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Lot Essay
Early years
Meeting Philippe Dufour had been like a consecraction. 31 years. 31 years ago I had been born in Stockholm. For a black haired turkish baby I should have been easy enough to notice. I grew up around Europe with parents who cared for financial and academic success first. Handcrafts were for others.
I remember little of my childhood. Few family, fewer friends. Most of the time spent at school felt like a prison. I was too smart to be kicked out and too dumb to leave. It had never been for me. I sometimes feel it isn't really for anyone.
We moved around a lot and I settled in Geneva, around 2005, to start medical school in order to become a dentist, my father's choice. Any success I had there I owe to my older sister, I walked in her footsteps.
I liked the university. I got the opportunity to become an assistant and teach students about general anatomy on cadavers and conservative and endodontic dental care. It was a lot of work. Between the studies and the side-jobs to earn money I was consistently tired. I remember having 3 jobs during my last year of dental school. I'd be helping a metal worker on construction sites over the weekend or working at the children's hospital and doing night shifts at an elderly residence.
A lot of good came from those years. I made my first friends. I love them dearly. I met my wife. I love her dearly. I started learning handcrafts. I love that too.
Learning a craft
I had, at the same time, started making custom steel framed bicycles. I made a few but I had made a small mistake; as much as I had liked bicycles themselves, I didn't like the tools you'd build them with. One day, I got to hold a hand forged woodworking chisel and that was it. I knew I had found my trade.
I wandered around some. I made various furniture, doors, even traditional windows for a castle but there was one thing that seemed a little out of reach : chairs. I remember talking one day with my wife, telling her I'd never be able to make a chair. Those guys were too good. There is nothing straight in a chair. Everything is angled, or curved, or both. With my wife's encouragement, I started chairmaking. One thing was evident : I hated using machines. I liked hand tools. They were light, silent and beautiful. I'd make my chairs with blades, handsaws, augers and axes.
One day, I got to meet a violinmaker. A delightful young woman who told me something I'll never forget : "Everything has to be perfect, the knife has to be perfect, the cut has to be perfect, the chip has to be perfect, the result has to be perfect, everything has to be perfect". No wonder they entrusted her with Stradivarius violins. It inspired me, I felt that I, too, would like to speak those words and decided to dedicate the rest of my time to chairmaking.
I made chairs inspired by the Welsh peasant tradition. These chairs have since been an obsession. Never made by professional chairmakers, they were the labour of peasants, wheelwrights and so forth. Each one unique and made with the eye and hand as only guide. No plans, no patterns. Today I make them in the same way. There isn't a ruler, a divider, compass, jig or guide to be found in my workshop. Not even a workbench. Just a vise and a few good tools.
Meeting the World's finest watchmaker
At the end of 2022 I had an extra chair on my hands, and I decided to give it to Philippe Dufour as a present. I wanted to thank him. I had meant to do it for a while. I had been following Mr Dufour's work like many other craftspeople. For many of us, his work is the crown jewel of what all of us do without hands and hearts. I had always admired his dedication and wanted to thank him on behalf of all craftspeople that took such pride in his work, though he might not have known it.
I arrived at his door with the chair. As I was about to ring, a pipe-smoking gentleman opened the door. We were both surprised, I was nose-to-nose with the world's finest watchmaker, and he was looking at his doorway being blocked by a man carrying around a chair. After I got to explain what I was there for he graciously took me in and we had a chat and I got to hold some watches. He was very kind to me. I thanked him and left.
A little later on I also took the time to bring a chair to his daughter Daniela. I was in awe of the dedication such a young person would have. I thought she deserved the world but all I had to give were chairs. So I gave her one too.
It took me 31 years to understand who I was and the nod of the world's finest craftsman to feel like I had done it.
The foundation chair
Soon after, I had the opportunity to make a chair for the Philippe & Elisabeth Dufour Foundation. I got a call late on a Sunday evening from Elisabeth. She had learned of the chairs I had gifted her husband and daughter and wanted to invite us to Philippe's 75th birthday. She also told me, in secret, that their foundation would be unveiled, and a special watch would be presented. I would make one last chair. This was a cause I believed in by people I believed in.
