Furniture Works by Jorge Zalszupin, Master of Brazilian Modern Architecture, Go on View at Sean Kelly Los Angeles
The current exhibition “Zalszupin 100” at Sean Kelly Gallery in Los Angeles celebrates the household furniture will work of late Polish-Brazilian designer Jorge Zalszupin on what would have been his centenary on earth. A pioneer of Brazilian modernism, Zalszupin died in 2020, two yrs right before turning 100.
Lots of of Zalszupin’s items on show have been procured from personal collections. About the past two several years, the gallery painstakingly sourced the customized household furniture he made for workplaces and residences throughout Brazil among the late 1950s and early ’70s. Some pieces belonged to Zalszupin’s beloved ones, like the Ina armchair, which he created for (and named after) his sister.
Zalszupin worked as both a home furniture designer and an architect, ran 1 of the major home furnishings factories in Brazil, and in his later on decades explored painting. His oeuvre is connected by his use of sensuous strains, a modernist sensibility, and an affinity for operating with nontraditional components and woods native to Brazil. His work incorporates references to equally worldwide design and style developments and his possess encounters, this kind of as Tea Trolley, a bar cart encouraged by the baby strollers he saw rising up in Poland.
Jorge Zalszupin, Tea Trolley (ca. 1960s). Brazilian jacaranda, rosewood, metallic. Courtesy of Sean Kelly Gallery.
Jorge Zalszupin was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1922. In 1949, he created his way to Brazil, where by he fell in like with the landscape and the architecture, and lived the rest of his existence, starting to be a single of the definitive designers of Brazilian modernism.
His foray into household furniture style began before long just after he introduced his architecture observe in Brazil in 1951. Customers started requesting items to match the aesthetic of their structures and Zalszupin was completely ready to fulfill their need. In 1959, he produced his initial get the job done of furniture—Poltrona Dinamarquesa, or Danish Chair. The seat’s curved wood body and modern Scandinavian sensibility established the tone for Zalszupin’s prolific job. That exact same 12 months he established the L’Atelier, a carpentry organization that grew into one of Brazil’s largest household furniture producers.
Set up watch, “Zalszupin 100.” Photo: Brica Wilcox, courtesy of Sean Kelly Gallery.
Zalszupin thought creatively about products and methods. Early on he formulated a signature patchwork rosewood sample that allowed him to use leftovers from other productions. He would go over the area of a piece of home furniture with rectangular scraps of rosewood in a variety of shades and designs.
Even though Zalszupin is identified for his use of native Brazilian woods like jacaranda, rosewood, and ironwood, he also investigated and experimented with new machinery and technologies all over his career, which include his plastic laminate sequence. His ground breaking use of components paved the way for the modernism motion that characterized Brazilian design and style in the decades to arrive.
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