Essential Design 
25 April 2024
Essential Design 
336

Eero Saarinen

Womb chair and ottoman

Knoll International
USA, 1946 / 1988
upholstery, chrome-plated steel chair: 36 h × 40½ w × 32 d in (91 × 103 × 81 cm) ottoman: 16 h × 25 w × 20½ d in (41 × 63 × 52 cm)
estimate: $1,500–2,000
result: $3,354
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Paper manufacturer's label to underside ‘Knoll International, Inc.’.
provenance: Acquired directly from the manufacturer in 1988 by the present owner
literature: Knoll Furniture: 1938-1960, Rouland and Rouland, pg. 73 Knoll: A Modernist Universe, Lutz, pg. 116 Atlas of Furniture Design, Vitra Design Museum, ppg. 400-401

This work will ship from Los Angeles, California.

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We found a ship builder in New Jersey and he was working in fiberglass. We got excited about it and Eero developed the Womb chair. [...] Eero Saarinen and I went out to New Jersey to beg this ship builder to make us some models. He was very skeptical. Mr. Winter was his name. I guess we were so young and so enthusiastic that he finally gave in and worked with us. We had lots of problems and failures until they finally got a chair that would work.

Florence Knoll

Eero Saarinen 1910–1961

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Born in 1910, Eero Saarinen was surrounded by design his entire life; his father, Eliel Saarinen was an architect and director of the Cranbrook Academy of art and his mother, Loja Saarinen, was an acclaimed textile artist. In 1929, Saarinen traveled to Paris to study sculpture at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière before enrolling in the Yale architecture program. He returned to Cranbrook in 1934 where he met fellow designer and friend, Charles Eames. In 1947, Saarinen won a competition to design a monument for Thomas Jefferson in St. Louis. His Gateway Arch would mark one of the many triumphs of his short but incredibly productive career.

Auction Results Eero Saarinen

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Eero Saarinen

Custom Tulip table from the bar of the Grill Room

estimate: $5,000–7,000

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Eero Saarinen

Custom Tulip table from the bar of the Grill Room

estimate: $5,000–7,000

result: $35,000

Eero Saarinen

Custom Tulip table from the bar of the Grill Room

estimate: $5,000–7,000

result: $35,000

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