CHICAGO — A signature example of ‘protest furniture’ by Brazilian designer Jose Zanine Caldas (1919-2001) is among the starring lots in the Wright Design sale on Thursday, March 28. Previously in a collection in Sao Paulo, the Namoradeira tete-a-tete rocker dating to circa 1963-1967 was consigned by a vendor in New York and is estimated at $50,000-$70,000. The sale catalog is open for bidding on LiveAuctioneers.
For more than a decade in the 1940s, Zanine Caldas ran a workshop in Sao Paulo where he made detailed scale models for top Brazilian architects, and later, plywood furniture inspired by European modernism. However, he soon tired of capitalism and instead moved back to his native Bahia, where he began to create furniture that was later called Móveis Denúncia – which translates to ‘protest furniture’. Inspired by local vernacular crafts and the natural resources around him, furnishings such as this rocker were often fashioned from a single piece of Brazilian hardwood. The rocker, with the branded signature Zanine, is pictured in the artist’s biography that was published in 2020.
Commanding top-lot status in this 254-lot auction is a pair of Gio Ponti lacquered wood, upholstery, and brass Triennale armchairs, dating to 1951. In this design for ISA, Bergamo, Ponti deconstructed the traditional form of the wing-back chair, inserting a metal frame within the wooden structure of the upholstered backrest to reinforce the apparently weightless form. This pair, with manufacturer’s labels to the back stretchers, have a provenance to Count Luigi Baldini of Ravenna, whose family owned several important Ponti designs. They are estimated at $70,000-$90,000.
A 1987 triple sliding door cabinet by George Nakashima in American black walnut inset with Indian mirrored glass is another exceptional piece. It was acquired directly from the artist in 1987 by Dr. Mortimer Dubovsky of New York and comes by descent. The cabinet is signed to the back with the client’s name, Duubovsky, and is sold with digital copies of the original invoice, drawings, and order card. Its estimate is $45,000-$65,000.
The sale also includes 10 lots designed by Pierre Jeanneret (1896-1967), many of which were made for the Chandigarh project. The Swiss artist, architect, and designer worked with his cousin Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (who assumed the pseudonym Le Corbusier) to create much of the Indian city’s civic architecture, including 14 different types of mass housing, plus furniture for some of the public buildings. A pair of teak and canework benches dating to circa 1956 from the MLA Flats building will be offered with an estimate of $12,000-$15,000.
No fewer than three Harry Bertoia Sonambients are part of the March 28 sale lineup. Beginning in 1960, Bertoia made thousands of these sounding sculptures, ranging from six inches to 20 feet in size, to produce all kinds of aesthetic, sonic, and kinetic properties.
Dating to 1963 is Untitled (Sonambient), formed of 81 3ft 6in high rods of beryllium copper and brass. The work was acquired directly from the artist by Sally Walsh of Houston, Texas in the year it was made, and it appears at auction for the first time with an estimate of $40,000-$60,000.
