Midcentury Lucite Torsos
Vintage 1970s Italian Minimalist Figurative Sculptures
Lucite
Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Table Lamps
Chrome
Vintage 1970s Mid-Century Modern Figurative Sculptures
Bronze
Recent Sales
Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Sculptures
Carrara Marble
20th Century Italian Mid-Century Modern Figurative Sculptures
Lucite
20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Sculptures
Lucite
Mid-20th Century Mid-Century Modern Abstract Sculptures
Art Glass, Lucite
Mid-20th Century Mid-Century Modern Figurative Sculptures
Alabaster
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Vintage 1960s American Modern Figurative Sculptures
Lucite
Vintage 1960s North American Mid-Century Modern Table Lamps
Chrome, Metal
Vintage 1960s Mid-Century Modern Table Lamps
Metal
Vintage 1970s American Table Lamps
Nickel
Vintage 1980s American Minimalist Figurative Sculptures
Lucite
Materials: Plastic Furniture
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.
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