Red and Blue Chair by Gerrit Rietveld attributed to Cassina

Chair designed by Gerrit Rietveld in 1918. Relaunched in 1973. Manufactured by Cassina in Italy. A sculptural seat with a pure and rationalist form, this chair became an authentic Manifesto for Neoplasticism, embraced by the Dutch De Stijl movement in 1917. An outlook shared by Piet Mondrian, whose objective was to seek out the essential nature of things, combined with the harmonious equivalence of colours, and the use of right-angle. Rietveld produced his first prototypes in 1918, expressing the philosophy of organising space using the same colours for similar components. He later applied this same approach to separate out constructional elements according to their function. Thus the base was black, and the seats coloured. As a consequence, the name of the piece changed, from Slat Chair to Red and Blue. Important information regarding images of products: Please note that some of the images show other colors and variations of the model, these images are only to present interior design proposals. The item that is selling is on the first image. Important information regarding color(s) of products: Actual colors may vary. This is due to the fact that every computer monitor, laptop, tablet and phone screen has a different capability to display colors and that everyone sees these colors differently. We try to edit our photos to show all of our products as life-like as possible, but please understand the actual color may vary slightly from your monitor About the designer: Gerrit Thomas Rietveld, born in Utrecht on 24 June 1888, seems possessed of two personalities, each so distinct that one might take his work to be that of more than one artist. The first personality is that seen in the craftsman cabinet-maker working in a primordial idiom, re-inventing chairs and other furniture as if no one had ever built them before him and following a structural code all of his own; the second is that of the architect working with elegant formulas, determined to drive home the rationalist and neoplastic message in the context of European architecture. The two activities alternate, overlap, and fuse in a perfect osmosis unfolding then into a logical sequence. In 1918 Rietveld joined the “De Stijl” movement which had sprung up around the review of that name founded the year before by Theo van Doesburg. The group assimilated and translated into ideology certain laws on the dynamic breakdown of compositions (carrying them to an extreme) that had already been expressed in painting by the cubists: the “De Stijl” artists also carefully studied the architectonic lesson taught by the great Frank Lloyd Wright, whose influence was widely felt in Europe at that time. Collaborating first with Robert van’t Hoff and Vilmos Huszar, then with Theo van Doesburg and Cornelius van Eesteren, Rietveld soon became one of the most distinguished interpreters of the neoplastic message. Among his most important works are: the Schröder house at Utrecht (1924); the “Row Houses” at Utrecht (1931-1934); the Dutch pavilion at the Venice Biennial (1954); the sculpture pavilion in the Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller at Otterloo and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam (1955). Out of his equally important furniture, Cassina has chosen for its own production: the “Red and Blue” (1918), the “Zig-Zag” (1934), the “Schröder 1” (1923), the “Utrecht”, (1935) About the manufacturer: In a continuing dialogue between past, present, and future, Cassina has created the I Maestri collection, revisiting furnishing designs by the 20th century’s best-known architects, including Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Charlotte Perriand, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Gerrit Thomas Rietveld, Franco Albini, Frank Lloyd Wright and Marco Zanuso. While the designs and functional concepts have been precisely preserved, the models have been manufactured using evolved technology. This is also the company that has manufactured iconic pieces of contemporary design from the 1950s to the present day, ideated by some of the most important international designers. Today Cassina continues to look to the future of design with audacious, passionate curiosity and an open, holistic approach. It affirms its exclusive ability to furnish a home’s living and dining spaces completely and iconically with The Cassina Perspective: a concept, a philosophy, an informed, futuristic thought. A detailed, expansive horizon of combinations; when placed together, the products have an innovative soul and the modern icons create authentic, welcoming, personal atmospheres involved in a conversation dominated by a code of design excellence, formal sensitive awareness, solidity and cultural authority.