HOT ! Pair of Plywood Armchairs/ Gerald Summers, 1930s

Description:

A pair of painted plywood armchairs with upholstered seats and backs, designed by British Modernist, Gerald Summers, and manufactured by his company, Makers of Simple Furniture (1931-1940). 

A strikingly sculptural design that encapsulates Summers\' explorations into the material potential of birch plywood. These armchairs were designed by Gerald Summers during the brief life of his company, Makers of Simple Furniture, which began in 1931 and ended in 1940 as the rationing of plywood was introduced during the Second World War. 

In 1934, Simple Furniture released their first brochure. In fashionable Gills Sans type, the black and white brochure was part-poem, part-manifesto. Part of the unusually spaced text read:

\"ah there you have it   let\'s keep them functional 

shaped for purpose   pleasant to feel   looking quiet

with guts   cheerful\" [1]

Gerald had worked as an engineer before the First World War, and after 1914 began to formulate ideas of plywood furniture. During this interwar period and the early years of Simple Furniture, Gerald\'s designs embodied an underlying appetite for modernity; a new necessity for modern furniture, for modern homes in which people would live modern lives. \"Furniture for the Concrete Age\" was how Simple Furniture was branded by Summers in the 1933 December issue of \'Design for Today\', quite deliberately evoking images of the one of Britain\'s first reinforced concrete structures, Wells Coates\' Lawn Road Flats, also known as the Isokon Building. [2]

Like concrete, plywood was a modern material and one Gerald fully embraced. Beneath a gently domed seat pad, a circular frame embodies Simple Furniture\'s unique expression of functionality; an economy of means with a quiet monumentality, something \'shaped for purpose\' but that is crucially \'cheerful\'. 

Whilst certain designs by Simple furniture were intended to showcase the natural birch, when we acquired these chairs, they had a painted finish, which was common in more complex designs in which joints might have needed to be disguised. However, this paint had seen better days. Wanting to keep the table painted, we have taken care to painstakingly restore the surface of the piece before applying multiple, thin layers of a new paint colour. This rich purple, \'Dagger\', was developed by Sigmar Co-Founder Ebba Thott as part of her Damo Paint Collection. It also happens to be the colour of our shop front- we couldn\'t help it. 

References:

1. Deese, M. (2024) \'Gerald Summers and Marjory Butcher: Makers of Simple Furniture , 1931-1940\'. p.49.


2. Ibid. p.42.

Specifications:

Height: 81cm

Width: 54cm

Depth: 52cm

Seat Height: 54cm

Arm Height: 73cm

Materials: Painted plywood with 100% wool upholstery.