Wright Auction

Before he began designing furniture that craftsmen fabricated, Judd made several works himself. They embody an idea in gestation, like the handmade prototypes of Rietveld, Breuer, and Mies. What they lack in polish, they make up for in originality—like the first brushstroke on a bare canvas, or the conceptual sketch from which a building would grow. The present lot was made by hand and signed in pencil “DJ 79 C” for his son Flavin who was named for artist Dan Flavin, a close friend of Judd. The artist detested the label of minimalist, though that is the character of his work. 

The narrative created at Marfa and 101 Spring Street, Judd’s major projects, with a dialog between Barnett Newman’s desk, Aalto and Rietveld furniture, repurposing military spaces and industrial iron buildings is distinct.

Judd’s singular vision of austerity and restraint belies the tactile and warm quality of the present lot. For Judd, organization meant systems, and slick surfaces occurred in industrially manufactured furniture and sculpture. A handmade wooden chair could be seen as on a continuum with the more sensuous aspects of his life of design at Marfa. Beneath staircases were collections of lassos, straw hats, pioneer and prospector tools; the true collector cannot change his ways, only find ways of repressing certain groups of objects in order to emphasize others. The narrative created at Marfa and 101 Spring Street, Judd’s major projects, with a dialog between Barnett Newman’s desk, Aalto and Rietveld furniture, repurposing military spaces and industrial iron buildings is distinct. There is human-scale and no-nonsense thinking and rationality at the heart of the Judd philosophy. A sculptor, architect, and writer, among other things, Judd was thorough, definite, and complete in his life as well as his work. The present lot is the beginning of Judd’s adventure in furniture design.