Sofa Designed by Edward Wormley for Dunbar
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Sofa Designed by Edward Wormley for Dunbar
About the Item
- Creator:Edward Wormley (Designer)
- Dimensions:Height: 28.5 in (72.39 cm)Width: 111 in (281.94 cm)Depth: 34 in (86.36 cm)
- Style:Mid-Century Modern (Of the Period)
- Materials and Techniques:
- Place of Origin:
- Period:
- Date of Manufacture:1950s
- Condition:
- Seller Location:Dallas, TX
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU87852292182
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.
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- Edward Wormley Dunbar Oasis Sofas in Ivory Boucle Early First Generation 1930sBy Dunbar Furniture, Edward WormleyLocated in Dallas, TXThe price listed is per sofa. This is a rare first edition Oasis Sofa designed by Edward Wormley and created in the 1930s when he first began his tenure at the Dunbar furniture company of Berne Indiana. The Oasis sofa is not only a historically significant piece of twentieth-century design history, but it is also undeniably elegant and most importantly, extremely comfortable. This is an heirloom quality hand-built sofa crafted with a solid hardwood frame that has been professionally restored to the highest possible standard. The complete restoration included all new foam, reinforcing the frame, re-working the eight-way hand-tied springs, upholstering with new high-performance Italian boucle material, and refinishing the solid mahogany legs. These sofas are almost 100 years old and are now ready for another 100 years of enjoyment. This era of design was significant for Wormley because it marked his style as a more formal brand of modernism, re-imagining classic forms while removing the unnecessary carvings and embellishments to give them a more modern, 20th-century appeal. As rare as these sofas are we were miraculously able to source a matching pair. They have both been restored to the same specifications and are a perfect mirrored pair. The price listed is for EACH sofa, but, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to acquire a pair of one of the most prestigious classic modern designer sofas...Category
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