Paul Evans for Directional Cityscape Sideboard in Chrome

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Paul Evans for Directional Cityscape Sideboard in Chrome

About the Item

Paul Evans for Directional, 'Cityscape' sideboard, chrome on wood, United States, circa 1972 A two-doors credenza designed by Paul Evans. A real eyecatcher which interacts with its surroundings and the reflection of the light. The sideboard is part of the line 'Cityscape' that is inspired by the Manhattan skyline. This line of furniture was produced by Directional between 1971 and 1981. It features a patchwork of square pieces of chrome in different dimensions. Paul Evans’ (1931-1987) interest in the haptic quality of this designs was visible from early in his career and mostly realized with metal and chrome in his designs. In 1950 Evans started attending the School for American Craftsman. Five years later he started sharing his showroom with Phillip Lloyd Powell and together they collaborated until 1966. Powell’s woodwork and Evan’s metal craftsmanship combined into a creative partnership. In 1964 Evans starts working together with the Directional Furniture Company. In the early 1970s Evans published his ‘Cityscape’ furniture line. In 1974 Evans introduced the PE 400 series consisting of wooden burl in contrast with metal. The development within his oeuvre is clearly seen in the change from mostly metal based works towards pieces working with the effect of chrome surfaces capturing the disco aera towards the PE 400 series where Evans developed the popular Cityscape series l and ll into a three-dimensional design with the contrast between natural wood and chrome surfaces. In contrast features the ‘Patchwork Series’ more flat surfaces in use of copper, brass and other metals creating a unique pattern. Evan’s oeuvre has an impressive size especially when regarding the fact that all pieces were handmade.

Creator:
Paul Evans (Designer)
Dimensions:
Height: 32.68 in (83 cm)Width: 72.05 in (183 cm)Depth: 20.08 in (51 cm)
Style:
Mid-Century Modern (Of the Period)
Materials and Techniques:
Chrome,Wood
Place of Origin:
United States
Period:
1970-1979
Date of Manufacture:
1975
Condition:
Wear consistent with age and use. Every item Morentz offers is checked by our team of 30 craftsmen in our in-house workshop. Special restoration requests can be done. We guarantee a very high quality standard, ask our design specialists for detailed information.
Seller Location:
Waalwijk, NL
Reference Number:
Seller: 450132281stDibs: LU933125341502

Shop All Paul Evans

Paul Evans

A designer and sculptor, Paul Evans was a wild card of late 20th century modernism. A leading light of the American Studio Furniture movement, Evans’s sideboards, credenzas, coffee tables and other work manifests a singular aesthetic sense, as well as a seemingly contradictory appreciation for both folk art forms and for new materials and technologies.

Evans’s primary material was metal, not wood, which was favored by his fellow studio designers, and Bucks County, Pennsylvania, neighbors George Nakashima and Phillip Lloyd Powell. He trained in metallurgy and studied at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, the famed crucible of modern design and art in suburban Detroit. For a time early in his career, Evans also worked at Sturbridge Village, a historical “living museum” in Massachusetts, where he gave demonstrations as a costumed silversmith.

Evans’s earliest work unites these influences. The pieces that made his reputation are known as “sculpted-front” cabinets: wood cases faced with box-like high-relief patinated steel mounts laid out in a grid pattern. Each mount contains a metal emblem, or glyph, and the effect is that of a brawny quilt.

Evans’s later work falls into three distinct style groups. His sculpted-bronze pieces, begun in the mid-1960s, show Evans at his most expressive. He employed a technique in which resin is hand-shaped, and later sprayed with a metal coating, allowing for artistic nuance in the making of chairs, tables and case pieces. Later in the decade and into the 1970s, Evans produced his Argente series for celebrated manufacturer Directional (a brand known to vintage mid-century modern furniture collectors everywhere): consoles and other furniture forms that feature aluminum and pigment-infused metal surfaces welded into abstract organic forms and patterns.

Last, Evans's Cityscape design series — a milestone in the history of brutalist design — meshed perfectly with the sleek, “high tech” sensibility of the later ’70s. Evans constructed boxy forms and faced them with irregular mosaic patterns that mixed rectangular plaques of chromed steel, bronze or burlwood veneer. These, like all of Paul Evans’s designs, are both useful and eye-catching. But their appeal has another, more visceral quality: these pieces have clearly been touched by an artist’s hand.

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