José Zanine Caldas
Certain works of furniture make a statement beyond artistry and function. The work of José Zanine Caldas conveys not only the artist’s own unique vision in its deeply spiritual presence, but speaks volumes about the place and culture from which it came. His designs express to our responsibility to preserve the beauty in the natural world that surrounds us. When you view Zanine Caldas’ work first hand, it is as if you are transported through his works to the culture he holds dear and endeavors to honor and preserve.
Zanine Caldas’ furniture and architecture seeks to reflect the magical beauty of the Brazilian landscape. Born in the Bahia region of Brazil, Zanine Caldas later returned to his native home to dedicate himself full time to his works of design. Trees were the single most important theme in his œuvre, and the thoughtful, careful selection of the natural motifs utilized by the artist were central to his life and epitomized in this work. Whenever possible, Zanine Caldas preferred to use felled trees, making a further commitment to the conservation of the forests he revered. By coming back to Bahia in the 1950s, he was able to fully immerse himself in the place and culture that so fundamentally guided his artistic principles.
Although never formally trained as an architect, he was a renowned modelmaker for many different architects. While most architects of his generation studied extensively, Zanine Caldas developed his own style through doing and making. His architecture is referenced in his furniture designs through an extraordinary and seductive simplicity. Works by Zanine Caldas have been exhibited extensively throughout Brazil and internationally, including the Musée Arts Dècoratifs in Paris.
Highly sculptural and deeply spiritual, this table is a testament to Zanine Caldas’ adoration of natural fissures, nuances and organic qualities inherent in the wood itself. The table presented here is comprised of Vinhático (Plathymenia reticulate), a rot-resistant South American legume tree used often in structural modalities and traditionally for canoes. Zanine Caldas employed numerous canoe carvers in his workshops, in both an architectural and furniture capacity, utilizing their skills and experience with the wood to inform his furniture designs. The wood’s ability to fend off natural destructive forces adds to its longevity as a design form, and compliments the designer’s efforts to preserve a Brazilian identity.
This table epitomizes Zanine Caldas’ unique design aesthetic as it celebrates the tree’s natural contrasting qualities by exposing large complex knot structures, natural fissures and sap grain perimeters. By leaving the wood in its natural state, we see the tree and venerate its beauty. His use of a pure Brazilian vernacular in the construction and aesthetic of his design gives triumph to his persistent and applauded efforts to restore the forests that surrounded him his whole life. In its realization, this table represents the pure unity of function, aesthetics and ideology.
José Zanine Caldas 1919–2001
Born and raised in Belmonte, Brazil, José Zanine Caldas was an artist, designer, and architect who became a major figure of the Brazilian modern design movement. At twenty years old, Zanine Caldas established his Rio de Janeiro workshop specializing in the production of architectural scale models for top architects, including Oscar Niemeyer and Lúcio Costa.
In the late 1940s, Zanine Caldas and two business partners established the furniture company Móveis Artísticos Z, which offered plywood furniture at prices accessible to the broader public. He would later depart this venture and return to his native Bahia, where he began to create furniture dubbed Móveis Denúncia, or “protest furniture." This body of work responded to the destruction of the region's forests, at once making use of discarded wood when possible and drawing attention to the issue. For these pieces, Zanine Caldas took inspiration from the local craft tradition of carving boats and furniture from trees, and would make sculptural works from native woods—sometimes hewn from a single log. An environmentalist at heart who wrote extensively on sustainability, Zanine Caldas tried to use trees that were already felled or plant a new tree to replace each one he used.
Zanine Caldas’s works have been shown at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and throughout Brazil. In 2015, he was featured in the Americas Society’s traveling exhibition Moderno: Design for Living, Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela 1940-1978.
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