1980s Vintage Wassily B3 Black Leather and Chrome Chair Marcel Breuer
View Similar Items
1980s Vintage Wassily B3 Black Leather and Chrome Chair Marcel Breuer
About the Item
- Creator:Marcel Breuer (Designer)
- Design:
- Dimensions:Height: 28.75 in (73 cm)Width: 30.71 in (78 cm)Depth: 27.17 in (69 cm)
- Style:Bauhaus (Of the Period)
- Materials and Techniques:Leather,Machine-Made
- Place of Origin:
- Period:
- Date of Manufacture:1980
- Condition:Wear consistent with age and use.
- Seller Location:Stow on the Wold, GB
- Reference Number:Seller: st1198A1stDibs: LU3784119167202
Wassily Lounge Chair
Inspired by bicycle handlebars, the Wassily chair is one of Marcel Breuer’s (1902–81) greatest achievements. Even though the tubular metal chair looked like an artifact from the future when the Hungarian-American designer and architect conceived it in 1925, Breuer could not have foreseen the significant impact that this would have on modern design.
From 1920–28, Breuer studied and then taught at the Bauhaus school of design, where he found a kindred spirit in Walter Gropius, who invited Breuer back as junior master of the carpentry workshop. After less than a year in his new role, Breuer produced his revolutionary chair, which is among the first furniture designs to feature bent tubular steel.
Breuer called the Wassily his “most extreme work” because the pared-down design didn’t look comfortable. It’s true: Take an everyday club chair — the Wassily’s technical name was the model B3 club chair — and toss the cushions and you’d have something like Breuer’s design. The lightweight and mass-produced tubular-steel handlebars of the maker’s bicycle made him wonder if he could achieve something similar with bent-steel furniture.
The resulting mid-1920s-era chair, the seat of which was made of a durable canvas developed by Bauhaus student Margaretha Reichardt, was named the Wassily after painter and fellow Bauhaus colleague Vasily “Wassily” Kandinsky expressed admiration for the piece. Today, Knoll manufactures the Wassily chair.
Marcel Breuer
The architect and designer Marcel Breuer was one the 20th century’s most influential and innovative adherents of modernism. A member of the Bauhaus faculty, Breuer — like such colleagues as the architects Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and the artists and art theoreticians László Moholy-Nagy and Josef Albers — left Europe in the 1930s to champion the new design philosophy and its practice in the United States.
Born in Hungary, Breuer became a Bauhaus student in 1920 and quickly impressed Gropius, the German school’s founder, with his aptitude for furniture design. His early work was influenced by the minimalist Dutch design movement De Stijl — in particular the work of architect Gerrit Rietveld. In 1925, while he was head of the Bauhaus furniture workshop, Breuer realized his signature innovation: the use of lightweight tubular-steel frames for chairs, tables and sofas — a technique soon adopted by Mies and others. Breuer’s attention gradually shifted from design to architecture, and, at the urging of Gropius, he joined his mentor in 1937 on the faculty of Harvard and in an architectural practice.
In the 1940s, Breuer opened his own architectural office, and there his style evolved from geometric, glass-walled structures toward a kind of hybrid architecture — seen in numerous Breuer houses in New England — that pairs bases of local fieldstone with sleek, wood-framed modernist upper floors. In his later, larger commissions, Breuer worked chiefly with reinforced concrete and stone, as seen in his best-known design, the brutalist inverted ziggurat built in New York in 1966 as the home of the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Breuer’s most famous furniture pieces are those made of tubular steel, which include the Wassily chair — named after Wassily Kandinsky and recognizable for its leather-strap seating supports — and the caned Cesca chair. Breuer also made several notable designs in molded plywood, including a chaise and nesting table for the British firm Isokon and a student furniture suite commissioned in 1938 for a dormitory at Bryn Mawr College. Whether in metal or wood, Breuer’s design objects are elegant and adaptable examples of classic modernist design — useful and appropriate in any environment.
Find vintage Marcel Breuer seating, storage cabinets and lighting on 1stDibs.