It was time to make a special chair. One I had been thinking about for a couple of years. In 2021, I had met Andrea Rüeger, a Swiss Urushi artist. He was among the few, in Europe, who knew this trade. Urushi is a very delicate natural material. It requires a lot of preparation and very slow and deliberate application. In truth, outside of Japan, China and Korea, few people know how to produce clean lacquerwork.
We had been making test chairs and parts for about two years but had never yet made a full-lacquered chair.
Now our problem was this, there was only 6 weeks to the Birthday. We planned that making the chair would take a week and lacquering it would take a month. In theory we should have been done barely a week before the birthday. There would be no room for mistakes. Fortunately, nothing major happened and we were both satisfied with the chair to present it at the Foundation's unveiling.
On the chair
Andrea and me wanted to make a chair to be a representation of Philippe's career. These chairs, like the watchmaking of the Valée de Joux, are from humble peasant origins but can be refined to a higher level of construction and finish. And we felt the Urushi lacquer would be a nice gesture to thank all the Japanese customers who supported his now famous line of Simplicity watches at it's launch, ensuring his career's success.
Like all my chairs, the seat, armrests and headrest are made of elm and the sticks and legs out of oak. It is interesting to note that the seat is a single board and not multiple pieces glued together. Elm trees have become scarce and wide boards like this are now uncommon.
On the lacquer
Andrea Rüeger took about a month to lacquer and polish all the chair parts before they were assembled. After each thin coat of Urushi, Andrea would wait two days for it to cure, polish it and apply the next coat. The pores of the wood were sealed a mixture of clay and Urushi.
Last words
I'll leave you with a last anecdote. I spent a lot of time talking (and laughing) with Elisabeth Dufour. Somewhow, she kept mentioning Vincent Van Gogh. Van Gogh's famous painting "The Chair" depicts another traditional European chair form. In 1967, a famous Japanese woodworker and Urushi-artist, Tatsuaki Kuroda, was commissioned with making chairs for the new Imperial Palace. He travelled to Grenada, Spain, to study and document the last chairmakers of that kind. Inspired he went back to Japan and made a set of very refined, Urushi-lacquered chairs for the Emperor of Japan.
As Philippe Dufour always says, we didn't invent anything. We only hope our chair makes for an interesting page in this story.
Meeting Philippe Dufour had been like a consecraction. 31 years. 31 years ago I had been born in Stockholm. For a black haired turkish baby I should have been easy enough to notice. I grew up around Europe with parents who cared for financial and academic success first. Handcrafts were for others.
I remember little of my childhood. Few family, fewer friends. Most of the time spent at school felt like a prison. I was too smart to be kicked out and too dumb to leave. It had never been for me. I sometimes feel it isn't really for anyone.
We moved around a lot and I settled in Geneva, around 2005, to start medical school in order to become a dentist, my father's choice. Any success I had there I owe to my older sister, I walked in her footsteps.
I liked the university. I got the opportunity to become an assistant and teach students about general anatomy on cadavers and conservative and endodontic dental care. It was a lot of work. Between the studies and the side-jobs to earn money I was consistently tired. I remember having 3 jobs during my last year of dental school. I'd be helping a metal worker on construction sites over the weekend or working at the children's hospital and doing night shifts at an elderly residence.
A lot of good came from those years. I made my first friends. I love them dearly. I met my wife. I love her dearly. I started learning handcrafts. I love that too.
Learning a craft
I had, at the same time, started making custom steel framed bicycles. I made a few but I had made a small mistake; as much as I had liked bicycles themselves, I didn't like the tools you'd build them with. One day, I got to hold a hand forged woodworking chisel and that was it. I knew I had found my trade.
I wandered around some. I made various furniture, doors, even traditional windows for a castle but there was one thing that seemed a little out of reach : chairs. I remember talking one day with my wife, telling her I'd never be able to make a chair. Those guys were too good. There is nothing straight in a chair. Everything is angled, or curved, or both. With my wife's encouragement, I started chairmaking. One thing was evident : I hated using machines. I liked hand tools. They were light, silent and beautiful. I'd make my chairs with blades, handsaws, augers and axes.
One day, I got to meet a violinmaker. A delightful young woman who told me something I'll never forget : "Everything has to be perfect, the knife has to be perfect, the cut has to be perfect, the chip has to be perfect, the result has to be perfect, everything has to be perfect". No wonder they entrusted her with Stradivarius violins. It inspired me, I felt that I, too, would like to speak those words and decided to dedicate the rest of my time to chairmaking.
