Philipp Lloyd Powell 1968, Unique Hand Carved, Painted Wood Blue Sofa

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Philipp Lloyd Powell 1968, Unique Hand Carved, Painted Wood Blue Sofa

About the Item

Phillip Lloyd Powell, Furniture Designer ( 1919-2008 ) Phillip Lloyd Powell, a furniture designer who, working largely out of the public eye, produced elegant, sculptural pieces that are today highly prized by collectors. Though Mr. Powell’s work is often described as midcentury modern, it routinely transcended the cool, clean lines associated with that style. His sinuous, textural furniture, which he painstakingly hand-carved from gleaming woods, often recalled forms from the natural world. He was known in particular for his cabinets, whose beautifully worked exteriors opened to reveal interiors lined with silver leaf or fine fabrics. Sometimes Mr. Powell would incorporate an entire oil painting he had picked up in Europe into a cabinet’s outside. Mr. Powell, whom associates described as caring little about publicity, often worked alone and always at a measured pace. In more than half a century, he produced barely a thousand pieces. Phillip Lloyd Powell was born on Aug. 26, 1919, in Germantown, Pa. A skilled woodworker, he was making custom furniture for family and friends by the time he was in high school. He studied engineering at the Drexel Institute of Technology (now Drexel University) before being drafted. In World War II he served in Britain as a weather forecaster with the Army Air Corps. During the war Mr. Powell sustained himself, he said afterward, with the thought of one day settling in New Hope, a Bucks County town famous as an artists’ haven. In 1947 he bought an acre of land there. He bought a book on house building and built a house. From there he began selling Herman Miller furniture and Isamu Noguchi lamps. Mr. Nakashima, who lived nearby, soon urged Mr. Powell to design his own furniture, and he began in the early 1950s with a series of modern walnut table lamps. In 1953 Mr. Powell established a showroom in downtown New Hope. It was open only on Saturday evenings, which let him do exactly as much business as he needed and no more. Starting in the mid-1950s, Mr. Powell shared his studio with Paul Evans, a noted metalsmith and designer; the two often collaborated on furniture and accessories. A decade later, after their business had grown, Mr. Powell returned to working solo. Overseeing a staff of eight, he had found, was far more management experience than he ever wanted. Mr. Powell’s work has been shown at America House in New York, the Museum of the Philadelphia Civic Center and elsewhere. Measure: L: 200cm.

Creator:
Phillip Lloyd Powell (Designer)
Dimensions:
Height: 46.46 in (118 cm)Width: 22.05 in (56 cm)Depth: 78.75 in (200 cm)Seat Height: 16.93 in (43 cm)
Materials and Techniques:
Wood,Hand-Carved,Hand-Painted
Place of Origin:
United States
Period:
1960-1969
Date of Manufacture:
1968
Condition:
Seller Location:
Paris, FR
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU1288232308552

Shop All Phillip Lloyd Powell

Phillip Lloyd Powell

An American woodworker known for a wide range of furniture that is sensuous, sculptural and imbued with character, Phillip Lloyd Powell is an iconic figure in design. His organic style transcended the conventions of popular mid-century modern furniture and is best reflected in the vintage cabinets and tables for which he is renowned.

“I am an artist working with furniture,” Powell once said. But the self-taught furniture maker wore a number of different hats throughout his lifetime. He crafted handmade furniture as a teenager at his boyhood home and went on to study engineering at what is now Drexel University. Powell served in the Army Air Corps during World War II, and, on his return, he established his first showroom in New Hope, in his home state of Pennsylvania, stocking furniture from Knoll, Herman Miller and Isamu Noguchi.

In New Hope, Powell encountered fellow furniture designers Paul Evans and George Nakashima. The latter, a master woodworker who preferred a personal approach to design over industrial methods and materials, encouraged Powell to concentrate on making his own furniture. When Powell did so, he’d experiment with Nakashima’s unused stock of wood, drawing on natural world forms for seating and shapely coffee tables.

Evans, who moved to New Hope in 1955, was invited to share Powell’s studio space. Powell’s furniture design practice really took off and a collaboration with Evans put into motion the 1960s American Studio Craft Movement, which came to include furniture designers Wharton Esherick and Sam Maloof. The decade-long partnership between Evans and Powell yielded stone-topped tables, walnut chests with sculptured metal exteriors and more.

Powell was inspired by Evans’s artistry as a jewelry designer — he was a skilled welder whose Cityscape pieces are milestones of brutalism. Powell, in turn, encouraged him to turn his sculptures into furniture. Like Evans, Powell incorporated a range of materials into his work, rendering the interiors of his hand-carved cabinets alluring and distinctive with applications of silver leaf and fabrics.

The sinewy arms of Powell’s famous New Hope lounge chair are representative of his broad expertise with wood and his ability to make graceful yet functional furniture. He worked slowly, and the influence of the natural world remained a driving force in his designs. Powell produced approximately 1,000 pieces while he lived and worked in New Hope until his death in 2008.

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