Mid-century modern classic — The Cherner Chair

Nor­man Cherner was a pio­neer both in molded ply­wood and pre­fab hous­ing.  He stud­ied and taught at the Colum­bia Uni­ver­sity Fine Arts Depart­ment and was an instruc­tor at the Museum of Mod­ern Art in New York from 1947 to 1949. Here he explored the Bauhaus move­ment, embark­ing on a life­time explo­ration of mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary design, from fur­ni­ture, shelv­ing, glass­ware, light­ing and even toys to his pio­neer­ing work in low-cost pre­fab­ri­cated housing.

Cherner is best known for the molded ply­wood seat­ing line he cre­ated for Ply­craft, a man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pany in Lawrence, Mass­a­chu­setts. After telling Cherner that his design for what is now known as the Cherner Chair (1958) had been scrapped, Plycraft’s owner con­tin­ued to pro­duce it, claim­ing him­self as the designer. Soon after, the chair’s pop­u­lar­ity was height­ened when it appeared in Nor­man Rockwell’s 1961 paint­ing “The Artist at Work” on the cover of the Sat­ur­day Evening Post. Cherner sued the com­pany, and Ply­craft agreed to pay Cherner roy­al­ties, yet the whole seat­ing line was out of pro­duc­tion by the early 1970s.

For almost 20 years, Cherner’s seat­ing was rarely seen out­side of gal­leries, muse­ums and the liv­ing rooms of few lucky col­lec­tors. In 1999, Cherner’s sons Ben­jamin and Thomas formed the Cherner Chair Com­pany to revive the designs and pro­duce them as their father orig­i­nally intended.

Used as a state­ment piece, or in a group­ing, it is beau­ti­ful in any setting!

 

 

Source: http://www.chernerchair.com/