Important Design

Important Design

Property from an Important Private Collection

Wendell Castle

Unique "Chaise Rocker"

Auction Closed

June 6, 04:43 PM GMT

Estimate

180,000 - 240,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Wendell Castle

Unique "Chaise Rocker"


1962

offered together with the original leather seat

oak, leather

monogrammed W.C. and dated 62

34 ½ x 61 x 28 ¾ x in. (87.6 x 155 x 71.1 cm)

Collection of the artist

Collection of George Lindemann, Miami Beach, Florida, acquired from the above, 2005

Phillips London, December 13, 2018, lot 21

Acquired from the above by the present owner

Alastair Gordon, Wendell Castle Wandering Forms—Works from 1959-1979, exh. cat., Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, New York, 2012, pp. 56 and 58-59 (for the present lot illustrated)

Emily Evans Eerdmans, Wendell Castle, A Catalogue Raisonné 1958-2012, New York, 2014, p. 87, no. II.96 (for the present lot illustrated)

On the Curve


The secret of Wendell Castle’s success, he always said, was that he was trained as a sculptor rather than a furniture maker. This not only opened him up to a wide range of artistic influences – Constantin Brancusi and Henry Moore loomed large in his imagination – but also meant that he never was taught conventional joinery techniques. Rather than impeding his progress, this actually freed his imagination, allowing him to approach everything in new ways.


This sensational rocking chaise, with its low-slung, race car-like lines, is a perfect example. The sides are principally defined by two slow curves, which meet at a vertex underneath the midpoint of the seat. A further angled element, above, and two horizontal stretchers provide stability and structure. The overall shape has a brilliant simplicity, yet is unlike any rocking chair previously conceived.


The design is especially noteworthy as Castle’s earliest rocker, forerunner to the many that he would make over his long career. It is easy to see why the typology appealed to him. Dynamism was at the heart of his sensibility; even when his furniture isn’t literally kinetic, it feels like it’s on the move. Here, the effect is enhanced not only by the prospect of actual rocking, but the elegant attenuation of the chaise’s various elements, which give the whole composition a streamlined look. It’s a touch reminiscent of Scandinavian design, then extremely prevalent in the USA.


Yet even at this early stage of his career, Castle’s work was uniquely sculptural and self-possessed, qualities seen also in his iconic music stand, first prototyped in 1962, even as he was making this chaise. The following year, he would invent his signature technique of stack lamination, opening up a new chapter not only in his own career, but the whole history of furniture. No artist was ever on a steeper learning curve, and that forward momentum is felt in every line of this extraordinary object.


GLENN ADAMSON

Independent author and curator, New York

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