Gerrit Rietveld

Sotheby’s would like to thank Rob Driessen and Jurjen Creman for their assistance with the cataloguing of this lot.

Rietveld’s designs for “Beugelstoele”, or “Frame Chairs”, underlined the architect’s quest for reductive rationalism in his furniture designs, evolving the narrative that was initiated with his ‘Red Blue’ open armchairs of 1919, with the graphic minimalism of the Zig-Zag chairs of 1932. Unlike the ‘Schroder’, or ‘upright’ chairs of around the same period, and which retained the rectilinear aesthetic consistent with those earlier models, the various types of “Beugelstoele” offered a more sinuous, organic styling to their structure, enhanced by the dynamic curves of the steel structure paired with a curvaceous, ergonomic seat. Contextualizing the “Beugelstoel” to the late 1920s, it remains challenging to imagine society’s willingness to accommodate such reductive, minimalist structures, and yet the model was popular enough to remain in production with Metz until at least the early 1930s. Beyond the unique technical and aesthetic innovations of the design, Rietveld’s real triumph with the “Beugelstoel” was to deliver a functionalist, industrialized product that was now democratized as aspirational and stylish concept.

- S. A.