Post Modern Lacquer
Vintage 1980s North American Post-Modern Console Tables
Lacquer
Late 20th Century Italian Post-Modern Nesting Tables and Stacking Tables
Chrome
Late 20th Century Unknown Modern Center Tables
Glass, Lacquer
1990s Art Deco Screens and Room Dividers
Lacquer
Vintage 1970s Italian Post-Modern Dining Room Chairs
Leather, Lacquer
Vintage 1980s Beds and Bed Frames
Lacquer
20th Century Italian Post-Modern Dining Room Chairs
Leather, Wood
Late 20th Century American Post-Modern Commodes and Chests of Drawers
Chrome
Vintage 1970s French Post-Modern Console Tables
Wood, Lacquer
Vintage 1970s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Wood, Lacquer
Late 20th Century American Post-Modern Cabinets
Lacquer
Vintage 1980s Modern Wall Lights and Sconces
Metal, Brass
Vintage 1970s French Art Deco Buffets
Brass, Bronze
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern End Tables
Wood, Lacquer
20th Century Italian Post-Modern Dining Room Chairs
Fabric, Beech
Antique 17th Century Japanese Edo Lacquer
Copper, Gold
Vintage 1970s American Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Tables
Wood, Lacquer, Laminate
Late 20th Century Asian Post-Modern Platters and Serveware
Mother-of-Pearl, Lacquer
Late 20th Century Canadian Post-Modern Wardrobes and Armoires
Rubber, Lacquer
Vintage 1980s Modern Dressers
Lacquer
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Dining Room Chairs
Naugahyde, Hardwood
Late 20th Century American Post-Modern Side Tables
Wood, Lacquer
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Sideboards
Wood
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Credenzas
Metal
Mid-20th Century American Post-Modern Console Tables
Lacquer
2010s Panamanian Post-Modern Abstract Sculptures
Metal
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Dining Room Tables
Wood, Lacquer
2010s Panamanian Post-Modern Abstract Sculptures
Metal
Vintage 1980s Japanese Post-Modern Barware
Plastic, Lacquer
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Night Stands
Brass
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Wood, Lacquer
2010s Panamanian Post-Modern Abstract Sculptures
Metal
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Credenzas
Chrome
20th Century Unknown Mid-Century Modern Benches
Leather, Mahogany
20th Century Italian Post-Modern Dining Room Tables
Wood, Burl, Lacquer
2010s Post-Modern Vases
Metal
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Night Stands
Wood, Lacquer
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Chairs
Upholstery, Wood, Lacquer
Vintage 1980s Post-Modern Mounted Objects
Shell, Lucite, Lacquer
Vintage 1970s American Post-Modern Credenzas
Glass, Wood, Lacquer
Vintage 1980s American Mid-Century Modern Night Stands
Lacquer
Late 20th Century American Post-Modern Cabinets
Mirror, Lacquer
Late 20th Century Side Tables
Lacquer
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Glass, Lacquer
Late 20th Century American Post-Modern Sideboards
Mirror, Lacquer
20th Century Italian End Tables
Wood
Late 20th Century Post-Modern Chairs
Lacquer, Wood, Paint
Late 20th Century Unknown Modern Side Chairs
Fabric, Wood, Lacquer
Vintage 1970s French Post-Modern Table Lamps
Metal
Vintage 1970s Italian Mid-Century Modern Bookends
Metal
2010s Center Tables
Metal
Late 20th Century Italian Post-Modern Figurative Sculptures
Aluminum
Vintage 1970s Italian Post-Modern Dry Bars
Steel, Chrome
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Coat Racks and Stands
Travertine
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Dining Room Chairs
Chrome
Vintage 1960s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Wood
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Wood
21st Century and Contemporary Italian Mid-Century Modern Desks and Writi...
Walnut
Vintage 1980s German Post-Modern Cabinets
Metal, Brass
Vintage 1980s Danish Post-Modern Dining Room Chairs
Metal
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Post Modern Lacquer For Sale on 1stDibs
How Much is a Post Modern Lacquer?
A Close Look at post-modern Furniture
Postmodern design was a short-lived movement that manifested itself chiefly in Italy and the United States in the early 1980s. The characteristics of vintage postmodern furniture and other postmodern objects and decor for the home included loud-patterned, usually plastic surfaces; strange proportions, vibrant colors and weird angles; and a vague-at-best relationship between form and function.
