Important Design 
13 December 2012
Important Design 
204

Dan Cooper

Rare and Important Butterfly table

Drexel
USA, 1942
oak plywood 14 h × 20 w × 22 d in (36 × 51 × 56 cm)
estimate: $10,000–15,000
result: $23,750
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provenance: Full House, New York | Steven Miller, New York | Private collection, New York
exhibited: The Future at Home: American Furniture, 1940-1955, 19 December 2009 - 8 February 2010, Museum of the City of New York, New York
literature: Useful Objects in Wartime, The Museum of Modern Art bulletin, 1942-1943, unpaginated Modern Art in Your Life, The Museum of Modern Art bulletin, 1949, pg. 27 Smooth Operator, Modern Magazine, Hamilton, spring 2010, ppg. 128, 130 illustrates this example

print

Ready-to-Assemble

Dan Cooper's Butterfly Table

This rare Butterfly table comes from Dan Cooper’s PAKTO line of furnishings, a series of ready-to-assemble designs from 1942. Comprised of three interlocking parts, the table can be disassembled and packed flat for easy shipping and storage.


The Butterfly table disassembled.

Produced by Drexel and retailed at Bloomingdale’s, Cooper’s work played a defining role in the development of the mid-century American aesthetic. In 1943 the Museum of Modern Art, New York included Cooper’s Butterfly table in an exhibition titled Useful Objects in Wartime. Few examples survive.


The Butterfly table in the 1949 Museum of Modern Art's publication Modern Art in Your Life.
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