First-Class Seats
November 2006
Vladimir Kagan could spend the rest of his life reclining on one of his luxurious Serpentine sofas and no one could complain. After all, the master designer is approaching 80 and has earned a well-deserved break after 50 years of creating some of the most outstanding and iconic modern furniture of the 20th century. Kagan, however, has loftier plans: His next design project is a building—a multi-story residential building in Manhattan’s NoHo planned for 2008. The resulting structure, a series of curvy sculptural forms, is unmistakably “Kaganesque.”Kagan is known for putting a sensuous spin on midcentury furniture that influenced a generation
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Tri-Symmetric Side Chair, c. 1960, aluminum with leather upholstery. |
As young and hip collectors from Wall Street to Hollywood discover Kagan’s vintage pieces at auction, prices are heating up. Earlier this year at Sotheby’s New York, his circa-1960 Tri-Symmetric Side Shair sold for $15,600 and leather “floating back and seat” sofa brought $42,000. There were similar results at wright in Chicago, where a Kagan high-back lounge chair sold in May for $32,400. “Kagan at his best is one of the great midcentury biomorphic designers,” says James Zemaitis, head of Sotheby’s 20th-century design department.
Abby Malowanczyk of Collage 20th-Century Classics in Dallas attributes Kagan’s resurgence to designs that were ahead their time and his use of exotic woods. At present the gallery has a 1970s leather Omnibus Sofa at $8,000 and a vintage Tri-Symmetric olivewood sideboard with lacquer server.
Kagan’s designs for seating were among his most innovative and “taught us how seating should be arranged in a room,” says Barbara Diesroth, a 20th-century decorative arts consultant. For example, he envisioned the curvaceous Serpentine Sofa “floating” in the center of the room and saw his Omnibus collection, a modular multi-directional seating group, perched at different levels. (Tastemakers agree: A longtime Kagan fan, designer Tom Ford chose Omnibus pieces for all 360 Gucci stores worldwide and hotelier André Balazs selected Omnibus multi-level seating for the lobby of the new Standard Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.)
Reissues of Kagan’s midcentury designs are available at Dennis Miller Associates showroom in
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VK Chaise, 1999, aluminum |
Stasis is certainly not part of the lexicon for this designer whose creations are in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Vitra Design Museum in Weil Am Rhein, Germany, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Kagan recently ventured outdoors, creating a collection of all-weather furniture for Barlow Tyrie. The English garden furniture company introduced the group made of newly developed plastic rattan at London’s Decorex in September and High Point market in October.
His contributions to midcentury design earned him a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Furniture Designers in 2000 and the Brooklyn Museum of Art/MODERNISM in 2002. He also received an unusual honor in the university town of Freiburg, Germany, where a local night spot furnished with Omnibus seating has been named “The Kagan Club”—a rather bizarre footnote in the biography of this designer who fled Nazi Germany in 1938 with his family. They settled in New York City, where Kagan’s woodworker father opened a cabinet shop and Kagan enrolled in the High School of Industrial Design, where he studied clay modeling, anatomy and sculpture—disciplines that all would come into play in his future designs.
His work in clay helped him develop a sense for amorphous shapes. His knowledge of anatomy informed furniture designs that offered comfort and firm support of the spine. But most significantly, Kagan credits his study of sculpture for the free-form quality of his postwar designs. “I have always approached design like a sculpture, emphasizing the interplay of structure and form, of space and light,” he says.
In 1947 when he was barely 20 Kagan created his first design: a barrel-shaped chair set on organic sculpted legs that became his signature piece. He also landed his first commission, design of the delegates’ cocktail lounges at United Nations headquarters, then located in Lake Success, New York. Two years later, he took a bold step and opened a shop on Manhattan’s fashionable 65th Street (the next year, he moved to 57th Street) that attracted a celebrity clientele including Marilyn Monroe, Gary Cooper and opera singer Lily Pons. He also introduced his Tri-Symmetric collection of three-legged designs. Early bases were made of wood, later changing to aluminum. In 1950, retired Swiss textile manufacturer Hugo Dreyfuss joined Kagan in a partnership that continued until 1960.
In 2004 Kagan penned his autobiography, The Complete Kagan: A Lifetime of Avant-Garde Design. Writing in the preface, Tom Ford commented: “Kagan’s sofas, tables and chairs manage to be so connected to their time and yet are also so timeless.”
Doris Goldstein is a New York correspondent for Art & Antiques.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
►Christie’s New York
212.636.2000
www.christies.com
►David Rago Modern Auctions
Lambertville, N.J.
609.397.9374
www.ragoarts.com
►Dennis Miller
New York
212.684.0070
www.dennismiller.com
►Los Angeles Modern Auctions
Los Angeles
323.904.1950
www.lamodern.com
►Ralph Pucci
New York
212.633.0452
www.ralphpucci.com
►Sotheby’s New York
212.606.7000
www.sothebys.com
►Todd Merrill Antiques
New York
212.673.0531
www.merrillantiques.com
►Vladimir Kagan Design Group
New York
212.289.0031
www.vladimirkagan.com
►Wright
Chicago
312.563.0020
www.wright20.com
BOOKS
The Complete Kagan: A Lifetime of Avant-Garde Design by Vladimir Kagan and Tom Ford (Printed Leaf Press, New York, 2004).