Pair of Original Gavina Wassily Chairs by Marcel Breuer in Black Leather
View Similar Items
Pair of Original Gavina Wassily Chairs by Marcel Breuer in Black Leather
About the Item
- Creator:Marcel Breuer (Designer)
- Design:
- Dimensions:Height: 28.5 in (72.39 cm)Width: 31 in (78.74 cm)Depth: 25.5 in (64.77 cm)Seat Height: 16.14 in (41 cm)
- Sold As:Set of 2
- Style:Mid-Century Modern (Of the Period)
- Materials and Techniques:
- Place of Origin:
- Period:
- Date of Manufacture:1970s
- Condition:Minor losses.
- Seller Location:Miami, FL
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU1726220420812
Wassily Lounge Chair
Inspired by bicycle handlebars, the Wassily chair is one of Marcel Breuer’s (1902–81) greatest achievements. Even though the tubular metal chair looked like an artifact from the future when the Hungarian-American designer and architect conceived it in 1925, Breuer could not have foreseen the significant impact that this would have on modern design.
From 1920–28, Breuer studied and then taught at the Bauhaus school of design, where he found a kindred spirit in Walter Gropius, who invited Breuer back as junior master of the carpentry workshop. After less than a year in his new role, Breuer produced his revolutionary chair, which is among the first furniture designs to feature bent tubular steel.
Breuer called the Wassily his “most extreme work” because the pared-down design didn’t look comfortable. It’s true: Take an everyday club chair — the Wassily’s technical name was the model B3 club chair — and toss the cushions and you’d have something like Breuer’s design. The lightweight and mass-produced tubular-steel handlebars of the maker’s bicycle made him wonder if he could achieve something similar with bent-steel furniture.
The resulting mid-1920s-era chair, the seat of which was made of a durable canvas developed by Bauhaus student Margaretha Reichardt, was named the Wassily after painter and fellow Bauhaus colleague Vasily “Wassily” Kandinsky expressed admiration for the piece. Today, Knoll manufactures the Wassily chair.
Marcel Breuer
The architect and designer Marcel Breuer was one the 20th century’s most influential and innovative adherents of modernism. A member of the Bauhaus faculty, Breuer — like such colleagues as the architects Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and the artists and art theoreticians László Moholy-Nagy and Josef Albers — left Europe in the 1930s to champion the new design philosophy and its practice in the United States.
Born in Hungary, Breuer became a Bauhaus student in 1920 and quickly impressed Gropius, the German school’s founder, with his aptitude for furniture design. His early work was influenced by the minimalist Dutch design movement De Stijl — in particular the work of architect Gerrit Rietveld. In 1925, while he was head of the Bauhaus furniture workshop, Breuer realized his signature innovation: the use of lightweight tubular-steel frames for chairs, tables and sofas — a technique soon adopted by Mies and others. Breuer’s attention gradually shifted from design to architecture, and, at the urging of Gropius, he joined his mentor in 1937 on the faculty of Harvard and in an architectural practice.
In the 1940s, Breuer opened his own architectural office, and there his style evolved from geometric, glass-walled structures toward a kind of hybrid architecture — seen in numerous Breuer houses in New England — that pairs bases of local fieldstone with sleek, wood-framed modernist upper floors. In his later, larger commissions, Breuer worked chiefly with reinforced concrete and stone, as seen in his best-known design, the brutalist inverted ziggurat built in New York in 1966 as the home of the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Breuer’s most famous furniture pieces are those made of tubular steel, which include the Wassily chair — named after Wassily Kandinsky and recognizable for its leather-strap seating supports — and the caned Cesca chair. Breuer also made several notable designs in molded plywood, including a chaise and nesting table for the British firm Isokon and a student furniture suite commissioned in 1938 for a dormitory at Bryn Mawr College. Whether in metal or wood, Breuer’s design objects are elegant and adaptable examples of classic modernist design — useful and appropriate in any environment.
Find vintage Marcel Breuer seating, storage cabinets and lighting on 1stDibs.
