Postmodern Acrylic
21st Century and Contemporary American Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail T...
Acrylic, Foam
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Floor Lamps
Acrylic, Lucite
Late 20th Century Italian Post-Modern More Dining and Entertaining
Acrylic, Lucite
21st Century and Contemporary American Post-Modern End Tables
Acrylic, Foam
1990s Post-Modern Abstract Sculptures
Acrylic
Vintage 1980s Japanese Post-Modern Vases
Glass, Acrylic
Vintage 1970s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Acrylic, Resin
20th Century American Post-Modern Contemporary Art
Acrylic, Paper
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Abstract Sculptures
Acrylic, Lucite
Late 20th Century European Post-Modern Abstract Sculptures
Metal
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Paintings
Acrylic, Wood
Vintage 1970s American Post-Modern Architectural Elements
Acrylic
2010s Modernist Cocktail Rings
Sterling Silver, Brass
Mid-20th Century North American Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Aluminum
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Paintings
Acrylic, Wood
Vintage 1970s Canadian Post-Modern Table Lamps
Acrylic
Late 20th Century American Post-Modern Pedestals and Columns
Acrylic, Lucite
1990s American American Craftsman Animal Sculptures
Acrylic, Wood, Resin
Late 20th Century American Post-Modern Paintings
Acrylic, Wood, Paper
Vintage 1970s Italian Post-Modern Wall Lights and Sconces
Metal
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Paperweights
Copper
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Chandeliers and Pendants
Metal
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Abstract Sculptures
Metal
20th Century German Post-Modern Chandeliers and Pendants
Metal
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Table Clocks and Desk Clocks
Plastic, Acrylic
Vintage 1980s Japanese Post-Modern Wall Clocks
Acrylic
2010s American Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Acrylic, Lacquer
Vintage 1970s North American Post-Modern Table Lamps
Plastic, Acrylic
Late 20th Century Post-Modern Paintings
Canvas, Acrylic
Vintage 1970s Japanese Post-Modern Table Lamps
Acrylic
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Decorative Art
Acrylic, Teak, Paint, Paper, Crayon
Vintage 1960s Italian Post-Modern Floor Lamps
Acrylic
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Credenzas
Acrylic, Burl
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Glass, Acrylic, Lucite
Vintage 1980s Post-Modern Table Lamps
Stone
2010s German Post-Modern Commodes and Chests of Drawers
Acrylic, Hardwood, Pine
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Floor Lamps
Glass, Acrylic, Wood
20th Century American Post-Modern Decorative Art
Acrylic, Wood, Paper
Late 20th Century French Post-Modern Flush Mount
Steel
1990s Post-Modern Table Lamps
Aluminum, Chrome
Vintage 1970s American Post-Modern Abstract Sculptures
Chrome
Vintage 1980s French Post-Modern Table Lamps
Metal
21st Century and Contemporary American Post-Modern Night Stands
Wood, Acrylic
21st Century and Contemporary American Post-Modern Night Stands
Steel
21st Century and Contemporary Neo-Expressionist Nude Paintings
Canvas, Acrylic
Vintage 1970s American Table Lamps
Acrylic
Vintage 1980s Japanese Post-Modern Vases
Glass, Acrylic
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Abstract Sculptures
Lucite
20th Century Post-Modern Decorative Art
Acrylic, Lucite
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Paintings
Acrylic, Canvas
20th Century Post-Modern Figurative Sculptures
Metal, Enamel
Vintage 1980s Japanese Minimalist Wall Clocks
Acrylic
21st Century and Contemporary Japanese Minimalist Wall Clocks
Acrylic
20th Century Post-Modern Figurative Sculptures
Metal, Enamel
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Paintings
Glass, Acrylic
Late 20th Century American Post-Modern Paintings
Acrylic
Late 20th Century American Post-Modern Paintings
Acrylic
Mid-20th Century European Mid-Century Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Acrylic
1990s American Modern Wall-mounted Sculptures
Acrylic, Wood
Late 20th Century Hollywood Regency Footstools
Brass
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Postmodern Acrylic For Sale on 1stDibs
How Much is a Postmodern Acrylic?
A Close Look at post-modern Furniture
Strictly speaking, postmodern design was a short-lived movement that manifested itself chiefly in Italy and the United States in the early 1980s. The characteristics of postmodern furniture and other postmodern objects included hot-colored, loud-patterned, usually plastic surfaces; strange proportions and weird angles; and a vague-at-best relationship between form and function.
Critics derided postmodern design as a grandstanding bid for attention and nothing of consequence. The fact that, decades later, postmodern design still has the power to provoke thoughts (along with other reactions) proves they were not entirely correct.
Postmodernism 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. In the next decade in Milan, a cohort of designers led by Ettore Sottsass and Alessandro Mendini brought the discussion to bear on design.
Sottsass and Michele de Lucchi, in 1980, gathered a core group of young designers, which would come to include Michael Graves, Marco Zanini, Shiro Kuramata and Matteo Thun, into a design collective they called Memphis. The Memphis Group saw design as a means of communication and they wanted it to shout. That it did: the first Memphis collection appeared in 1981 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. After the initial Memphis show caused an uproar, postmodern design quickly took off in America. The architect Robert Venturi had 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 collection of postmodern furniture includes seating, decorative objects, lighting fixtures and more.
Materials: plastic Furniture
Arguably the world’s most ubiquitous man-made material, plastic has impacted nearly every industry.
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.
On 1stDibs, browse the luxurious side of plastics through armchairs, lighting and other furnishings.
Read More

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