ORIGINS OF POSTMODERN FURNITURE DESIGN
- Emerges during the 1960s; popularity explodes during the ’80s
- A reaction to prevailing conventions of modernism by mainly American architects
- Architect Robert Venturi critiques modern architecture in his Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966)
- Theorist Charles Jencks, who championed architecture filled with allusions and cultural references, writes The Language of Post-Modern Architecture (1977)
- Italian design collective the Memphis Group, also known as Memphis Milano, meets for the first time (1980)
- Memphis collective debuts more than 50 objects and furnishings at Salone del Milano (1981)
- Interest in style declines, minimalism gains steam
CHARACTERISTICS OF POSTMODERN FURNITURE DESIGN
- Dizzying graphic patterns and an emphasis on loud, off-the-wall colors
- Use of plastic and laminates, glass, metal and marble; lacquered and painted wood
- Unconventional proportions and abundant ornamentation
- Playful nods to Art Deco and Pop art
POSTMODERN FURNITURE DESIGNERS TO KNOW
- Ettore Sottsass
- Robert Venturi
- Alessandro Mendini
- Michele de Lucchi
- Michael Graves
- Nathalie du Pasquier
VINTAGE POSTMODERN FURNITURE ON 1STDIBS
Critics derided postmodern design as a grandstanding bid for attention and nothing of consequence. Decades later, the fact that postmodernism still has the power to provoke thoughts, along with other reactions, proves they were not entirely correct.
Postmodern design began as an architectural critique. Starting in the 1960s, a small cadre of mainly American architects began to argue that modernism, once high-minded and even noble in its goals, had become stale, stagnant and blandly corporate. Later, in Milan, a cohort of creators led by Ettore Sottsass and Alessandro Mendini — a onetime mentor to Sottsass and a key figure in the Italian Radical movement — brought the discussion to bear on design.
Sottsass, an industrial designer, philosopher and provocateur, gathered a core group of young designers into a collective in 1980 they called Memphis. Members of the Memphis Group, which would come to include Martine Bedin, Michael Graves, Marco Zanini, Shiro Kuramata, Michele de Lucchi and Matteo Thun, saw design as a means of communication, and they wanted it to shout. That it did: The first Memphis collection appeared in 1981 in Milan and broke all the modernist taboos, embracing irony, kitsch, wild ornamentation and bad taste.
Memphis works remain icons of postmodernism: the Sottsass Casablanca bookcase, with its leopard-print plastic veneer; de Lucchi’s First chair, which has been described as having the look of an electronics component; Martine Bedin’s Super lamp: a pull-toy puppy on a power-cord leash. Even though it preceded the Memphis Group’s formal launch, Sottsass’s iconic Ultrafragola mirror — in its conspicuously curved plastic shell with radical pops of pink neon — proves striking in any space and embodies many of the collective’s postmodern ideals.
After the initial Memphis show caused an uproar, the postmodern movement within furniture and interior design quickly took off in America. (Memphis fell out of fashion when the Reagan era gave way to cool 1990’s minimalism.) The architect Robert Venturi had by then already begun a series of plywood chairs for Knoll Inc., with beefy, exaggerated silhouettes of traditional styles such as Queen Anne and Chippendale. In 1982, the new firm Swid Powell enlisted a group of top American architects, including Frank Gehry, Richard Meier, Stanley Tigerman and Venturi to create postmodern tableware in silver, ceramic and glass.
On 1stDibs, the vintage postmodern furniture collection includes chairs, coffee tables, sofas, decorative objects, table lamps and more.
Read More
This Rare Set of 100 Alessi Vases Includes Designs by Scores of International Artists
Alessandro Mendini, Michael Graves, Ettore Sottsass and other design luminaries contributed to this unusual collection of porcelain wares representing a time capsule of late-20th-century decorative art.
29 Incredible Pools
It's hard to resist the allure of a beautiful pool, even if you don't particularly care for swimming. So go ahead and daydream about whiling away your summer in paradise.
Remembering Alessandro Mendini, a Towering Figure in Italian Design
Aided by photos taken of the maestro in his Milan studio, we honor the influential design talent who died last month at 87.
This Hotshot Duo Is the Design World’s Next Big Thing
Adam Charlap Hyman and Andre Herrero, rising young design talents, are debuting a new, eclectic line of textiles.