Primitive Wooden Chairs, Italy, 1990s, Set of 14

Dimensions
   

Primitive Wooden Chairs, Italy, 1990s, set of fourteen.

These primitive wooden chairs blend the language of sculpture with the honesty of rural craft. Small in scale and strongly vertical, each chair rises from a compact seat into a pointed back that recalls the pinnacles of Gothic churches and the stylized forms of ancestral seats of honor. The construction is far more intricate than the silhouette suggests. Each back is composed of nested triangular panels, set one inside the other, with the grain changing direction at every layer. The seats are enclosed in mitered frames and fixed with visible wooden pegs, while the legs open into arrow-like cuts echoing the geometry above. Chevrons are carved along the sides, and a signature is incised into the wood. The chairs are made from reclaimed timber, taken from antique furniture, old floors and barrels, and assembled by hand without nails. Tones range from pale honey to amber and deep brown, with the warmth that only decades of life can give wood.

The set can be split. The chairs can be sold singularly.