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Ward Bennett for Brickel Black Ash Scissor Lounge Chairs, Red Wool Bouclé, 1984

$6,240per set

$9,600per set35% Off

About the Item

Ward Bennett for Brickel Assoc. Black ash scissor lounge chair pair, set of two, red wool bouclé, 1984, New York. Black lacquered ash, red wool upholstery, metal tags to each. Ward Bennett’s story is a remarkable one. His career began at age 13, when he quit school to work in the garment district in New York City. At 15, he designed his first clothing collection; at 16 he left for Europe, where he continued working on fashion design. While in Europe, he attended art schools in Florence and Paris, but he was mostly self-taught, with skills that ranged from illustrating, sculpting, and jewelry-making to furniture, interior, and home design. “I learn from people,” he once said, referencing a long line of influences, including Hattie Carnegie, Hans Hoffman, and Georgia O’Keeffe. Bennett eventually settled back in New York, where his reputation earned him some of the day’s most affluent clients: David Rockefeller and Chase Manhattan Bank, Tiffany & Co., Sasaki, Italian industrialist Gianni Agnelli, Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner. Another—former President Lyndon Baines Johnson—asked Bennett to design a chair for his presidential library that would be “a cross between a barroom chair and a courtroom chair with a little Western saddle.” Bennett sought to create a design style that was uniquely American, versus the popular European design styles of the 1960s and 70's. His style was called "sensual minimalism" for his blending of industrial design and aesthetic look. Simplicity and comfort were always his goals, and Bennett says he learned a great deal about lumbar support, the importance of chair arms, and designing the right “pitch” from working with the doctor who treated John F. Kennedy’s bad back. Bennett, who died in 2003, is also considered the first American to use industrial materials for home furnishings, well before the high-tech look of the 1970s became popular. He was hailed by the American Institute of Architects for “transforming industrial hardware into sublime objects.” “There was nothing superfluous about Ward’s designs, nothing ‘extra,’”says Tim deFiebre, Bennett’s former assistant and keeper of his legacy. “They were always honed down to their bare essence, and that is what his work is about.” Many of Bennett’s designs are in the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection as well as in the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum; he is also in Interior Design magazine’s Hall of Fame. Image 7: Bennett in his famous apartment after its initial renovation, sitting in his famed scissor chair in front of a white worktable topped with glasses he designed. Besides designing interiors and furniture, Bennett worked on textiles and tabletop objects. Photo courtesy of Michael Pateman via New York Magazine. Image 8: Bennett's home in East Hampton. Photo courtesy of Peter Aaron/Otto. Image 9: Photographed by Horst P. Horst for the November 15, 1964, issue of vogue, a model poses in Bennett’s apartment at the Dakota.

Creator:
Ward Bennett (Designer)
Dimensions:
Height: 34.5 in (87.63 cm)Width: 24.5 in (62.23 cm)Depth: 29 in (73.66 cm)
Sold As:
Set of 2
Style:
Post-Modern (Of the Period)
Materials and Techniques:
Ash,Wool,Ebonized
Place of Origin:
United States
Period:
Late 20th Century
Date of Manufacture:
1984
Condition:
Wear consistent with age and use. Minor losses. Minor signs of age and use including light marks to upholstery and small losses to lacquer. Structurally sound and in good overall condition.
Seller Location:
Brooklyn, NY
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU4190330556622
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Shop All Ward Bennett

Ward Bennett

Ward Bennett created everything from interiors and furniture to textiles and flatware. The unsung New York City-born modernist designer drew on the work of Le Corbusier and Auguste Rodin, studied art with the likes of Abstract Expressionist painter Hans Hofmann and counted legendary American luxury house Tiffany & Co. among his clients. For decades, Bennett created and filled spaces that were elegant, minimalist and deeply appealed to everyone who laid eyes on them.

Bennett left home and school at the young age of 13. He found work in Manhattan’s Garment District, and within a few years, Bennett traveled to Europe on behalf of a clothing manufacturer to gather ideas for modern garments. He lived abroad as a young man, and when he returned to New York, during the early 1940s, he assisted fashion entrepreneur Hattie Carnegie as a window dresser.

Bennett would also go on to share a sculpture studio with artist Louise Nevelson. He ventured into the world of jewelry design, creating necklaces, bracelets and other pieces with Richard Pousette-Dart. The Whitney Museum of American Art exhibited his sculptures, and it wouldn’t be long before the Museum of Modern Art included Bennett’s personal adornments with accessories by the likes of Alexander Calder, Harry Bertoia and Anni Albers in its 1946 “Modern Handmade Jewelry” show.

Bennett didn’t take the plunge into interior design work until he was 30 years old — his inaugural project was an apartment in Manhattan and his clients were family members. He had no formal training in architecture or decorating — and would ultimately design a mere handful of houses in his life — so for his inviting leather office chairs, marble-topped tables and sleek storage cabinets, Bennett relied only on what he learned in the fashion world. Soon, every time he redecorated his own home — an elaborate apartment comprising former maids’ quarters in New York City’s magnificent Dakota building — it earned splashy coverage in the newspapers.

Bennett’s client list eventually included David Rockefeller and Chase Manhattan Bank, Tiffany & Co., Sasaki, Italian industrialist Gianni Agnelli, and others, and during the 1970s he became in-house designer for Brickel Associates, a role that would endure for more than two decades. His work is on permanent view at the Museum of Modern Art and the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York.

On 1stDibs, find vintage Ward Bennett seating, decorative objects and more.