Barwa Chair

Description

This lightweight chaise features a novel, angled tubular aluminum frame that enables the user to move from a seated to a reclining position with just a slight shift of body weight. First produced in 1947 by Bartolucci and Waldheim, graduates of the Illinois Institute of Technology Institute of Design, the chair quickly became associated with a new ideal of postwar leisure in the United States. This innovative design is a low-cost adaption of modernist experimentation with the lounge chair for a new suburban context.

Barwa Chair

Edgar Bartolucci

c. 1950

Accession Number

239013

Medium

Aluminum and canvas

Dimensions

104 × 129.5 × 51 cm (41 × 51 × 20 in.)

Classification

chair

Museum

The Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

Credit Line

Gift of Stanley Tigerman and Margaret McCurry