Carapuca Armchair

Brazilian furniture designer Sérgio Matos excels at capturing the spirit of his country and engaging with its Indigenous communities. Like illustrious Brazilian modern designers Sergio Rodrigues, Joaquim Tenreiro and Jorge Zalszupin, Matos creates memorable and uncommon designs. He incorporates local artisanal culture into nearly every piece, differentiating himself through this process from many other contemporary designers and dealers in urban centers like São Paulo.

Matos was born in 1976 in Mato Grosso, a region in Brazil that includes the Xingu Indigenous Park within the Amazon rainforest. He graduated with a degree in marketing from the Universidade de Cuiabá before moving to Paraíba to study design at the Federal University of Campina Grande. After his education, Matos immersed himself in the local Indigenous cultures and drew inspiration from the lively use of color at events like the maracatu nação parade in Pernambuco and one of Paraíba’s longest-running festivals, Festa de São João. 

His best-known designs feature naval rope wrapped around aluminum or steel carbon structures, like the starfruit-shaped Carambola stool. Some of his furnishings, like the dorsal-patterned Cobra Coral chair, employ this technique in tandem with the use of colors found naturally in the local environment. Designs such as the Taturana bench are more subtle; it borrows its form from the Amazonian taturana caterpillar. Some of his earlier works like the Chita swing are informed by the Indian fabrics introduced to Brazil, while others repurpose materials like saddle straps, such as the Movimento Armorial-inspired Arreio chair.

Matos has exhibited his work at Milan’s Salone del Mobile. Credited with connecting the radical designs of the Campana Brothers and fellow Brazilian designer Lina Bo Bardi to international markets, the design show likewise contributed to his worldwide acclaim. At the request of Salone curator Marva Griffin, Matos exhibited at the 2010 show, opening his studio that same year. He went on to exhibit in the show four more times, including in 2020 alongside his studio’s 10-year anniversary.

On 1stDibs, find a collection of Sérgio Matos seating, tables and garden elements.

More often than not, vintage mid-century Brazilian furniture designs, with their gleaming wood, soft leathers and inviting shapes, share a sensuous, unique quality that distinguishes them from the more rectilinear output of American and Scandinavian makers of the same era.

Commencing in the 1940s and '50s, a group of architects and designers transformed the local cultural landscape in Brazil, merging the modernist vernacular popular in Europe and the United States with the South American country's traditional techniques and indigenous materials.

Key mid-century influencers on Brazilian furniture design include natives Oscar Niemeyer, Sergio Rodrigues and José Zanine Caldas as well as such European immigrants as Joaquim Tenreiro, Jean Gillon and Jorge Zalszupin. These creators frequently collaborated; for instance, Niemeyer, an internationally acclaimed architect, commissioned many of them to furnish his residential and institutional buildings.

The popularity of Brazilian modern furniture has made household names of these designers and other greats. Their particular brand of modernism is characterized by an émigré point of view (some were Lithuanian, German, Polish, Ukrainian, Portuguese, and Italian), a preference for highly figured indigenous Brazilian woods, a reverence for nature as an inspiration and an atelier or small-production mentality.

Hallmarks of Brazilian mid-century design include smooth, sculptural forms and the use of native woods like rosewood, jacaranda and pequi. The work of designers today exhibits many of the same qualities, though with a marked interest in exploring new materials (witness the Campana Brothers' stuffed-animal chairs) and an emphasis on looking inward rather than to other countries for inspiration.

Find a collection of vintage Brazilian furniture on 1stDibs that includes chairs, sofas, tables and more.

Whether you're sitting around a firepit, playing games or enjoying a meal, outdoor furniture is crucial for a successful social gathering.

We’ve come a long way from the rudimentary patio and garden furniture of yore, which, in the Ancient Roman and Greek eras, meant stone slabs. Back then, your grandiose patch of outdoor greenery was a place to relax and admire the manicured hedges and fruit orchards. Fortunately, advancements in the design of outdoor furniture as well as the burgeoning of artisan landscape designers have made it easier to do so since then.

The need for outdoor chairs, tables and benches to withstand varying weather conditions means that many contemporary offerings prioritize durability over form. For a touch of glamour in your garden, antique and vintage pieces from France or Italy, which have already proven they can stand the test of time, can introduce an elegant sensibility to your outdoor space.

In the late 1940s, Hawaii-based architect Walter Lamb began fashioning outdoor furniture from nautical rope and metal tubing rescued from sunken Pearl Harbor ships. Although his designs were originally intended as gifts for returning GIs, his creations gained such popularity that they were picked up by the then-new Brown Jordan furniture company of California.

Lamb’s adventurous creations inspired many designers who followed. The seating and tables crafted by other mid-century furniture makers noted for their seminal patio and garden works — a list that includes Hendrik Van Keppel and Taylor Green, Russell Woodard and Woodard Furniture, Maurizio Tempestini and Richard Schultz — remain highly sought after by collectors today.

Whether it’s wicker couches for your screened porch or wrought-iron armchairs for fireside drinks, find the antique and vintage patio and garden furniture you need to wind down the day or welcome the morning sun on 1stDibs.