At first glance, this red plywood chair appears to perfectly fit within the familiar aesthetic of Donald Judd’s ‘Chair 84’. A disarmingly simple, geometric form with an indisputable function. Looking more closely at the piece, however, four neat rows of six stainless steel slotted screws reveal its anomalous existence within this style of chair, and its significant rarity amongst the American artist's body of work.
Designed in 1991 and fabricated by Wood & Plywood Furniture in 1992 at Spring Street, it is an early example of the no. 10 style made at a time when final manufacturing decisions were still ongoing. This partially explains the existence of screws in the piece. According to Jeff Jamieson, who started the WPF workshop with Rupert Deese in 1990, no more than four chairs of this kind with visible screws were made, and it was later decided that these chairs would be manufactured without these metal details. This possible prototype chair embodies a distinct moment in the chronology and evolution of Donald Judd furniture design, where solutions were tried out and sometimes not converted to ultimate production choices.
Rows of objects, screws, visible joints, or the voids in between them that themselves create rows are recurrent in Judd’s work and highlight the importance of sequence and order for the artist. Function was also a focus in Judd's designs, and he insisted that chairs be used as such:
"If a chair or a building is not functional, if it appears to be only art, it is ridiculous. The art of a chair is not its resemblance to art, but is partly its reasonableness, usefulness and scale as a chair ... A work of art exists as itself; a chair exists as a chair itself."
This exceptional yet straightforward work is made from phenolic-coated plywood, a material that is congruous with Judd's predilection for industrial building materials. It was originally developed as flooring for trucks and as shuttering for casting concrete. The 12mm thickness of this chair’s panels are less visually dense than the plywood or wood used in other Judd designs which, together with the piece’s open sides, giving it an elegant lightness.
The chair’s open sides give it an elegant lightness Alongside the designer’s name and fabrication year, the impressed marking on the underside of the chair reads PC 139 10R, referring to: Plywood Chair, the 10th style of ‘Chair 84’, in the colour red, and the 139 identifies the piece within WPF's production. This chair was exhibited in the ‘Donald Judd - Möbel’ exhibition at Formatera in Zürich in 1993 alongside four other plywood chairs and four metal chairs produced by Janssen. Judd attended that exhibition, and this is the first time this chair is seen by a wider public since then.
Provenance
Formatera AG, Zurich, acquired directly from the designer, 1992
Acquired from the above by the present owner, 2004Exhibited
'Donald Judd - Möbel’, Formatera, Zurich, 1993
Literature
Rainer Judd and Flavin Judd, eds., Donald Judd Spaces, New York, 2020, pp. 263-65 for similar examples
Artist Biography
Donald Judd
American • 1928 - 1994
Donald Judd came to critical acclaim in the 1960s with his simple, yet revolutionary, three-dimensional floor and wall objects made from new industrial materials, such as anodized aluminum, plywood and Plexiglas, which had no precedent in the visual arts. His oeuvre is characterized by the central constitutive elements of color, material and space. Rejecting the illusionism of painting and seeking an aesthetic freed from metaphorical associations, Judd sought to explore the relationship between art object, viewer and surrounding space with his so-called "specific objects." From the outset of his three-decade-long career, Judd delegated the fabrication to specialized technicians. Though associated with the minimalist movement, Judd did not wish to confine his practice to this categorization.
Inspired by architecture, the artist also designed and produced his own furniture, predominantly in wood, and eventually hired a diverse team of carpenters late in his career.
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Rare 'Side Shelf Plywood Chair 84', style no. 10
designed 1991, fabricated 1992
Phenolic coated birch plywood, stainless steel screws.
76 x 38 x 38 cm (29 7/8 x 14 7/8 x 14 7/8 in.)
Fabricated by Wood & Plywood Furniture, New York, USA for Formatera, AG, Zurich, Switzerland. Underside impressed JUDD 1992 © PC 10 R 139 WPF.
Estimate
£8,000 - 12,000 ‡
Sold for £63,000
Antonia King
Head of Sale, Design
+44 20 7901 7944
Antonia.King@phillips.com
Design
London Auction 2 November 2022
