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Frank Lloyd Wright

Heritage’s Jan. 27 Design sale delivers prizes by Wright & Nakashima

Frank Lloyd Wright, copper table for Oklahoma’s Price Tower, est. $12,000-$18,000. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions
Frank Lloyd Wright, copper table for Oklahoma’s Price Tower, est. $12,000-$18,000. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions

DALLAS – For its first Design event of the year, Heritage Auctions is offering a first-rate selection of pieces by an international cast of design superstars. The star-studded lineup for the Design Signature® Auction on Jan. 27 includes celebrated American architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Frank Gehry, Bruce Goff and William Wesley Peters, whose featured offerings include rare furniture from some of their most important projects. Absentee and Internet live bidding will be available through LiveAuctioneers.

The sale also features custom commissions by America’s George Nakashima and iconic designs by Austria’s Franz West, as well as incredible ceramics by a host of American, British and Japanese artists such as Betty Woodman, Jennifer Lee, Toshiko Takaezu, Richard DeVore and Lucie Rie.

“We are beyond thrilled to kick off 2022 with so many remarkable pieces by such a diverse and talented group of artists and designers,” said Brent Lewis, Heritage Auctions Design Director. “The names featured in this event are some of the most celebrated and revered in the design world, so to be able to bring them together in one auction is nothing short of exciting.”

Frank Lloyd Wright

During a career that spanned seven decades, American architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed some of the country’s most innovative spaces, including Oklahoma’s Price Tower, regarded as Wright’s only realized skyscraper. The tall, slender building provided Wright the opportunity to design an incredible group of custom furniture pieces for the tower’s residences and offices, several of which are available in this auction.

Being sold to benefit the Price Tower Arts Center, the pieces are led by a copper table estimated at $12,000-$18,000 that features sleek, angular forms in the same spirit of the building itself.

“This furniture is among the most sought after of Wright’s furniture designs,” Lewis said, “and is an opportunity to acquire a work of domestic scale by America’s most important architect.”

George Nakashima, Kornblut cabinet, est. $40,000-$60,000
George Nakashima, Kornblut cabinet, est. $40,000-$60,000. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions

George Nakashima

Though most of his pieces are one of a kind, all of George Nakashima’s furniture designs have something in common: a never-wavering reverence for the wood used to create them. Several significant works by the acclaimed American furniture maker will be offered in this sale, including a Kornblut cabinet from one of Nakashima’s most important commissions. Completed in 1980 for International Paper’s New York headquarters and carrying an estimate of $40,000-$60,000, the cabinet, a unique version of an iconic Nakashima design, has been off the market for more than 15 years.

“George Nakashima’s International Paper commission represented one of his most ambitious groups of works,” Lewis said. “It allowed him to experiment with new and adapted forms, creating an extraordinary set of furnishings of unrivaled quality, including this special cabinet.”

One of two Franz West Uncle chairs in the sale, each est. $10,000-$15,000. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions
Franz West Uncle chair, est. $10,000-$15,000. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions

Franz West

Two Uncle chairs by Franz West, winner of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 2011 Venice Biennale, are also featured in this sale. Composed of a steel frame dressed in colorful straps of woven textiles, the chairs blur the lines between art and furniture and have been hailed as some of the Austrian artist’s most important works. Seldom appearing at auction, the chairs carry an estimate of $10,000-$15,000 each. 

Betty Woodman, ‘Three Sisters,’ est. $40,000-$60,000. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions
Betty Woodman, ‘Three Sisters,’ est. $40,000-$60,000. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions

Betty Woodman

The January auction also features several important works by Betty Woodman, one of the leading ceramicists of the 20th century. Leading the pack is a trio of vessels known as Three Sisters, which together carry an estimate of $40,000-$60,000. Like the other Woodman pieces in the sale, the vessels are awash in the artist’s signature bright colors and exhibit her unique ability to present conceptual works in ceramic form. “Seldom do we see such a representative group of works by the celebrated artist together in one sale,” Lewis notes.

Circa-1955 metal suspension lamp from the Bavinger residence, credited to Charles Williams, est. $6,000-$9,000. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions
Circa-1955 metal suspension lamp from the Bavinger residence, credited to Charles Williams, est. $6,000-$9,000. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions

The sale also includes a circa-1955 metal suspension lamp from the Bavinger residence, which won the American Institute of Architects’ “Twenty-five Year Award” in 1987. Purportedly made by local artist Charles Williams, a frequent visitor to the house, the light has an estimate of $6,000-$9,000.

Other highlights in the auction include:

Circa-1949 arm chair by Frank Lloyd Wright, est. $7,000-$9,000. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions

Circa-1949 arm chair by Frank Lloyd Wright, est. $7,000-$9,000. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions

A circa-1949 arm chair by Frank Lloyd Wright, estimated at $7,000-$9,000. Made for Wright’s home and studio in Los Angeles, the redwood chair has never before appeared on the market.

Dario Perez-Flores, ‘Mobile No. 18,’ est. $4,000-$6,000. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions
Dario Perez-Flores, ‘Mobile No. 18,’ est. $4,000-$6,000. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions

Dario Perez-Flores’s Mobile No. 18, a sculpture dating to 2005 and estimated at $4,000-$6,000. Perez-Flores was one of several significant Latin American artists who established studios in Paris, creating works that belonged to the Optical and Kinetic art movements. His sculptures, such as this kinetic wall panel, are composed of vertically aligned elements that move, creating an optical effect as the space of light, depth and colors changes during viewing.

Evelyn and Jerome Ackerman, ‘Ellipses Mosaic,’ est. $4,000-$6,000. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions
Evelyn and Jerome Ackerman, ‘Ellipses Mosaic,’ est. $4,000-$6,000. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions

A circa-1958 Ellipses Mosaic by Evelyn Ackerman and Jerome Ackerman, estimated at $4,000-$6,000. Found at a garage sale, this panel by the celebrated American design duo is one of the Ackermans’ most rigorous pattern mosaics and is an outstanding example of their work. Similar panels have recently brought more than $10,000 at auction.

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