I recently purchased a fiberglass chair. It is clearly the Eames arm chair design for La Fonda del Sol and sits on a La Fonda base. But in comparison to all the other La Fonda armchairs I have seen on the web its odd. It lacks upholstery, but clearly never had any, as no signs of removal can be seen.
Any Hints?
its like this one: The base...
its like this one: The base is white, and like I said it has no upholstery. I bought it for ?100 in Hamburg, Germany
http://www.bonluxat.com/a/Charles_and_Ray_Eames_La_Fonda_Armchair.html
I have put some pics of the...
I have put some pics of the chair on the web at the link below. For some reason it also has a george nelson/herman miller sticker on it.
I did not buy it because I collect, only because i liked it. Now i am just plain curious.
http://gallery.mac.com/olitrific#100019
Interesting....
I haven't seen a naked LaFonda shell before, but it looks like it might've been available without upholstery. The pasted-on Nelson sticker probably was stuck on by someone after it left Herman Miller.
An off-white naked shell on a white lacquered base sure looks nifty.
I think the La Fonda chair...
I think the La Fonda chair was available without the upholstery in Europe only (please correct me if I'm wrong...).
I have seen several European Eames chairs with the 'Designed by George Nelson' sticker attached to them. I think Vitra (or 'Herman Miller Fehlbaum' which seems to have been an earlier name of the company) stuck this label to some of the chairs, by mistake or simply because they ran out of Eames labels. This sticker is far to common to be something a person have put on the chair afterwards...
la fonda
I am always the first to say i do not know it all but this chair i know it all as i have been collecting these for years and have done a lot of research on this chair
true the chair was designed by Eames for Girards project at the Lafonda Del sol in Nyc Time life bldg in 1962 Herman miller put the chair in production in 1968 to 1978 the universities started buying them with out the covers at that time, the bases were done in flat black green and were so ugly,
I have recovered so many of these chairs, and they left the factory with a solid encapsulated vinyl were the hold thing can be removed, and soaked to clean it up if it has not set to long I bought 20 2 years ago from the University of Texas sold 10 to a dealer and he cleaned them up and sold them on ebay and they were perfect .
at no time has that chair ever had that phony sticker on it, that is not even a Herman miller sticker at all it looks like a sticker to a clock by george nelson with some idiot trying to pull a fast one
the chair is real as no company as ever made a fake of that chair,
here is my chair
I hate to
say it, but I think you have to be careful about applying a stripe to a compound-curved form. No matter how carefully and symmetrically it is done, there are going to be stripes colliding with stripes. Somehow I don't see the original designers doing this Maybe some vintage pictures will prove me wrong. . .
There are plenty of non-directional patterns that can be used, avoiding this problem ? What do you think ?
SDR
sdr
that is the hardest chair to do. using that miller strip fabric.
I wrote the other night about chairs that are difficult and when I first bought the shop and wanted to redo shell chairs the guys were doing vinyl on the sides, and stripe on the seat cause they were afraid they could not get them going straight.
as time went by and lots of trial and error they learned to get the stripes straight were they are not wavy ,you can not be 100 percent perfect but we do have it down, and for your information Girard used the original toots stripe on all the chairs for the lafonda restaurant
That chair in the picture is one of my favorite chairs that I own.
I had all the bases powder coated a nice silver cause i could not get them plated with chrome.
That was part of the shipment of chairs that came out of the University of Texas
LRF, I agree you know more...
LRF, I agree you know more than most about Eames' designs, no doubt about that. Still you are actually wrong about this sticker.
It is not a phony sticker, but a sticker which was used in Europe by Vitra. In the early years stickers with the name 'Herman Miller Fehlbaum' (Fehlbaum being the name of the founders of Vitra, I think) or simply 'Herman Miller Collection', along with the name of the designer, was put on the underside of the chairs. I have seen the same sticker with 'Designed by Charles Eames' as well.
It is no doubt an 'official' sticker, but they simply managed put the wrong sticker on some chairs. The two stickers are exactly the same besides the name, so it is not so strange...
I'm sure this is correct.
Alexandersforum is right
Vitra manufactured HM furniture under license from 1957 to 84 and during this time they used these labels.
It seems that Vitra enjoyed some "artistic freedom". I've never seen white bases on Eames furniture produced by HM. Or black glides for that matter.
I've also seen the wrong labels on Vitra furniture e.g. Georg Nelson labels on Eames chairs. I have a chair with the wrong label - an upholstered DCM (also a Vitra speciality). My luck though - I got it cheap in auction. Apparently George Nelson isn't that popular or well-known in Europe.
If you need any help, please contact us at – info@designaddict.com