Composed of over 160 lots, the sale of Phillips will include a strong selection of French and Italian design, as well as Studio Craft, with works spanning nearly a century. The sale will include works by Piero Fornasetti, Jean Royère, Zaha Hadid and Lucie Rie, among other masters of 20th and 21st century design.
Since the 30s, designers like Frederick Kiesler, Eileen Gray, Charlotte Perriand and Isamu Noguchi they began to explore biomorphism in their work, starting with more traditional forms of furniture. Royère employed straw marquetry for his “Flaque” table, a traditional technique for imitating wood veneer that had been in use in Europe since the seventeenth century. Revitalized by other designers in the 30s, the straw marquetry technique allowed Royère to combine colour, pattern and craftsmanship, transforming a humble material into a sophisticated design, characterized by soft lines and delicate star motifs.
Flaque” low table” about 1955 (25.5 x 126.5 x 65.7cm) – Pixy $ 180,000 - 250,000
While Zaha Hadid is well remembered for creating some of the most distinctive buildings of the 21st century, she has also produced numerous collections of furniture in the sinuous style that has become her trademark. Although the bench offered for auction is a domestic object, its cast aluminum shape refers to the material lexicon of industry, with a perfectly smooth surface and a shiny finish that evokes the curves of a high-performance automobile. The bench was originally designed in 2003 as part of 'Ice-Storm', an experimental setting Hadid set up for a retrospective at the Museum fur Angewandte Kunst in Vienna. The “Ice-Storm” installation marked a significant moment for Hadid in realizing her architectural aspirations towards a fully integrated interior environment where furniture and structure merge and blend into one unity.
Furthermore Phillips features a selection of British pottery from Westminster Collection in the June sale. Between 1980 and 1987, when Westminster Gallery was operating in Boston. Artists such as Lucie Rie, Monica Young, Alison Britton and Eileen Nisbet looked away from the medium of ceramics, from inspirations in other arts - including music, graffiti, architecture and fashion -. They also looked back to an eclectic mix of other historical sources, including patterned fabrics.
