1920–1985
Modernism
Design that treated ornament as a problem to solve
Modernism is less a style than a position: that a chair should be honest about being a chair. It runs from the Bauhaus workshops of the 1920s through the Scandinavian and American mid-century work to the deliberate ironies of Post-Modernism, and it overlaps almost everything made in the second half of the century.
Its sub-styles disagree about almost everything except the argument — which is why collectors separate them so carefully, and why the names are used loosely everywhere else.
What to look for
Visible construction, an absence of applied decoration, and a design that can be explained.
Within this
Each has its own page, with its own searches.
Search the collection
The searches this style is worth looking at. Each opens the collection for it.
- Bauhaus Wassily Chair
- Marcel Breuer nesting table
- Bauhaus desk
- Wilhelm Wagenfeld lamp
- Barcelona chair
- Josef Albers print
- Bauhaus teapot
- Marianne Brandt teapot
- Walter Gropius furniture
- Bauhaus poster
- Breuer Cesca chair
- Eero Aarnio Ball Chair
- Verner Panton lighting
- Space Age plastic furniture
- Joe Colombo Boby Trolley
- Panton S chair
- Arco lamp Flos
- Vintage space age desk lamp
- Kartell plastic furniture
- Gae Aulenti Pipistrello lamp
- Olivier Mourgue Djinn chair
- Lacquered fiberglass chair
- Space age Sputnik chandelier
- Eames Lounge Chair
- Hans Wegner wishbone chair
- Teak sideboard
- Danish modern dining table
- Bertoia diamond chair
- MCM credenza
- Mid-century Murano glass lamp
- Saarinen Tulip table
- Drexel Declaration furniture
- Lane Acclaim coffee table
- George Nelson bubble lamp
- Arne Jacobsen Egg Chair