Update: sold under estimation: $284,464. 

Lot Description: 

MARC NEWSON (B.1963)

ORGONE CHAIR, DESIGNED 1993, EXECUTED PRIOR TO 1999

produced by Pod, number five from an edition of six with two artist's proofs and one prototype, mirror-polished aluminium, with enamelled interior

34 in. (86.5 cm.) high; 28½ in. (72.5 cm.) wide; 36 in. (91.5 cm.) deep impressed to underside Marc Newson Pod Edition, 5/6, MN

Provenance

European Private Collection, acquired directly from the designer, 1999. 

Literature

A. Rawsthorn, Marc Newson, London, 1999, p. 85 (example illustrated)

C. L. Morgan, Marc Newson, London, 2003, p. 184 (example illustrated)

S. Nichols (ed.), Aluminium By Design, exh. cat, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, 2000, p. 264 (example illustrated) 

Lot Notes

Conceived as a suite together with the Event Horizon centre table, the Orgone chair and its companion chaise refined the characteristic 'double-blob' hourglass form of Newson's earlier creations, the Lockheed and the Pod. Again using aluminium, the intensely technical handworking of the medium allows for the aesthetics and properties of the material to yield a seamless vision of fluid metallic form. The sweepingly futuristic presence of the Orgone - which involved the rolling, hammering and welding of thin sheet aluminium - was realised by the craft-based techniques perfected by the master craftsmen who once produced coach-work for Aston Martin.

Formally, the contrasting dialogue between smoothed reflective surfaces and the magnetic, red-enamelled voids, offers an intangibility of substance that has evolved as one of the keystones of Newson's design vocabulary. The concept of this series of three furnishings was inspired by the universal life force, 'Orgone', hypothesised by the psychoanalyst William Reich who used a booth or capsule-like device in which he placed his patients to capture this force, which he believed would restore psychological well-being.

This Orgone chair will be included as "MN - 9OC - 1993" in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of limited editions by Marc Newson, currently being prepared by Didier Krzentowski of Gallery kreo Paris