Paul Evans Studio for Directional Stalagmite Coffee Table, 1970
View Similar Items
Paul Evans Studio for Directional Stalagmite Coffee Table, 1970
About the Item
- Creator:Paul Evans (Designer)
- Dimensions:Height: 19.1 in (48.5 cm)Width: 67.92 in (172.5 cm)Depth: 41.74 in (106 cm)
- Period:
- Date of Manufacture:1970s
- Condition:Wear consistent with age and use.
- Seller Location:London, GB
- Reference Number:Seller: M61321stDibs: LU84079521271
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.
Find a collection of authentic Paul Evans furniture today on 1stDibs.
- Paul Evans Studio Coffee Table for DirectionalBy Paul Evans, DirectionalLocated in Dallas, TXWelded and patinated steel coffee table by Paul Evans Studio for Directional. Table is in excellent condition.Category
Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
MaterialsCut Steel
- Cityscape Coffee Table Paul Evans for DirectionalBy Paul EvansLocated in Atlanta, GAA large brass patchwork cityscape coffee table in contrast with a rather unusual Brazilian rosewood top. A very generous size with striking visual impact. This is a custom pieces executed circa 1975 by Paul Evans for Directional.Category
Vintage 1970s American Mid-Century Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
MaterialsBrass
$6,400 Sale Price20% Off - Paul Evans Sculpted Bronze "Stalagmite" Coffee TableBy Paul EvansLocated in Dallas, TXA Paul Evans designed PE-128 "Stalagmite" coffee table with glass top.Category
Vintage 1970s Coffee and Cocktail Tables
MaterialsBronze
- Cityscape coffee table by Paul Evans for Directional, circa 1970By Directional, Paul EvansLocated in View Park, CAA « cityscape » coffee table by Paul Evans for Directional in gold, early 1970s. Glass is original and in good vintage condition w...Category
Vintage 1970s American Mid-Century Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
MaterialsMetal
- Vintage Paul Evans "Cityscape" Coffee Table for DirectionalBy Paul EvansLocated in Salt Lake City, UTVintage "Cityscape" coffee table designed by Paul Evans for Directional. Monumental original glass top with chrome base. Glass is in good vintage condition with typical light scratch...Category
Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
MaterialsChrome
- Paul Evans Imposto on Iron "Stalagmite" Coffee TableBy Paul EvansLocated in Montreal, QCA bronze and glass "Stalagmite" coffee table Model P128 the thick round glass top under bronze (actually bronze over iron) base, the brutalist design with thick imposto like applicat...Category
Vintage 1970s American Brutalist Coffee and Cocktail Tables
MaterialsIron