Rare And Unusual Wood And Formica Occasional Table By Zanine
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Rare And Unusual Wood And Formica Occasional Table By Zanine
About the Item
Jose Zanine Caldas
A self-taught professional, Jose Zanine Caldas became known as the “wood magician,” because of his extraordinary ability to work with wood which he used in many of his works. He was a model maker, landscape designer, ceramicist, artist, sculptor, architect and designer. Since the 1950’s he worked as a model maker for architects including Oscar Niemeyer, Oswaldo Arthur Bratke, Rino Levi and Henrique Mindlan. The experience he acquired working with these architects led him to conduct research into laminated wood, developing a line of popular furniture of thin plates of pressed wood, which gave birth to the Moveis Z furniture company which he founded with his partner Sebastiao Pontes in Sao Jose Dos Campos in the state of Sao Paulo (1948 – 1961). Many pieces of this type of furniture were fastened, reverted with canvas and nailed with small tacks thus with no requirement for sewing and could be disassembled. The furniture was a great commercial success and was sold in large stores in many Brazilian states. Some items remind us of works of the Italian Carlo Molino with his Amoeboide forms and boomerangs.
After leaving Moveis Z, Zanine designed wrought iron furniture for an iron furniture company owned by the Pekelman store in Sao Paulo. This was his last incursion in the field of industrial furniture. Subsequently, he produced (to order) pieces of furniture made form massive tree trunks. One of the most well known is the so called Cadeira Namoradeira for two people which weighed more than 60 Kg.
Zanine was a great expert in Brazilian woods was invited by Darcy Riveiro, Head of the University of Brasilia to join the teaching body. Stripped of his civil rights and persecuted by the Military Regime in 1964, Zanine returned to the University of Brasilia in 1982 and founded DAM (Foundation Centre for the Development of Applications of Brazilian Woods) and also the Escola Do Fazer (the making school) where people learned the trade of wood working.
During his years of “internal exile,” as well as being banished form the University by the Government, he was persecuted by the Brazilian Institute of Architects (IAV) because he preformed his work as an architect without having an official Diploma of the profession. Zanine took refuge in the town of Nova Vicosa, in the state of Bahia where he constructed the Atelier of the artist Franz Krajcberg. During this period he used as raw material the left overs of forest trees, remains of burnt pieces of wood and wood discarded by lumber mills. Many of these pieces were made of araiquara wood from which he produced sculptural furniture taking advantage of the cracks and natural curves of the woods. These are the “testimonial pieces of furniture” as he used to call them, made of left-overs of the devastation of our forests.
In 1989 a large exhibition of Zanine’s architectural and design work was held in the Museum of Decorative Arts at the Louvre Museum and the following year he was awarded the silver medal from the French Academy of Architecture. One year later he was recognised by the IAB as an honouree architect. In his last years of his life, after having taught in Paris and Lausanne, he lived in Villa Velha, in the state of Espiroto Santo, where he designed and constructed houses and inns, always using wood in the structure. In 1999 his furniture works were exhibited at the Fourth Architectural Bienialle of Sao Paulo.
In spite of being renowned by his (more than 500) residential projects and for his spectacular small scales models, some aspects of his activities are less well known. He was a master potter between 1955-1956 when he established a small workshop in Sao Bernardo Do Campo, in the state of Sao Paulo. Still, in the 1950’s as secretary of the Brazilian Communist Party, he performed some landscape work in some small towns in the interior of the state of Sao Paulo and designed children’s toys for public parks and pieces of furniture for public squares.
With thanks to Ethel Leon for this research.
Please see Design Brasileiro (Quem Fez, Quem Faz, Brazilain design, who did, who does) published 2005
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