Midcentury 101in Model 488 Sofa by Edward Wormley for Dunbar

Name: Midcentury 101in Model 488 Sofa by Edward Wormley for Dunbar
Brand: Edward Wormley
Price: 5520 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

Dunbar Edward Wormley Wormley has pioneered in a broad field of design, he was one of those unique designers who was sensitive to the interplay involved in selling modernism and still preserving the nostalgic touch of intimacy, warmth and detail. Wormley attended the Art Institute of Chicago in 1926. After attending there he worked for Marshall Field`s Design Studio in 1930, and then a year later he began working for Dunbar. His collaboration with Dunbar made him a household name for decades. His first Dunbar chairs, produced in 1932, were reproductions of antique designs, but when they became popular Wormley augmented the set with new pieces to form a full line of furniture for almost every room in the house. He was given a contract under which he would produce two lines of furniture each year, one traditional and one modern. By 1944, however, the popularity of the modern line had eclipsed its counterpart and the traditional series was dropped. He opened his own office in New York a year later where he remained a consultant for Dunbar and contracted out his own designs. Wormley`s designs became a special mark of distinction and one can see the great care put into preserving the old with the new. Model 488 midcentury sofa by Edward Wormley for Dunbar 1960s Dunbar sofa model 488, designed by Edward Wormley. Castors for ease in moving. Down filled cushions. Extremely comfortable. Reupholstery recommended.

Creator:

Edward Wormley (Designer)

Dimensions:

Height: 25 in (63.5 cm)Width: 101 in (256.54 cm)Depth: 33 in (83.82 cm)Seat Height: 17 in (43.18 cm)

Style:

Mid-Century Modern (Of the Period)

Materials and Techniques:

Down,Fabric

Place of Origin:

United States

Period:

Mid-20th Century

Date of Manufacture:

1960

Condition:

Wear consistent with age and use. Reupholstery recommended.

Seller Location:

Pasadena, TX

Reference Number:

Seller: MR155091stDibs: LU867113418461

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Shop All Edward Wormley

Edward Wormley

As the longtime director of design for the Dunbar furniture company, Edward Wormley was, along with such peers as George Nelson at Herman Miller Inc., and Florence Knoll of Knoll Inc., one of the leading forces in bringing modern design into American homes in the mid-20th century. Not an axiomatic modernist, Wormley deeply appreciated traditional design, and consequently his work has an understated warmth and a timeless quality that sets it apart from other furnishings of the era.

Wormley was born in rural Illinois and as a teenager took correspondence courses from the New York School of Interior Design. He later attended the Art Institute of Chicago but ran out of money for tuition before he could graduate. Marshall Field hired Wormley in 1930 to design a line of reproduction 18th-century English furniture; the following year he was hired by the Indiana-based Dunbar, where he quickly distinguished himself. It was a good match.

Dunbar was an unusual firm: it did not use automated production systems; its pieces were mostly hand-constructed. For his part, Wormley did not use metal as a major component of furniture; he liked craft elements such as caned seatbacks, tambour drawers, or the woven-wood cabinet fronts seen on his Model 5666 sideboard of 1956. He designed two lines for Dunbar each year — one traditional, one modern — until 1944, by which time the contemporary pieces had become the clear best sellers.

Many of Wormley’s signature pieces — chairs, sofas, tables and more — are modern interpretations of traditional forms. His 1946 Riemerschmid Chair — an example is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art — recapitulates a late 19th-century German design. The long, slender finials of his Model 5580 dining chairs are based on those of Louis XVI chairs; his Listen-to-Me Chaise (1948) has a gentle Rococo curve; the “Precedent” line that Wormley designed for Drexel Furniture in 1947 is a simplified, pared-down take on muscular Georgian furniture. But he could invent new forms, as his Magazine table of 1953, with its bent wood pockets, and his tiered Magazine Tree (1947), both show. And Wormley kept his eye on design currents, creating a series of tables with tops that incorporate tiles and roundels by the great modern ceramicists Otto and Gertrud Natzler.

As the vintage items on 1stDibs demonstrate, Edward Wormley conceived of a subdued sort of modernism, designing furniture that fits into any decorating scheme and does not shout for attention.