- Product:
- Prototype Desk
- Manufacturer:
- Sotheby´s
- Architonic ID:
- 4103462
- Launched:
- 1978
- Country:
- United Kingdom
- Address
- Telephone
- Website
Key facts
Product description
Prototype Desk built by Donald Judd for his son in Marfa, Texas
One of the two original prototypes built by Judd himself, they are sometimes referred to in the artist's literature as the "children's desks." The model was first put into production by Cooper/Cato in 1982.
''[I] moved to West Texas with my two children, where I rented a small house on the edge of town. The house was quartered into eleven by eleven foot rooms. There was no furniture and none to be bought, either old, since the town had not shrunk or changed much since its beginning in 1883, or new, since the few stores sold only fake antiques or tubular kitchen furniture with plastic surfaces printed with inane geometric patterns or flowers. The two small children played and slept in one of the four rooms. In order to give them each an area of their own notwithstanding the one room, I designed a bed which was a closed platform of one by twelves with a central free-standing wall, also of one by twelves. The bed was designed so that the lumber yard could cut the few different lengths to size and I could then nail them together in place. I liked the bed a great deal, and in fact the whole house, for which I made other furniture. Later, in a large place in town, I designed desks and chairs for the children using the same method of construction. More furniture developed from this beginning.'' - Donald Judd, ''On Furniture,'' 1906, reprinted in Donald Judd Furniture Retrospective, exh. cat., Rotterdam, 1993, p. 8
Pine
30 1/8 x 47 7/8 x 33 1/2 in. (76.6 x 121.8 x 85.2 cm)
Literature:
Donald Judd Furniture Retrospective, exh. cat., Rotterdam, 1993, p. 27 (for the companion desk that Judd built for his daughter)
Kunst + Design Donald Judd, Stuttgart, 1993, p. 64 (for the later model)
This work has been requested by the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution, for inclusion in their upcoming exhibition, Design Art: Design by Minimalist and Post-Minimalist Artists, which opens in November 2004.
One of the two original prototypes built by Judd himself, they are sometimes referred to in the artist's literature as the "children's desks." The model was first put into production by Cooper/Cato in 1982.
''[I] moved to West Texas with my two children, where I rented a small house on the edge of town. The house was quartered into eleven by eleven foot rooms. There was no furniture and none to be bought, either old, since the town had not shrunk or changed much since its beginning in 1883, or new, since the few stores sold only fake antiques or tubular kitchen furniture with plastic surfaces printed with inane geometric patterns or flowers. The two small children played and slept in one of the four rooms. In order to give them each an area of their own notwithstanding the one room, I designed a bed which was a closed platform of one by twelves with a central free-standing wall, also of one by twelves. The bed was designed so that the lumber yard could cut the few different lengths to size and I could then nail them together in place. I liked the bed a great deal, and in fact the whole house, for which I made other furniture. Later, in a large place in town, I designed desks and chairs for the children using the same method of construction. More furniture developed from this beginning.'' - Donald Judd, ''On Furniture,'' 1906, reprinted in Donald Judd Furniture Retrospective, exh. cat., Rotterdam, 1993, p. 8
Pine
30 1/8 x 47 7/8 x 33 1/2 in. (76.6 x 121.8 x 85.2 cm)
Literature:
Donald Judd Furniture Retrospective, exh. cat., Rotterdam, 1993, p. 27 (for the companion desk that Judd built for his daughter)
Kunst + Design Donald Judd, Stuttgart, 1993, p. 64 (for the later model)
This work has been requested by the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution, for inclusion in their upcoming exhibition, Design Art: Design by Minimalist and Post-Minimalist Artists, which opens in November 2004.