- Original 1950s Heron Chair by Ernest Race Midcentury Modern chairBy Ernest RaceLocated in Stow on the Wold, GBA beautiful example of an original Ernest Race Heron Chair circa 1955. Designed by Ernest Race and Manufactured by Race Furniture. Owned by one famil...Category
Mid-20th Century English Mid-Century Modern Lounge Chairs
MaterialsSteel
- Pair of Body Chairs by Jim Warren Pearl Dot 1979 Yoga Chair Slatted Ash ChairLocated in Stow on the Wold, GBAn important and rare pair of chairs designed by Jim Warren and produced by Pearl Dot, England, they date from 1979. Very cleverly designed to reflect the whole human body, in its fu...Category
Mid-20th Century English Mid-Century Modern Chairs
MaterialsAsh
- Large Hand Turned Jarrah Wood Decorative Bowl 1980sLocated in Stow on the Wold, GBVery nicely hand turned bespoke wooden bowl, made from Jarrah Wood originating from Australia. Turned by hand, the bowl has a wonderful thick rim to it, giving a very nice chunky ap...Category
Late 20th Century Australian Decorative Bowls
MaterialsWood
- 1980s Sculpture Hand Produced Studio Pottery Vase by John BeddingLocated in Stow on the Wold, GBHandmade slab studio pottery vase in good condition. This piece dates from the 1980s and is signed by the artist John Bedding who is based in St Ives. ...Category
20th Century English Abstract Sculptures
MaterialsPottery
- 1950s Black and Walnut Dining Chair in the Style of Imari TapiovaaraBy Tapio WirkkalaLocated in Stow on the Wold, GBVery good quality dining chair in the style of Imari Tapiovaara. Designed in the 1950s. Ebonized beech legs and back spindles and walnut veneered seats. In good vintage condition,...Category
Mid-20th Century English Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Chairs
MaterialsWalnut, Plywood
- 1950s Black and Walnut Dining Chair in the Style of Imari TapiovaaraBy Tapio WirkkalaLocated in Stow on the Wold, GBVery good quality dining chair in the style of Imari Tapiovaara. Designed in the 1950s. Ebonized beech legs and back spindles and walnut veneered seats. In good vintage condition, v...Category
Mid-20th Century English Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Chairs
MaterialsWalnut, Plywood
- Gavina Wassily Chair B3 Vintage Leather White by Marcel Breuer 1 of 2By Gavina, Marcel BreuerLocated in Munich, BavariaThis old Vintage Wassily chair Model B3, in chromed tubular steel and white leather, was designed by Marcel Breuer and produced by Gavina. It's an early edition before 68. It has som...Category
Mid-20th Century Italian Bauhaus Lounge Chairs
MaterialsMetal, Chrome
- Wassily B3 armchair by Marcel Breuer, white leather, Italy 1980sBy Marcel BreuerLocated in Vorst, BEWassily armchair designed by Marcel Breuer in 1929, THE Bauhaus classic. Structure in chromed steel tubes, with upholstery in white leather. Vintage, italian edition from the 1980s...Category
Mid-20th Century Italian Bauhaus Lounge Chairs
MaterialsSteel, Chrome
- Gavina Wassily Chair B3 Design by Marcel Breuer Dark Brown Saddle LeatherBy Marcel Breuer, GavinaLocated in Munich, BavariaThis Wassily chair, in chromed tubular steel and dark brown leather, was designed by Marcel Breuer and produced by Gavina. from 1965 -1969 was this chair in production. So this is ...Category
Mid-20th Century Italian Bauhaus Lounge Chairs
MaterialsChrome, Stainless Steel
- Knoll International Wassily Chair by Marcel Breuer Black LeatherBy Knoll, Marcel BreuerLocated in Munich, BavariaThis Wassily chair, in chromed tubular steel and black leather, was designed by Marcel Breuer and produced by Knoll International. Knoll International production with the Marcel Breu...Category
Mid-20th Century Italian Bauhaus Lounge Chairs
MaterialsStainless Steel, Chrome
- Knoll International Wassily Chair by Marcel Breuer Black LeatherBy Knoll, Marcel BreuerLocated in Munich, BavariaThis Wassily chair, in chromed tubular steel and black leather, was designed by Marcel Breuer and produced by Knoll International. Knoll International production with the Marcel Breu...Category
Mid-20th Century Italian Bauhaus Lounge Chairs
MaterialsChrome, Stainless Steel
- Pair of Early Wassily Chairs by Marcel Breuer for Knoll, Leather and ChromeBy Knoll, Marcel BreuerLocated in Buffalo, NYMarcel Breuer's 1925 design is a widely recognized masterpiece of modern furniture, having long ago achieved iconic status. This pair of Wassily chairs date to the 1960s. The chrome...Category
Vintage 1960s American Bauhaus Lounge Chairs
MaterialsSteel