Long Chair
Designer:
Breuer, Marcel Lajos
Maker:
Isokon Furniture Company
Reclining long chair, with laminated birch frame including arms, legs and connecting support strut, with a continuous plywood seat/back.
Given by the Executors of the Estate of David Scrase, 2021, in memory of Rick Mather
Method of acquisition: Given (2022-04-29) by Executors of the Estate of David Scrase
This Long Chair is an iconic design and is widely held as one of the highlights of modernist design in Britain between the wars. At that time, Breuer was one of a group of important thinkers, designers and artists who were then living in London as refugees from Nazi Germany, before moving onto North America. This group included Lázsló Moholy-Nagy and Walter Gropius, who has been appointed Controller of Design in the Isokon Furniture Company, owned by Jack Pritchard, a ‘rare modernist Entrepreneur’ (in the words of Fiona MacCarthy), who had vouched for Gropius and Breuer on their arrival in Britain. Although Breuer was better-known for his tubular steel furniture, Pritchard asked him to work on a series in plywood, a new material that allowed for greater flexibility. Long Chair, first designed in 1935, remains the most famous design by Breuer for Isokon and has almost never been out of production.
Seat
composed of
plywood
Frame
composed of
birch
Part
Accession number: M.4-2022
Primary reference Number: 311374
Object entry form: 1490
Stable URI
Owner or interested party:
The Fitzwilliam Museum
Associated department:
Applied Arts
This record can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:
The Fitzwilliam Museum (2024) "Long Chair" Web page available at: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/311374 Accessed: 2024-04-24 13:33:26
To cite this record on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:
{{cite web|url=https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/311374
|title=Long Chair
|author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2024-04-24 13:33:26|publisher=The
University of Cambridge}}
To call these data via our API (remember this needs to be authenticated) you can use this code snippet:
https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/api/v1/objects/object-311374
Updates about future exhibitions and displays, family activities, virtual events & news. You'll be the first to know...
