Hivo Van Teal On Sale

After fleeing Havana as a young man, Hivo Van Teal was able to unleash his artistic sensibilities and launch an award-winning lighting and accessories company. Creating sculpture shapes in acrylic soon became a passion. “In 1974, I opened a 600-square-foot studio close to my house in Miami Beach," Hivo recalls. "Together with Estela, I made my first sculptures named 'Family,' 'Atlanta,' and 'Prism.' A friend of mine who was a furniture representative saw them and exhibited them at a show in Miami Beach. Euster Furniture was one of the most exclusive high-end showrooms in Miami, and Mr. Euster was very impressed with my sculptures and gave us a $10,000 order. And that was the beginning of Van Teal, Inc.” 

Soon, art galleries in Florida and retailers such as Saks Fifth Avenue in Bal Harbour, and I. Magnin in Washington, D.C., began selling Van Teal sculptures. In 1976, Van Teal, Inc. opened its first showroom at the High Point Market in North Carolina. Van Teal has been singled-out for excellence by winning First Prize for Contemporary Sculptures from ACCA (1986, 1987, 1989, 1990 and 1992) and received two ARTS Awards (1995 and 1996).

Arguably the world’s most ubiquitous man-made material, plastic has impacted nearly every industry. In contemporary spaces, new and vintage plastic furniture is quite popular and its use pairs well with a range of design styles.

From the Italian lighting artisans at Fontana Arte to venturesome Scandinavian modernists such as Verner Panton, who created groundbreaking interiors as much as he did seating — see his revolutionary Panton chair — to contemporary multidisciplinary artists like Faye Toogood, furniture designers have been pushing the boundaries of plastic forever.

When The Graduate's Mr. McGuire proclaimed, “There’s a great future in plastics,” it was more than a laugh line. The iconic quote is an allusion both to society’s reliance on and its love affair with plastic. Before the material became an integral part of our lives — used in everything from clothing to storage to beauty and beyond — people relied on earthly elements for manufacturing, a process as time-consuming as it was costly.

Soon after American inventor John Wesley Hyatt created celluloid, which could mimic luxury products like tortoiseshell and ivory, production hit fever pitch, and the floodgates opened for others to explore plastic’s full potential. The material altered the history of design — mid-century modern legends Charles and Ray Eames, Joe Colombo and Eero Saarinen regularly experimented with plastics in the development of tables and chairs, and today plastic furnishings and decorative objects are seen as often indoors as they are outside.

Find vintage plastic lounge chairs, outdoor furniture, lighting and more on 1stDibs.