Red Blue Chair: M.1-2022

Place(s) associated

• Utrecht ⪼ Netherlands

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Given (2022) by Executors of the Estate of David Scrase

Note

Form designed by Rietveld in 1918, colour scheme designed in 1923. This later edition (date of production TBC) was made by Gerard A. Van Der Groenekan (1904–94), Utrecht, Rietveld’s original studio assistant and furniture fabricator, responsible for much of Rietveld’s furniture output from the 1920s onwards, continuing to produce limited examples of Rietveld’s furniture until the 1980s and 1990s. This chair is the most iconic piece of furniture associated with the Dutch De Stijl movement and reflects the intersection of horizontal and vertical planes seen in Rietveld’s architectural designs. Constructing a chair from its most basic components, the form was originally designed in 1918 with a plain, stained finish (see the example in V&A, accession number W.9-1989). This primary colour scheme was added in 1923, a scheme closely associated with the De Stijl movement and the work of Piet Mondrian. Rietveld originally trained as a carpenter and intended for his furniture to be mass-produced, as part of what he hoped would be a harmonious rebuilding of physical and social society after World War I. With this in mind, the pieces of wood that compose the Red Blue Chair were those of the standard lumber sizes readily available at the time.