1930s low rectangular coffee table by Alvar Aalto for Finmar / P E Gane

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1930s low rectangular coffee table by Alvar Aalto for Finmar / P E Gane

About the Item

Early production low rectangular table by Alvar Aalto. Owned by the previous owners from new, the table was in the same family since the 1930s. Made of birch, the wood has a great golden tone. The top was refinished by the previous owners about 20 years ago and remains in excellent condition. The table would have been distributed in the UK by Finmar and was retailed by P.E Gane of Bristol, England (label present to the under side). The shop on College Green, Bristol was destroyed in 1940, the retailer's label to the underside therefore dates the table to pre 1940. WORLDWIDE SHIPPING - Table will be dismantled for shipping. In the early 1900s, P. E. Gane Ltd was producing furniture in a range of historicist and contemporary designs from Jacobean through to Neo-Classical, Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts at its two factories and retailed primarily through its three shops in Bristol, Cardiff and Newport. It was in the 1930s thought under managing director Crofton Gane that it was to see its most significant achievements. The business continued to go from strength to strength until 1940 when enemy action destroyed its factories and flagship Bristol showroom. Unable to recapture its pre-war dynamism and with more competition, the company closed in 1954. Crofton Gane (1878-1967) was a pioneer of Modernism in Britain. Born in 1878, he had joined the family firm in 1896. A lifelong Quaker, after serving in the Friend’s Ambulance Service during the war, he became a founder member of the Bristol branch of the recently formed Design and Industries Association. The DIA was an influential organisation which was championing the ideals of the emergent model movement. The DIA organized trips to Europe and with them Crofton visited the 1925 Paris Exposition des Arts Décoratifs, an experience that he found inspirational. He ‘saw at once that a new and vital idea was expressing itself in furniture, decoration and colour, and he felt the unmistakable call to introduce it to his own city and the West Country.’ (W.H. 1954, A Swan Sings. The House of Gane: 1824 to 1954. Bristol, Crofton E Gane) In 1927 Crofton persuaded his father Philip Endres Gane to allow him to put on a small exhibition of contemporary furniture in their Bristol showrooms. Despite Philip suggesting that such stock would bankrupt them, Crofton was building in confidence. Philip died in 1933 and Crofton became managing director. Under his leadership the business was gradually transformed into a showcase of Modernism. Through his involvement with the DIA, Crofton was part of the network of people who were on hand when Walter Gropius and the other émigré designers and architects from the Bauhaus arrived in Britain. The group had helped Gropius leave Germany for London in 1934 and Marcel Breuer arrived in England the following year. Within months Gane had commissioned furniture, interiors and a display pavilion from Breuer for his company at the 1936 Royal Agricultural Show in Ashton Court just outside Bristol. After Breuer left for the USA, Gane continued his mission seeking out new partnerships with the architect Wells Coates and furniture designer and manufacturer Gordon Russell. The blitz brought everything to an abrupt stop in 1940. Source: Stradling Collection, Bristol.

Creator:
Alvar Aalto (Designer)
Dimensions:
Height: 17.72 in (45 cm)Width: 39.38 in (100 cm)Depth: 20.48 in (52 cm)
Materials and Techniques:
Birch
Place of Origin:
Finland
Period:
Mid-20th Century
Date of Manufacture:
1930s
Condition:
Refinished. Top refinished by previous owners some 20 or so years ago. No damage or wobbles.
Seller Location:
Bristol, GB
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU6840231515442

Shop All Alvar Aalto

Alvar Aalto

An architect and designer, Alvar Aalto deserves an immense share of the credit for bringing Scandinavian modernism to a prominent place in the global arena. In both his buildings and in his vintage furniture — which ranges from chairs, tables and lighting to table- and glassware — Aalto’s sensitivity to the natural world and to organic forms and materials tempered the hardness of rationalist design.

Relatively few Aalto buildings exist outside Finland. (Just four exist in the United States, and only one — the sinuous 1945 Baker House dormitory at M.I.T. — is easily visited.) International attention came to Aalto, whose surname translates to English as “wave,” primarily through his furnishings.

Instead of the tubular metal framing favored by the Bauhaus designers and Le Corbusier, Aalto insisted on wood. His aesthetic is best represented by the Paimio armchair, developed in 1930 as part of his overall design of a Finnish tuberculosis sanatorium. Comfortable, yet light enough to be easily moved by patients, the chair’s frame is composed of two laminated birch loops; the seat and back are formed from a single sheet of plywood that scrolls under at the headrest and beneath the knees, creating a sort of pillow effect. Aalto’s use of plywood had enormous influence on Charles and Ray Eames, Arne Jacobsen, Marcel Breuer and others who later came to the material.

Concerned with keeping up standards of quality in the production of his designs, Aalto formed the still-extant company Artek in 1935, along with his wife, Aino Aalto, whose glass designs were made by the firm. In the latter medium, in 1936 the Aaltos together created the iconic, undulating Savoy vase, so-called for the luxe Helsinki restaurant for which the piece was designed.

Artek also produced Aalto pendants and other lighting designs, many of which — such as the Angel’s Wing floor lamp and the Beehive pendant — incorporate a signature Aalto detail: shades made of concentric enameled-metal rings graduated down in diameter. The effect of the technique is essential Alvar Aalto: at once precise, simple, and somehow poetic.

Find a collection of vintage Alvar Aalto stools, vases, dining tables and other furniture on 1stDibs.