True architecture exists only where man stands in the center," he wrote. Aalto designed furniture in stack-laminated plywood composed of Finnish birch, which was cost-effective and lent warmth to his interiors. Aalto also revived Finnish glass design with his entries in the various Karhula-Iitala glassworks competitions throughout the 1930s.

    In 1936 he won first place for a collection of colorful, wavy vases in various sizes titled Eskimoerindens skinnbuxa (The Eskimo Woman’s Leather Breeches). The vases were an immediate success and the most popular size, now known as the "Savoy" vase, is still in production today. Aalto's freeform designs, in harmony with human needs and nature, anticipated the organic modernism of the 1950s and 1960s; in particular, his innovations in bent plywood had a major impact on designers such as Charles and Ray Eames.

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180

Standard lamp, model no. A 809

1950s
Painted metal, brass, tubular brass, leather-bound metal.
167 cm (65 3/4 in.) high
Manufactured by Valaistustyö Ky, Helsinki, Finland. Top of stem impressed with Valaistustyo A 809.

Estimate
£7,000 - 9,000 

Contact Specialist
Madalena Horta e Costa
Head of Sale
+44 20 7318 4019

Design

London Auction 21 September 2016