Artwork Page for Side Chair

Details / Information for Side Chair

Side Chair

c. 1900

France, Paris

Medium
mahogany
Measurements
Overall: 96.5 x 46.1 x 49.5 cm (38 x 18 1/8 x 19 1/2 in.)
Credit Line
Edwin R. and Harriet Pelton Perkins Memorial Fund 1982.4
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
Print
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Did You Know?

This chair may have been designed by Parisian cabinetmaker Eugène Gaillard, who created a very similar design for the pavilion of Siegfried Bing at the 1900 world's fair in Paris.

Description

During the 1890s a new style emerged that reflected naturalistic and symbolic motifs found in Japanese and other Asian design. This movement rejected the historicism that had dominated architecture and design during the previous decades and took hold across Europe and America too. In France the style was known as "Art Nouveau," after the name of the gallery belonging to its chief proponent Siegfried Bing, the Maison de L'Art Nouveau (House of the New Art). This side chair typifies Art Nouveau style with its curving lines that seamlessly flow from one to another. This abstract use of curvilinear lines to create form and decoration was one of the major motifs favored by art nouveau designers to evoke naturalistic or organic design. Art Nouveau reached its apex at the 1900 world's fair in Paris, which was intended to herald the new century with a new style of art. However, critics and consumers alike soon rejected Art Nouveau as too sentimental in favor of newer motifs and styles as the moment passed. By 1905 it was all but forgotten.
Smooth, shiny, orange-brown wood chair, every line subtly curving. Two sections arc in an "x" over the roughly rectangular back, curving slightly in on the straight sides. From the front edge of the seat, other sections curve down from the center, cutting diagonally to meet with the chair legs half way down. Particularly on the legs, sparse, curving lines detail the chair.

Side Chair

c. 1900

France, Paris

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