nesting tables by Edward Wormley
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nesting tables by Edward Wormley
About the Item
- Creator:Edward Wormley (Designer)
- Dimensions:Height: 23.5 in (59.69 cm)Width: 22.5 in (57.15 cm)Depth: 14 in (35.56 cm)
- Style:Mid-Century Modern (Of the Period)
- Materials and Techniques:
- Place of Origin:
- Period:
- Date of Manufacture:1950's
- Condition:Wear consistent with age and use.
- Seller Location:Sagaponack, NY
- Reference Number:Seller: 86301stDibs: U12073089031037
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.
- Nesting Tables by Edward WormleyBy Dunbar Furniture, Edward WormleyLocated in Sagaponack, NYAn elegantly detailed and finely crafted set of nesting tables in light walnut.Category
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$5,400 / set - End Table by Edward WormleyBy Edward Wormley, Dunbar FurnitureLocated in Sagaponack, NYA fine and uncommon pair of end tables having sculptural exposed frames in stained mahogany and expressive floating tops of molded birch with upturned edges.Category
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$9,500 / item - End Table by Edward WormleyBy Dunbar Furniture, Edward WormleyLocated in Sagaponack, NYA tailored two-level square end or lamp table in walnut having splayed tapering legs.Category
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$10,500 - Triangular Table by Edward WormleyBy Edward Wormley, Dunbar FurnitureLocated in Sagaponack, NYA geometrically pure and finely detailed two-tiered table in bleached walnut of triangular form with distinctive beveled edging at a 45 degree angle.Category
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- Magazine Table by Edward WormleyBy Edward Wormley, Dunbar FurnitureLocated in Sagaponack, NYA triangular ash table with an inset cream leather top over two web strap magazine holders.Category
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- End Table by Edward WormleyBy Edward WormleyLocated in Sagaponack, NYDunbar's low walnut "Janus" end table of Asian inspiration, with raised edges to the legs and diagonal "cloud-lift" stretchers.Category
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- Edward Wormley for Dunbar Nesting TablesBy Edward Wormley, Dunbar FurnitureLocated in Kansas City, MOBeautiful set of Edward Wormley for Dunbar nesting tables. Signed with big brass D. Largest table measurements are below. Sm...Category
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$4,800 / set - A Set of Edward Wormley for Dunbar Nesting TablesBy Edward WormleyLocated in St.Petersburg, FLA rare set of E.Wormley for Dunbar nesting tables. Refinished in buff laquer.Category
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$1,500 Sale Price / set23% Off - Rare Nesting Tables by WiddicombBy Widdicomb Furniture Co.Located in Brooklyn, NYGorgeous Mid-Century side tables by Widdicomb. Warm walnut grain and inlay brass trim. (Please confirm item location - NY or NJ - with dealer).Category
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$840 / set