JAMES PRESTINI
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JAMES PRESTINI

SCULPTURE

Details
JAMES PRESTINI
SCULPTURE
late 1960s, aluminium, together with exhibition brochure
24½ in. (62.5 cm.) x 24½ in. (62.5 cm.) x 6 in. (15 cm.)
Exhibited
James Prestini, March 23 - April 17 1971, Staempfli, New York
Special notice
VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 15% on the buyer's premium

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Lot Essay

Trained as a machinist's apprentice before receiving a degree in mechanical engineering at Yale University (1930), Prestini subsequently studied under Laszlo Moholy-Nagy at the Chicago Institute of Design, and was himself a tutor there between 1939 and 1946. Although Prestini spent much of his professional career as a research engineer specialising in construction materials, from the early 1930s onwards he experimented with wood turning, producing platters and bowls that attracted the attention of curators and craft connoisseurs. In 1949 he was part of the team that won the MoMA competition for 'Low Cost Furniture' with a design for a jointless chair. In 1956 Prestini joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, as a professor of architecture.

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