Look!: Hot Chair at Butter

Okay, so we don't actually know ANYTHING about this chair, except that we want to (know something). We were dragging around Atlantic Avenue over the weekend (again) and spied this beaut in Butter by the cash register....

It's totally Danish modern, but it could also be California early 70's as well. Does anyone have a clue?

Comments (9)

I have no idea what those are, but I love them!

It is Minneapolis middle school library mid 70s.

I'd love to find out more...I just refinished a chair like this that I grabbed from the alley.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23272520@N05/2229427832/

It's not identical, but the similarities are there. Hope someone has some info!

Fantastic chair greta! Mmm, that's inspired me to go and have a little sit in my favourite chair...

The chair is a knock off of a Finn Juhl chair. There were 2 producers of this chair France & Son and Baker in America. It is most likely American made. The tone of the wood and the brass ferrules.

Greta, your chair is a copy too. The side stretcher is the giveaway there. The original should go straight across. Great find though. And personally I like your version better.

Here is a pic of the real thing.

http://www.1stdibs.com/furniture_item_detail.php?id=117930

I hate the term 'knock off',if a designer builds a piece that becomes a 'classic' that does not mean that anything else created in the same style is an inferior copy...this style was quite prevelant during it's day and many variations were created by different furn manufacturers,(some good some bad)- love the chair for it's aesthetics and not it's pedigree!!

Would you rather I say "plagiarism"? Because that is essentially what these furniture manufacturers are doing, stealing these designs. I never said either chair was an inferior copy. On the contrary. The more rounded proportions of the back and the curved stretchers on Greta's piece are vast improvements on the original design. But you have to take into account, all these chairs were manufactured about the same time. It was not like copying a Le Corbusier chaise lounge where the original was designed almost 90 years ago. Or even an Eames chair who's philosophy of furniture for the masses promoted a willingness for the appropriation their own designs. The original Finn Juhl chair wasn't a classic yet. It was merely a successful selling chair which was copied.

Thanks for the information. I knew the lines of the chair looked "familiar" but just couldn't place where I had seen them. And what is the saying, "Every artist steals from others?" Probably better off that it isn't a Finn Juhl - I wouldn't have had the nerve to start sanding like I did.