"All Wood" Chair by Jean Prouvé

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"All Wood" Chair by Jean Prouvé

About the Item

Jean Prouvé's "Chaise en Bois" was an all-wood version of his famous steel "Standard Chair". Because the exigencies of world war made supplies of steel unobtainable in 1942, Prouvé redesigned the chair to use as little metal as possible (the eight screws are the only parts not made of wood). The switch from steel to wood gave Prouvé an opportunity to experiment with traditional furniture making methods that were paradoxically new to him, the Machine Age pioneer. Lovely through tenons conspicuously join the horizontal members (that support the seat) to the rear legs, and also the front cross-bar to the front legs. Though consistent with the modernist ethic of structural honesty, such labor intensive joinery links Prouvé to the craftsmen of an older era that of his father Victor Prouvé. While made of wood (in this case oak), this war-time iteration of the "Chaise Standard" retains Jean Prouvé's signature rear leg that emphatically expresses the structural loads of the chair. Thus the distinctive profile, no less confidently architectural than the "pilotis" of a Le Corbusier building. Which may explain Le Corbusier's original choice of these chairs for use in his famous postwar Unité d'Habitation, in Marseilles. All of the early photographs of the interiors of this most influential of Le Corbusier buildings show Prouvé's "Chaise en Bois" used exclusively in both the dining areas and the bedrooms. This example, though not originally painted, was once covered (by a previous owner) in off-white lacquer. The traces of the paint in the grain of the oak actually impart a pleasing appearance, not unlike a cerused finish. Literature: Jean Prouvé Complete works, Volume 2: 1934-1944, Sulzer, ppg. 33, 294-295 Jean Prouvé, Galerie Patrick Seguin and Sonnabend Gallery, ppg. 234, 250-253 Jean Prouvé, Galeries Jousse Seguin and Galerie Enrico Navarra, ppg. 42-43.

Creator:
Jean Prouvé (Designer)
Dimensions:
Height: 32.5 in (82.55 cm)Width: 18 in (45.72 cm)Depth: 19 in (48.26 cm)
Style:
Modern (Of the Period)
Materials and Techniques:
Oak
Place of Origin:
France
Period:
1940-1949
Date of Manufacture:
1942
Condition:
Wear consistent with age and use. The seat has had a portion of its veneer (near the edge) restored.
Seller Location:
Los Angeles, CA
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU80911265796

Shop All Jean Prouvé

Jean Prouvé

Engineer and metalsmith, self-taught designer and architect, manufacturer and teacher, Jean Prouvé was a key force in the evolution of 20th-century French design, introducing a style that combined economy of means and stylistic chic. Along with his frequent client and collaborator Le Corbusier and others, Prouvé, using his practical skills and his understanding of industrial materials, steered French modernism onto a path that fostered principled, democratic approaches to architecture and design.

Prouvé was born in Nancy, a city with a deep association with the decorative arts. (It is home, for example, to the famed Daum crystal manufactory.) His father, Victor Prouvé, was a ceramist and a friend and co-worker of such stars of the Art Nouveau era as glass artist Émile Gallé and furniture maker Louis Majorelle. Jean Prouvé apprenticed to a blacksmith, studied engineering, and produced ironwork for such greats of French modernism as the architect Robert Mallet-Stevens. In 1931, he opened the firm Atelier Prouvé. There, he perfected techniques in folded metal that resulted in his Standard chair (1934) and other designs aimed at institutions such as schools and hospitals.

During World War II, Prouvé was a member of the French Resistance, and his first postwar efforts were devoted to designing metal pre-fab housing for those left homeless by the conflict. In the 1950s, Prouvé would unite with Charlotte Perriand and Pierre Jeanneret (Le Corbusier’s cousin) on numerous design projects. In 1952, he and Perriand and artist Sonia Delaunay created pieces for the Cité Internationale Universitaire foundation in Paris, which included the colorful, segmented bookshelves that are likely Prouvé’s and Perriand’s best-known designs. The pair also collaborated on 1954’s Antony line of furniture, which again, like the works on 1stDibs, demonstrated a facility for combining material strength with lightness of form.

Prouvé spent his latter decades mostly as a teacher. His work has recently won new appreciation: in 2008 the hotelier Andre Balazs purchased at auction (hammer price: just under $5 million) the Maison Tropicale, a 1951 architectural prototype house that could be shipped flat-packed, and was meant for use by Air France employees in the Congo. Other current Prouvé collectors include Brad Pitt, Larry Gagosian, Martha Stewart and the fashion designer Marc Jacobs. The rediscovery of Jean Prouvé — given not only the aesthetic and practical power of his designs, but also the social conscience his work represents — marks one of the signal “good” aspects of collecting vintage 20th century design. An appreciation of Jean Prouvé is an appreciation of human decency.