Pair of Argyle chairs by Charles Rennie Mackintosh for Alivar
Delivering from: Conversano, Italy
£1,580
Description
Excellent vintage condition, small signs of wear from time. Produced by Alivar in the late 70s.
It is a high-backed chair created for the Argyle Street Tea Rooms in Glasgow, characterized by a square structure in black-stained ash, on which the designer has made curvilinear cuts and affixed elliptical elements that recall Celtic art and taste . The chair has been re-edited by Cassina since 1973.
While Mackintosh is best known for his architectural works, including the Glasgow School of Art, Hill House and House for a Art Lover, he also designed much of their furniture and furnishings.
One of the most important figures in Mackintosh’s career was Catherine Cranston – a patron who allowed him to showcase his talent as a designer and appreciated his all-encompassing approach.
Cranston was a Glasgow business woman with a passion for the arts who came up with the idea of opening a series of tea rooms in the city with artistic interiors.
Having already established a successful tearoom on Argyle Street, he invited Mackintosh to work alongside architect and designer George Walton in the interiors of a new location on Buchanan Street in 1896.
The following year, Mackintosh and Walton collaborated again on the design of the Argyle Street Tea Rooms in Cranston, with Mackintosh focusing on furniture.
It was the first large private commission of his career and the opportunity to implement some of his ideas on using furniture to create a feeling of spatial closure and separation within a room.
One of the pieces Mackintosh designed for the project was a high-back dining room chair that aimed to provide a more intimate dining experience for diners.
The Argyle chair features long tapered uprights that intersect with an enlarged oval headrest. The stylized shape of a swallow in flight has been obtained from the headrest to give it an artistic and emblematic quality.
The chair’s combination of simple, sculptural elements with an emphasis on natural forms echoed ideas proposed by the Arts and Crafts movement, of which Mackintosh was an admirer.
Its striking hind legs are a complex piece of woodwork, with a shape that starts from base to base before curving and gradually tapers to become circular at the top.
The unusual height of the chairs meant that they formed a screen around the tables, creating the feeling of a room within a room. It was a technique that Mackintosh would explore and refine further in many of his latest furniture designs.
In 1900, the Argyle Chair was exhibited at the eighth exhibition of the Vienna Secession in Austria, where Mackintosh’s work was held in high regard and strongly influenced the work of artists, architects and designers from the Wiener Werkstatte community.
Additional information
Dimensions | Length 48 cm |
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JF Gallery
Dealer of design furniture, iconic pieces and vintage from 1900s to 2000s, based in Conversano, south Italy.
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