Marcel Breuer for Isokon

laminated plywood, the shaped seat connected by mortice-and-tenon joints to the frame, with upholstered cushion

The piece was purchased by the grandfather of the current owner when we was a student directly from the Isokon stand in the Olympia Exhibition Centre at the Ideal Home Exhibition. A student at Liverpool School of Architecture at the time, doing three months in London at Joseph Emberton's office on Regent Street, he visited the Isokon stand three times, mesmerised by the chaise longue. After his final visit and pleading student poverty the Isokon representatives ultimately agreed he could have it for £5 providing he removed it immediately after the exhibition ended. 

Christopher Wilk, Marcel Breuer, Furniture and Interiors, New York, 1981;

Isokon Plus, Classic and Contemporary Furniture, manufacturer's leaflet, June 1999.

Isokon was founded by Jack Pritchard in late 1935 'in order to exploit the growing demand for modern furniture.' (Wilk, op.cit., p.127). He wanted to produce pieces which suited the modern home and were aesthetic in their simplicity as well as comfortable. His primary material of choice was plywood as it was of warmer appearance than tubular steel. Pritchard's first Controller of Design was Walter Gropius and Breuer replaced him after Gropius' return to America. Breuer had some years previously designed a metal long chair of similar form and the plywood version was his first design for the new company and production began in December 1935, very shortly after his arrival in London in August of the same year.

Breuer was represented at the Ideal Home Exhibition of 1936, in partnership with F.R.S Yorke, with a model entitled 'The Garden City of the Future'  (see: Thirties, Hayward Gallery, London, exhibition catalogue, October 1979 - January 1980, p.195), and Isokon is recorded as exhibitors at the 1937 fair. 

The Long Chair was advertised in one of Isokon's first promotional leaflets with the words: 'The Isokon Long Chair is shaped to the human body. It fits you everywhere... These chairs have all the beauty of right design. Their lines express ease, comfort and well-being' (Isokon Plus, op.cit., p.13). By 1938 Isokon were only producing between three and six Long Chairs per week as the pre-formed seats were imported from Pritchard's former employers, Venesta, in Estonia. This slow production was halted by the outbreak of war in 1939. Early versions of the series can also be recognised by the seat which is connected to the frame by mortice-and-tenon joints. After the Second World War these were replaced by horizontal members spanning the entire width of the seat, and the bent plywood sections were produced in the UK using a thinner laminate.

Although other pre-war Long Chairs are known, this lot is further differentiated from these by a number of constructional peculiarities. The veneer on the seat is long grain rather than cross grain, as can be seen in later pieces but, more vitally, the squared ends to the feet and arm rest on the current lot have previously only been known from early photographs and patent documentation held in the Isokon Plus archive. It is interesting to note that Maholy-Nagy drew this feature in an early Isokon leaflet. This feature is further illustrated by a 1937 publicity picture, on view at Isokon Plus, of a man and woman seated, facing each other. Given that no other extant square ended long chair has been recorded other than in documentation, it is possible to suppose that the current lot may be one of those chairs.

Sotheby's would like to thank Chris McCourt for his assistance with the cataloguing of this lot.