African chair

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The African chair is a throne-like piece of seating furniture designed by Marcel Breuer and Gunta Stölzl in 1921 and is considered a key work of the early Bauhaus .

history

In the furniture workshop at the Bauhaus of the Weimar Art School Bauhaus, founded in 1919, a collaboration between the two students, the carpenter Marcel Breuer and the weaver Gunta Stölzl, created an oak throne with fabric covering and seat cushions.

Around 1922 the chair was given to private owners as a one-off, and there was only a black and white photograph in the archives. In a film published in 1926, Breuer tried to use five pieces of furniture to illustrate the development of furniture design at the Bauhaus from this chair. The furniture got its name African chair later. When Breuer's first monograph appeared in the USA in 1950, the depiction of the African chair reappeared there as a key work of his work. The chair itself was thought to be lost.

In 2004, the heirs of a previous buyer offered the chair to the Berlin Bauhaus Archive for sale. The archive then acquired the chair with funds from the Ernst von Siemens Art Fund for its own collection. It was shown in an exhibition that same year. In 2009 it was shown again in the Bauhaus model exhibition in the Martin-Gropius-Bau .

Design and meaning

The African chair is a high-backed piece of furniture made of hand-carved, colorfully painted oak with five legs (the sum of man and woman) and a colorful fabric covering and a seat cushion. It is reminiscent of a throne and takes up African style elements. The wooden structure was designed and built by Marcel Breuer. The fabrics come from Gunta Stölzl and were woven with colorful motifs of Hungarian folk art using the tapestry technique with free abstract design.

Since there is no evidence of the origin of this chair, it is not known today what it was intended for. The assumptions range from a wedding chair for the Breuer / Stölzl couple to a throne for the Bauhaus director Walter Gropius . Or, according to the Bauhaus archive, the piece could refer to the notion of architecture as the mother of all arts to be found in classical architectural theory, with the architect as leader and organizer - a role that Walter Gropius enjoyed throughout his life .

Marcel Breuer described the chair itself as the basis for his idea of ​​floating sitting and the basis for his later world-famous cantilever chairs . The African chair is considered by art historians to be a key work of the early Bauhaus and the first piece of furniture by both Stölzl and Breuer.

literature

  • Christian Wolsdorff: The “African Chair” - a key work of the early Bauhaus . In: Museums Journal . No. 3 , 2004.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Ulla Rogalski: Design history: The "African chair". In: Handelszeitung . October 20, 2005, accessed December 26, 2018 .
  2. ↑ a b Uta Baier: "African chair" rediscovered. In: The world . June 3, 2004, accessed December 26, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Bauhaus model. (No longer available online.) In: Kultur Online. October 1, 2009, archived from the original on December 26, 2018 ; accessed on December 26, 2018 .
  4. ^ Marion Ellwanger: Gunta Stölzl, weaving mill at the Bauhaus and from his own workshop . 3. Edition. Kupfergraben, 1992, ISBN 3-89181-401-1 , p. 41 .
  5. ↑ Ingrid Radewaldt: Bauhaus textiles, 1919-1933 . University of Hamburg, 1986, p. 340 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  6. ↑ Gunta Stölzl, Ingrid Radewaldt, Monika Stadler, Wolfgang Thöner: Gunta Stölzl: Master at the Bauhaus Dessau. Textiles, textile designs and free work 1915–1983. Hatje Cantz Verlag, 1997, ISBN 3-7757-0689-5 , p. 21, 123, 181 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  7. ↑ The African Chair . In: Museums Journal . No.  18 , 2004, p. 40 ff . ( limited preview in Google Book search).