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Lot Essay
Zeev Aram – champion of great design
Zeev Aram – a force of nature, genial, engaging, and sharply focused, with a ready smile, a sparkle in his eye, and a warm, canny sense of humour – is the ever-curious, inspired and inspiring creative entrepreneur behind Aram Design. This London-based contract and private retail store for furniture, lighting, and furnishings, today operating from a large showroom in Convent Garden, has been in business since 1964, when a young Zeev opened his first retail outlet on the King’s Road, Chelsea. Trained and with experience as an architect, his ambition was directed to the promotion of the best modern furniture, including the finest Italian design and 20th century classics by architects such as Le Corbusier and Marcel Breuer, whose work was too little known and not easily available in Britain.
Aram was the right man at the right time, as increasing prosperity created a wider and better informed market for well-designed furnishings. Design was on the cultural agenda, not least thanks to such broad-audience media as the new colour magazines issued by the weekend papers. This new consumer appetite was served by features such as the cover story ‘Taste 64’ in The Sunday Times Colour Magazine in Aram’s launch year, a new dawn for design in Britain.
The business was and has continued to be defined by Zeev Aram’s sensibility and sure eye. While known as an internationalist – he was the first to show Shiro Kuramata in the West – he has also always scouted for promising local talent. To celebrate the 21st anniversary, the ‘coming of age’ of the gallery, Aram had the idea to invite leading British painters, sculptors and architects, plus a couple of emerging designers to create prototype furniture models and stage an exhibition of the resulting pieces. ‘I wanted to prove that originality and innovative design is possible in this country,’ he told an interviewer at the time of the exhibition. ‘We don’t always have to look abroad – there is plenty of talent here.’ An invitation designed by Peter Blake, showing Aram and the King’s Road shop façade, announced the opening, albeit in 1987, two years later than originally planned. The exhibition received considerable and very positive press coverage, though for most of the pieces no or only a very limited production followed.
Christie’s is honoured to present at auction this selection of the inventive and individualistic original prototypes from this landmark exhibition.
Philippe Garner
"There is a need for experimentation in design and then there is a need for realising experiments. A fine balance of the two is vital to the well being of the designer." Jasper Morrison
Morrison’s ‘Thinking Man’s’ Chair is amongst the most iconic of his early works, produced shortly after he established his own design practice, and unites several motivations that continue to remain representative of his refined, minimalist understanding of design. Although the elongated tubular rear support, extending to form the arms might suggest a flirtation with Post-Modernism, the underlying personality of the chair is one that is guided by the industrialised aesthetic of the of the early Modernist designers, the French architect Robert Mallet-Stevens and the 1930s British manufacturer of tubular steel furniture P.E.L. included. Chancing upon an antique chair that had had its cushion removed for repair, Morrison resolved to design a chair that was all structure and with no closed surfaces. Utilising both tubular and flat steel strips, the elegant utilitarianism of the chair was enhanced by the application of an overall, matt red oxide primer painted finish. Feeling that the design still appeared a little too raw, Morrison then chose to add the dimensions and other calibrations in chalk, which was sealed using hairspray. Referencing the distinctive, circular flat armrests, Morrison initially anointed the chair as the ‘Drinking Man’s, before adjusting to the present title, inspired by Peterson’s archaic advertising slogan for ‘The Thinking Man’s Pipe’.
This important prototype was exhibited at Aram’s 23rd Anniversary Exhibition where it was noticed by Giulio Cappellini, who subsequently acquired the rights to produce the chair.
Zeev Aram – a force of nature, genial, engaging, and sharply focused, with a ready smile, a sparkle in his eye, and a warm, canny sense of humour – is the ever-curious, inspired and inspiring creative entrepreneur behind Aram Design. This London-based contract and private retail store for furniture, lighting, and furnishings, today operating from a large showroom in Convent Garden, has been in business since 1964, when a young Zeev opened his first retail outlet on the King’s Road, Chelsea. Trained and with experience as an architect, his ambition was directed to the promotion of the best modern furniture, including the finest Italian design and 20th century classics by architects such as Le Corbusier and Marcel Breuer, whose work was too little known and not easily available in Britain.
Aram was the right man at the right time, as increasing prosperity created a wider and better informed market for well-designed furnishings. Design was on the cultural agenda, not least thanks to such broad-audience media as the new colour magazines issued by the weekend papers. This new consumer appetite was served by features such as the cover story ‘Taste 64’ in The Sunday Times Colour Magazine in Aram’s launch year, a new dawn for design in Britain.
The business was and has continued to be defined by Zeev Aram’s sensibility and sure eye. While known as an internationalist – he was the first to show Shiro Kuramata in the West – he has also always scouted for promising local talent. To celebrate the 21st anniversary, the ‘coming of age’ of the gallery, Aram had the idea to invite leading British painters, sculptors and architects, plus a couple of emerging designers to create prototype furniture models and stage an exhibition of the resulting pieces. ‘I wanted to prove that originality and innovative design is possible in this country,’ he told an interviewer at the time of the exhibition. ‘We don’t always have to look abroad – there is plenty of talent here.’ An invitation designed by Peter Blake, showing Aram and the King’s Road shop façade, announced the opening, albeit in 1987, two years later than originally planned. The exhibition received considerable and very positive press coverage, though for most of the pieces no or only a very limited production followed.
Christie’s is honoured to present at auction this selection of the inventive and individualistic original prototypes from this landmark exhibition.
Philippe Garner
"There is a need for experimentation in design and then there is a need for realising experiments. A fine balance of the two is vital to the well being of the designer." Jasper Morrison
Morrison’s ‘Thinking Man’s’ Chair is amongst the most iconic of his early works, produced shortly after he established his own design practice, and unites several motivations that continue to remain representative of his refined, minimalist understanding of design. Although the elongated tubular rear support, extending to form the arms might suggest a flirtation with Post-Modernism, the underlying personality of the chair is one that is guided by the industrialised aesthetic of the of the early Modernist designers, the French architect Robert Mallet-Stevens and the 1930s British manufacturer of tubular steel furniture P.E.L. included. Chancing upon an antique chair that had had its cushion removed for repair, Morrison resolved to design a chair that was all structure and with no closed surfaces. Utilising both tubular and flat steel strips, the elegant utilitarianism of the chair was enhanced by the application of an overall, matt red oxide primer painted finish. Feeling that the design still appeared a little too raw, Morrison then chose to add the dimensions and other calibrations in chalk, which was sealed using hairspray. Referencing the distinctive, circular flat armrests, Morrison initially anointed the chair as the ‘Drinking Man’s, before adjusting to the present title, inspired by Peterson’s archaic advertising slogan for ‘The Thinking Man’s Pipe’.
This important prototype was exhibited at Aram’s 23rd Anniversary Exhibition where it was noticed by Giulio Cappellini, who subsequently acquired the rights to produce the chair.