I made chairs inspired by the Welsh peasant tradition. These chairs have since been an obsession. Never made by professional chairmakers, they were the labour of peasants, wheelwrights and so forth. Each one unique and made with the eye and hand as only guide. No plans, no patterns. Today I make them in the same way. There isn't a ruler, a divider, compass, jig or guide to be found in my workshop. Not even a workbench. Just a vise and a few good tools.
Meeting the World's finest watchmaker
At the end of 2022 I had an extra chair on my hands, and I decided to give it to Philippe Dufour as a present. I wanted to thank him. I had meant to do it for a while. I had been following Mr Dufour's work like many other craftspeople. For many of us, his work is the crown jewel of what all of us do without hands and hearts. I had always admired his dedication and wanted to thank him on behalf of all craftspeople that took such pride in his work, though he might not have known it.
I arrived at his door with the chair. As I was about to ring, a pipe-smoking gentleman opened the door. We were both surprised, I was nose-to-nose with the world's finest watchmaker, and he was looking at his doorway being blocked by a man carrying around a chair. After I got to explain what I was there for he graciously took me in and we had a chat and I got to hold some watches. He was very kind to me. I thanked him and left.
A little later on I also took the time to bring a chair to his daughter Daniela. I was in awe of the dedication such a young person would have. I thought she deserved the world but all I had to give were chairs. So I gave her one too.
It took me 31 years to understand who I was and the nod of the world's finest craftsman to feel like I had done it.
The foundation chair
Soon after, I had the opportunity to make a chair for the Philippe & Elisabeth Dufour Foundation. I got a call late on a Sunday evening from Elisabeth. She had learned of the chairs I had gifted her husband and daughter and wanted to invite us to Philippe's 75th birthday. She also told me, in secret, that their foundation would be unveiled, and a special watch would be presented. I would make one last chair. This was a cause I believed in by people I believed in.
It was time to make a special chair. One I had been thinking about for a couple of years. In 2021, I had met Andrea Rüeger, a Swiss Urushi artist. He was among the few, in Europe, who knew this trade. Urushi is a very delicate natural material. It requires a lot of preparation and very slow and deliberate application. In truth, outside of Japan, China and Korea, few people know how to produce clean lacquerwork.
We had been making test chairs and parts for about two years but had never yet made a full-lacquered chair.
Now our problem was this, there was only 6 weeks to the Birthday. We planned that making the chair would take a week and lacquering it would take a month. In theory we should have been done barely a week before the birthday. There would be no room for mistakes. Fortunately, nothing major happened and we were both satisfied with the chair to present it at the Foundation's unveiling.
On the chair
Andrea and me wanted to make a chair to be a representation of Philippe's career. These chairs, like the watchmaking of the Valée de Joux, are from humble peasant origins but can be refined to a higher level of construction and finish. And we felt the Urushi lacquer would be a nice gesture to thank all the Japanese customers who supported his now famous line of Simplicity watches at it's launch, ensuring his career's success.
Like all my chairs, the seat, armrests and headrest are made of elm and the sticks and legs out of oak. It is interesting to note that the seat is a single board and not multiple pieces glued together. Elm trees have become scarce and wide boards like this are now uncommon.
On the lacquer
Andrea Rüeger took about a month to lacquer and polish all the chair parts before they were assembled. After each thin coat of Urushi, Andrea would wait two days for it to cure, polish it and apply the next coat. The pores of the wood were sealed a mixture of clay and Urushi.
Last words
I'll leave you with a last anecdote. I spent a lot of time talking (and laughing) with Elisabeth Dufour. Somewhow, she kept mentioning Vincent Van Gogh. Van Gogh's famous painting "The Chair" depicts another traditional European chair form. In 1967, a famous Japanese woodworker and Urushi-artist, Tatsuaki Kuroda, was commissioned with making chairs for the new Imperial Palace. He travelled to Grenada, Spain, to study and document the last chairmakers of that kind. Inspired he went back to Japan and made a set of very refined, Urushi-lacquered chairs for the Emperor of Japan.
As Philippe Dufour always says, we didn't invent anything. We only hope our chair makes for an interesting page in this story.