Shiro Kuramata - Design New York Tuesday, December 12, 2017 | Phillips
  • Provenance

    Livina Yamagiwa, Tokyo
    Acquired from the above by the present owner

  • Literature

    Shiro Kuramata 1934-1991, exh. cat., Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, 1996, illustrated p. 168
    Deyan Sudjic, Shiro Kuramata: Catalogue of Works, London, 2013, p. 323, illustrated p. 328

  • Catalogue Essay

    Phillips would like to thank the Kuramata Design Office for their assistance cataloguing the present lot.

  • Artist Biography

    Shiro Kuramata

    Japanese • 1934 - 1991

    Shiro Kuramata is widely admired for his ability to free his designs from gravity and use materials in ways that defied convention. After a restless childhood, his ideas of being an illustrator having been discouraged, Kuramata discovered design during his time at the Teikoku Kizai Furniture Factory in Arakawa-ku in 1954. The next year he started formal training at the Department of Interior Design at the Kuwasawa Design Institute. His early work centered on commercial interiors and window displays. In 1965, at the age of 31, he opened his own firm: Kuramata Design Office.

    Throughout his career he found inspiration in many places, including the work of Italian designers (particularly those embodying the Memphis style) and American conceptual artists like Donald Judd, and combined such inspirations with his own ingenuity and creativity. His dynamic use of materials, particularly those that were transparent, combination of surfaces and awareness of the potential of light in design led him to create objects that stretched structural boundaries and were also visually captivating. These qualities are embodied in his famous Glass Chair (1976).

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70

Rare "Chair C (Square Pipe Armchair)," from the Lavina Yamagiwa Meeting Room

1983
Steel with fired Melamine finish, fabric, rubber.
29.5 x 20.75 x 20.5 in. (74.9 x 52.7 x 52.1 cm)
Manufactured by Ishimaru Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan.

Estimate
$5,000 - 7,000 

Sold for $5,000

Contact Specialist
Cordelia Lembo
Specialist, Head of Sale
+1 212 940 1265

Design

New York Auction 12 December 2017