- Product:
- High-back chair
- Manufacturer:
- Phillips
- Architonic ID:
- 4104534
- Launched:
- 1898
- Country:
- United States
- Address
- Telephone
- Website
Key facts
Product description
High-back chair from the Argyle Street Tea Rooms
The career of Charles Rennie Mackintosh can largely be charted in terms of a series of crucial relationships with patrons who put their trust in his talent. Of prime importance among these patrons was Miss Catherine Cranston, a shrewd Glasgow businesswoman whose enlistment of the architect-designer to create façades, interior schemes and furnishings for a series of tea rooms provided the opportunity for an unhindered creative exploration of forms and symbolist themes. Mackintosh was also invited by Miss Cranston to refurbish the interiors of her home, Hous'hill. But the greater significance of his tea room schemes was that these were public spaces, and therefore highly visible projects that constituted a prime showcase for his ideas and those of his associates.
The so-called Argyle Street high-back chair (fig. 3), conceived in 1898-1899, was the first instance of Mackintosh making an extreme revision of a conventional form, and this particular chair, more than any other, has come to represent the essence of his visionary career. Designed for the Luncheon Room of the Argyle Street Tea Rooms, the chair's exaggerated form was a practical response to specific interior design issues. For the high backs, rising above the seated diners, created a kind of room divider, their regular rows delineating the internal spaces of the room. The grouping of the high backs around individual tables further created a sense of intimacy and privacy for each party. Mackintosh, the thoughtful designer, was ever sensitive to the ways in which people would interact with his schemes. Mackintosh, the lyrical artist, was always determined to bring an added dimension, a spiritually uplifting quality, to his designs. The Argyle Street high-back chair well expresses this transcendental aspect of Mackintosh's artistry.
This chair has inspired countless attempts at interpretation. The relative austerity of line belies a considerable sculptural subtlety. A fine attention to detail is evident in the discreet, fluid transformation of section as one moves up the tall back elements, in the gentle bow and soft sculpted edges of the oval panel, and in the echo of these curves in the lower arched panel. Aesthetic concerns have been given priority over practical considerations in such detail as the neat entry of the back slats into the lower edge of the oval, visually neat but structurally fragile. Mackintosh has eschewed principles of truth to materials in his pursuit of beautiful and expressive form. And it is this expressive quality that gives this chair its undeniable presence as an artifact and its status as an icon. The highly stylized motif of the bird in flight, cut into the oval panel, is an eternal symbol of freedom. Grouped as intended, the chairs have been likened to trees in a forest, the ovals suggesting canopies of leaves. Beyond any such associations, the chair's proportions themselves have a harmony, a rightness, an aura that provides inspiration while eluding definition.
It was surely the poetically satisfying character of this design that prompted its inclusion in the exhibit prepared by Mackintosh and his close colleagues for the Vienna Secession Exhibition of 1900. Contemporary photographs show a pair of the high-back chairs incorporated in a white architectural scheme, their presence providing a visual counterpoint to the structure and its decorative and symbolist flourishes. In such a context the sculptural value of the chair becomes its raison d'être. The designers of the Viennese avant-garde were greatly impressed by Mackintosh's work and the Argyle Street chair might justly be credited as a key element in the significant influence that the Glasgow architect-designer had on the emerging modern movement in Vienna.
Oak and rush
54 in. (136 cm) high
Provenance:
Mr. Maguire, Glasgow, ca. 1915
Thence by descent
Private collection, County Waterford
Bonhams London, November 11, 1998
Literature:
VER SACRUM, 1901, issue 23, p. 385
DEKORATIVE KUNST, VII, 1901, pp. 172, 175
The Studio, Special Number, 1901, pp. 110-11
Roger Billcliffe, CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH: THE COMPLETE FURNITURE, FURNITURE DRAWINGS & INTERIOR DESIGNS, Guildford and London, 1979, pp. 11, 47-48, cat. no. 1897.23; original design D1897.24
The career of Charles Rennie Mackintosh can largely be charted in terms of a series of crucial relationships with patrons who put their trust in his talent. Of prime importance among these patrons was Miss Catherine Cranston, a shrewd Glasgow businesswoman whose enlistment of the architect-designer to create façades, interior schemes and furnishings for a series of tea rooms provided the opportunity for an unhindered creative exploration of forms and symbolist themes. Mackintosh was also invited by Miss Cranston to refurbish the interiors of her home, Hous'hill. But the greater significance of his tea room schemes was that these were public spaces, and therefore highly visible projects that constituted a prime showcase for his ideas and those of his associates.
The so-called Argyle Street high-back chair (fig. 3), conceived in 1898-1899, was the first instance of Mackintosh making an extreme revision of a conventional form, and this particular chair, more than any other, has come to represent the essence of his visionary career. Designed for the Luncheon Room of the Argyle Street Tea Rooms, the chair's exaggerated form was a practical response to specific interior design issues. For the high backs, rising above the seated diners, created a kind of room divider, their regular rows delineating the internal spaces of the room. The grouping of the high backs around individual tables further created a sense of intimacy and privacy for each party. Mackintosh, the thoughtful designer, was ever sensitive to the ways in which people would interact with his schemes. Mackintosh, the lyrical artist, was always determined to bring an added dimension, a spiritually uplifting quality, to his designs. The Argyle Street high-back chair well expresses this transcendental aspect of Mackintosh's artistry.
This chair has inspired countless attempts at interpretation. The relative austerity of line belies a considerable sculptural subtlety. A fine attention to detail is evident in the discreet, fluid transformation of section as one moves up the tall back elements, in the gentle bow and soft sculpted edges of the oval panel, and in the echo of these curves in the lower arched panel. Aesthetic concerns have been given priority over practical considerations in such detail as the neat entry of the back slats into the lower edge of the oval, visually neat but structurally fragile. Mackintosh has eschewed principles of truth to materials in his pursuit of beautiful and expressive form. And it is this expressive quality that gives this chair its undeniable presence as an artifact and its status as an icon. The highly stylized motif of the bird in flight, cut into the oval panel, is an eternal symbol of freedom. Grouped as intended, the chairs have been likened to trees in a forest, the ovals suggesting canopies of leaves. Beyond any such associations, the chair's proportions themselves have a harmony, a rightness, an aura that provides inspiration while eluding definition.
It was surely the poetically satisfying character of this design that prompted its inclusion in the exhibit prepared by Mackintosh and his close colleagues for the Vienna Secession Exhibition of 1900. Contemporary photographs show a pair of the high-back chairs incorporated in a white architectural scheme, their presence providing a visual counterpoint to the structure and its decorative and symbolist flourishes. In such a context the sculptural value of the chair becomes its raison d'être. The designers of the Viennese avant-garde were greatly impressed by Mackintosh's work and the Argyle Street chair might justly be credited as a key element in the significant influence that the Glasgow architect-designer had on the emerging modern movement in Vienna.
Oak and rush
54 in. (136 cm) high
Provenance:
Mr. Maguire, Glasgow, ca. 1915
Thence by descent
Private collection, County Waterford
Bonhams London, November 11, 1998
Literature:
VER SACRUM, 1901, issue 23, p. 385
DEKORATIVE KUNST, VII, 1901, pp. 172, 175
The Studio, Special Number, 1901, pp. 110-11
Roger Billcliffe, CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH: THE COMPLETE FURNITURE, FURNITURE DRAWINGS & INTERIOR DESIGNS, Guildford and London, 1979, pp. 11, 47-48, cat. no. 1897.23; original design D1897.24