Wright Auction

In 1940, the Museum of Modern Art sponsored the ground breaking Organic Design in Home Furnishings competition to "discover a group of designers capable of contributing to the creation of a useful and beautiful environment for today's living." The museum collaborated with several manufacturers and department stores to produce and distribute the winning designs.
In 1940, the Museum of Modern Art sponsored the ground breaking Organic Design in Home Furnishings competition to "discover a group of designers capable of contributing to the creation of a useful and beautiful environment for today's living." The museum collaborated with several manufacturers and department stores to produce and distribute the winning designs. The importance of Eames and Saarinen's seating design was immediately recognized: this chair won first prize in the category of Seating for a Living Room. The designs created by Eames and Saarinen for the Organic Design competition directly influenced the direction both designers would take in their future careers. Not only were these forms precursory to Eames' molded plywood chairs and Saarinen's Womb chair, but they also dramatically influenced the design of modern seating as the expression of compound curves was widely adopted in chair design during the following two decades. The three-dimensional compound curves and overall form of the chairs submitted by Eames and Saarinen pointed to a new direction and innovative production methods for modern design; working from small models made of copper, the complex wood shell of this chair was first created in wire and plaster before a negative form in thin wood strips was made. A cast iron mold was created from the negative form and then the wood shell was hand-glued into the iron form. Haskelite Corporation facilitated the molding process before the shell was trimmed, fitted with rubber, finished, and upholstered by Heywood Wakefield with woven fabric by Marli Ehrman (winner in the category of Woven Fabrics). The high back Organic Design chair is the largest and most complex of the seating forms created by Eames and Saarinen for the competition; it is likely that only three examples of the chair were ever produced. Unparalleled in its influence on seating design, the Organic Design chair is clearly one of the most important chairs of the century.
exhibited: Organic Design, 1941, Museum of Modern Art, New York Eames Design, 2001-2002, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum and Suntory Museum, Osaka, Japan
literature: Organic Design in Home Furnishings, Noyes, ppg. 12-15 discusses the construction of the chair 100 Masterpieces from the Vitra Design Museum Collection, von Vegesack, pg. 142 illustrates the chair in a period photo from the Organic Design exhibition