Out of the Woods
February 2007
Ever since that girl from Ipanema sambaed her way into the world’s consciousness, the cultural vitality of Brazil has been impossible to ignore. In addition to music and films, contemporary Brazilian artists such as Vik Muniz and Ernesto Neto are making a splash on the international scene, and two recent museum exhibitions have furthered awareness: The Guggenheim’s “Brazil: Body and Soul” in 2001 and the Bronx Museum of the Arts’ “Tropicália: A Revolution in Brazilian Culture” in 2006.Now the country’s design tradition is getting its time in the tropical sun. If the recent surge of interest in Brazilian mid-century furniture can be traced to a single event, it is R 20th Century’s 2004 exhibition of works by Sérgio Rodrigues in New York. “We were searching for something overlooked that had to come out,” says co-owner Zesty Meyers, explaining how he and partner Evan Snyderman “saw a purity and sensuality that didn’t exist anywhere else.”
They first looked at the work of Oscar Niemeyer (b. 1907), the master of Brazilian architecture, best known for overseeing the design of the country’s capital city, Brasilia. During the 1970s Neimeyer created a number of furniture designs. “He had a passion for ingenious shapes and forms, and made people respond to modern design,” Meyers says. In 2001 a pair of club chairs sold for $14,000; two years later, a chaise longue brought $21,000.
Rodrigues, Joaquim Tenreiro and José Zanine Caldas are the furnituremakers most responsible for the rising appeal of Brazilian modernism. At 79 Rodrigues is still producing. The architect-turned-designer founded Oca Industry, an interior design studio combined with an art gallery and exhibition space for his furniture in 1955. In 1957, he created his most famous design, the Molé chair. The basic structure is solid jacaranda joined with wooden pegs and covered in supple leather overlapping the chair’s back and armrests. His Mucki bench, composed of a series of rosewood slats, has also attracted high praise from collectors and design professionals. Currently at R 20th Century is a Molé chair ($20,000) and Mucki bench in two sizes ($29,000 and $40,000).
Tenreiro (1906–92) is considered the father of modern Brazilian furniture. Born in Portugal to a family of woodworkers, he immigrated in the 1920s to Rio de Janeiro, where he caught the attention of Niemeyer, who commissioned him to design furnishings for some of his houses. Adelia Borges, director of São Paulo’s Museu da Casa Brasileira, writes that Tenreiro believes furniture should possess “a lightness, which has nothing to do with weight but with graciousness and a functionality of space.” He designed chairs and benches with caned seats and backs, and tables with glass tops to accommodate Brazil’s tropical climate. But his greatest achievement was his three-legged chair with swooping seat striated by several layers of laminated wood. In December 2004 Sotheby’s New York sold a 1947 example for $54,000; it was the first Tenreiro work offered by the auction house.
In 2002, Brazilian businessman Carlos Junqueira opened Espasso, a showroom in New York’s Long Island City featuring Brazilian mid-century and contemporary furniture. Last September the gallery moved to a bi-level space in Tribeca, where a wide range of Brazilian furniture is on view. Tenreiro is represented by several pieces, including a set of 12 sucupira spindle-back chairs ($72,000) and a circular jacaranda and black glass-topped dining table ($180,000).
In the 1980s. José Zanine Caldas (1919– 2001), a modelmaker for Niemeyer, turned to creating “statement furniture,” heavy brutalist designs made from cast-off wood. In 2005 Sotheby’s sold a Zanine vinhatico dining table for $96,000. Zanine is often compared to Alexandre Noll, a French furniture maker of the 1940s and ’50s who was also drawn to the shape of the wood.While the spotlight is now on mid-20th-century designs, Brazilian furniture has a long history dating back to the 18th century, when the territory was a Portuguese colony. Last October Sotheby’s New York sold a late 17th- to early 18th-century Portuguese baroque rosewood table for $30,000. Its heavily turned legs and stretchers would become a dominant characteristic of Brazilian colonial furniture.
Notus, a gallery located in Tribeca, is a major source for early Brazilian furniture. At any given time, it may have a selection of tables and chests with turned legs and stretchers, embossed leather chairs and large paneled armoires. Presently it has an 18th-century baroque rosewood chest with raised block paneling for $16,500. The interior is painted, an indication of the original owner’s wealth.
In the 19th century, cane replaced leather for seating, and heavy carving gave way to more elegant classical lines. The designs of English cabinetmaker Thomas Sheraton, as well as the Directoire and Empire styles popular in France at the time, were given a tropical twist. The gallery has a Sheraton- inspired rosewood caned bench ($14,500) and gracefully curving canape with imperial provenance ($15,475).
“Museums are giving South American decorative arts a closer look—Brazilian colonial furniture in particular because of the country’s size, wealth and multiple influences woven into its history,” says Stephen Hurrell, co-owner, along with his wife, Julie Sherlock, of Notus. The couple is writing a book on Brazilian furniture prior to the 20th century.
But Brazilian furniture is about the present, not the past. Fernando (b.1961) and Humberto (b. 1953) Campana admit they like to break the rules and work with unlikely materials—scraps of wood used in Brazil’s favelas (shantytowns), stuffed animals and tightly rolled fabrics resembling sushi—a mission that has made them a favorite among design aficionados. In 2005 a Campana Teddy Bear chair brought $66,000 at Sotheby’s. Like Zanine, Hugo Franca (b. 1954) has a reverence for wood and gives new life to pequis trees destroyed by fire. He transforms these dead tree trunks that were once part of Bahia’s Atlantic rain forest, into “furniture sculpture,” benches, chairs and tables that continue to represent the forest. R 20th Century has a Franca coffee table carved directly from the cross section of a pequis tree ($22,000). Cláudia Moreira Salles’ (b. 1955) designs are light and sophisticated. Rodrigues calls them “authentic designs with a distinct Brazilian flavor” and compares the designer’s creativity to that of Eileen Grey and Charlotte Perriand. The clean rectilinear furniture designs of São Paulo architect Isay Weinfeld (b. 1952) reveal the influence of Mies van der Rohe. His dining/conference table made of contrasting woods on chrome legs is $18,558 at Espasso.
“From the beginning of the Modernist movement in the 1920s to the new generation of designers working today, Brazilian furniture occupies a position of importance in the world market,” says Sergio Rodrigues. “It is a pure distillation of Brazilian culture.”
Doris Goldstein is an Art & Antiques correspondent specializing in the decorative arts.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Espasso, New York. 212.219.0017. Los Angeles, 310.657.0020. www.espasso.com
Notus, New York. 888.334.0291. www.notusgallery.com
R 20th Century, New York, 212.343.7979. www.r20thcentury.com
Sotheby’s, New York, 212.606.7000. sothebys.com.
Wright, Chicago. 312.563,0020. www.wright20.com
Private Rio, The Great Homes and Gardens by Tomas de Elia (Rizzoli, 2003).