- Vintage Italian Brown Leather and Chrome Armchairs, 1980s, Set of FiveLocated in Miami, FLVintage Italian brown leather and chrome armchairs, 1980s, set of five.Category
Mid-20th Century Italian Mid-Century Modern Armchairs
MaterialsChrome
- 19th Century Pair of Bentwood Rocking Chairs in Style of Jacob & JosefBy Jacob & Josef KohnLocated in Miami, FL19th century pair of bentwood rocking chairs in the style of Jacob & Josef.Category
Antique Late 19th Century European Colonial Revival Rocking Chairs
MaterialsBentwood
- French Pair of Midcentury Gold Brass Chairs with Blue Velvet UpholsteryLocated in Miami, FLPair of midcentury brass chairs with blue velvet upholstery Very comfortable chairs with seat and back in original blue velvet in very good condition.Category
Mid-20th Century French Mid-Century Modern Armchairs
MaterialsBrass
- Pair of Spanish Slatted Barrel Back Hand Carved ChairsLocated in Miami, FLRecently restored pair of vintage walnut framed barrel back chairs with white upholstery.Category
Early 20th Century Spanish Baroque Revival Club Chairs
MaterialsCherry
- Pair of Bentwood Rocking Chairs with Cane Seat and BackBy ThonetLocated in Miami, FLThis model is inspired by the Thonet no. 10 rocker from circa 1880. It´s made in Spain, circa 1940-1950. It was restored and it´s in perfect shape.Category
Mid-20th Century Spanish Art Nouveau Rocking Chairs
MaterialsCane, Bentwood
- Pair of Spanish Armchairs with High Back signed by ValentiLocated in Miami, FLPair of Spanish Armchairs with High Back signed by Valenti The fabric is dirty and needs a reupholstered.Category
Mid-20th Century Spanish Mid-Century Modern Armchairs
MaterialsWalnut
- "Wassily" Chair by Marcel Breuer for Gavina, 1970sBy Gavina, Marcel BreuerLocated in Lasne, BEArmchair in Chromed metal and cream fabric by Marcel Breuer. Seat height: 43 cm. wear due to time and age of the chair.Category
Vintage 1970s Italian Mid-Century Modern Armchairs
MaterialsMetal
- "Wassily" Chair by Marcel Breuer for Gavina, 1970sBy Gavina, Marcel BreuerLocated in Lasne, BEArmchair in Chromed metal and cream fabric. Seat height: 43 cm. wear due to time and age of the chair.Category
Vintage 1970s Italian Mid-Century Modern Armchairs
MaterialsMetal
- Wassily Chair by Marcel Breuer for Gavina, 1970sBy Gavina, Marcel BreuerLocated in Lasne, BEArmchair in chromed metal and black leather. Wear due to time and age of the armchair. Measures: seat height: 43 cm.Category
Vintage 1970s Italian Mid-Century Modern Armchairs
MaterialsMetal
- Gavina Wassily Chair B3 Vintage Leather White by Marcel Breuer 1 of 2By Marcel Breuer, GavinaLocated in Munich, BavariaThis old Vintage Wassily chair Model B3, in chromed tubular steel and white leather, was designed by Marcel Breuer and produced by Gavina. It's an early edition before 68. It has som...Category
Mid-20th Century Italian Bauhaus Lounge Chairs
MaterialsMetal, Chrome
- Pair of Wassily Lounge Chair White Leather by Marcel Breuer, Gavina, circa 1962By Marcel Breuer, Dino GavinaLocated in Paris, FranceThis early original of Wassily pair of lounge chairs, are with the original white leather, highly sought after by collectors. The leather has no structura...Category
Mid-20th Century Italian Bauhaus Lounge Chairs
MaterialsChrome
- Wassily chair by Marcel BreuerBy Marcel BreuerLocated in Banská Štiavnica, SKWassily chair by Marcel Breuer later production from 1970s. New fabric seat.Category
Vintage 1970s German Bauhaus Armchairs
MaterialsStainless Steel