FRANCO CAMPO AND CARLO GRAFFI Rare lounge cha

Provenance
Carlo Graffi; Private collection, Italy

Literature
For similar examples of this design: Domus, no. 284, July 1953, p. 47;
Klaus-Jergen Sembach, Gabriele Leuthäuser and Peter Gössel, Twentieth-Century Furniture Design, Cologne, 1991, p. 177;
Irene de Guttry and Maria Paola Maino, Il Mobile Italiano Degli Anni Quarante e Cinquanta, Rome, 1992, cover and p. 127;
Charlotte and Peter Fiell, 1000 Chairs, Cologne, 1997, p. 362;
Luxo, Pop & Cool de 1937 até hoje, Museo do Design, Lisbon, 1999, fig. 28;
Pierre Kjellberg, Le Mobilier du XXe Siècle Dictionnaire des Créateurs, Paris, 2000, p. 272

The design team of Franco Campo and Carlo Graffi perfectly utilized wartime advances in materials such as plywood to design this armchair in their signature Turinese Organic style. These technological advances allowed designers to explore new wood-bending methods. Campo and Graffi studied under Carlo Mollino, whose influence can be seen in this armchair’s undulating, sculptural and almost surrealistic form.

Exquisite and expressive joinery as well as elegant proportions illustrate the influence of natural forms on Campo and Graffi and the Turinese Organic style. The chair’s dynamic skeletal form breathes tension and life into the piece. The rare furniture of Campo and Graffi embody post-war Italian culture through their sense of motion, mechanics and optimism. This chair was originally designed in 1953. The offered lot is an early version as visible by the construction variation of the three bolts on the frame. It was acquired in the 1980s directly from Carlo Graffi.