Max Lamb - Design New York Tuesday, December 17, 2019 | Phillips
  • Provenance

    Johnson Trading Gallery, New York
    Acquired from the above by the present owner, 2007

  • Literature

    Zoë Ryan, Max Lamb, and Ryan Gander, Max Lamb: Exercises in Seating, exh. cat., Art Institute of Chicago, 2018, pp. 82, 84, 86-87, 117

  • Catalogue Essay

    In his seating designs—of which there are over 400—Max Lamb often experiments with new forms, materials, and techniques. Lamb made the present lot, for example, using the lost-foam casting process, a highly unconventional production method for furniture making. In this process, a polystyrene foam model of the chair is submerged into sand and then poured over with molten bronze, melting the foam and giving the chair its unique, beady surface. Lamb’s novel use of materials results in a surprising experience with the work: the lightness of foam, from which the chair takes its form, contradicts the heaviness of the bronze and provides the user with an unexpectedly engaging experience. Lamb described his process saying, “The high fluid rate of molten bronze allows a perfectly exact replica of the polystyrene ‘master’ to be cast. Because the master is sacrificed during the casting process, each subsequent bronze stool or chair…is unique." In this regard, the chair is both original and part of a larger editioned series. An example from the edition belongs to the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

68

"Bronze Poly Chair"

designed 2006
Silicon bronze.
28 1/2 x 12 x 15 in. (72.4 x 30.5 x 38.1 cm)
Produced for Johnson Trading Gallery, New York. From the edition of 10 unique examples.

Estimate
$8,000 - 12,000 

Sold for $37,500

Contact Specialist

DesignNewYork@phillips.com
+1 212 940 1265

Design

New York Auction 17 December 2019