Gaetano Pesce
"Pratt" Chair Prototype

"Pratt" Chair Prototype

© 1982 Gaetano Pesce

"Pratt" Chair Prototype
"Pratt" Chair Prototype
DesignerItalian, 1939–2024
CultureItalian
Titles
  • "Pratt" Chair Prototype
Date1982
PlaceNew York, New York, United States
PlaceVenice, Italy
MediumPolyurethane
Dimensions34 5/8 × 18 1/4 × 20 1/4 inches (87.9 × 46.4 × 51.4 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by Nina and Michael Zilkha
Object number98.41
Non exposé

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Object Type
Description

Gaetano Pesce designed the prototype for the Pratt Chair series while teaching at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. In these forms, Pesce explores ideas of craft and mass production, structure, and the human body. The Pratt chairs were made in nine models, ranging from structureless to uncomfortably rigid. The variation in weight-bearing structure is achieved by varying the density of the polyurethane.


This prototype is the first original mold for the series. Handmade by Pesce, the chair was then reproduced in sculpted plaster, from which the final form was cast in resin. The prototype is noticeably thicker than the production models, whose resin “skin” is flexible and appears stretched. It has a matte, opaque surface with little to no translucency, as opposed to the complete translucency of the production chair. The prototype also highlights the development of the decorative vocabulary of the Pratt chairs—only the handprint on the back rail and texturing on the seat are visible. Other motifs that later were part of the production models have not yet been added.


 


ProvenanceThe designer; purchased by MFAH, 1998.
Exhibition History"New to Houston, Recent Additions to Houston Collections," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, June 21–August 30, 1998.

"What's New:ecent Accessions in Modern and Contemporary Design," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, February 24–May 27, 2002.

"Prototype/Production," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, November 12, 2016–April 30, 2017.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Inscription: Carved in the back, lower portion: "VENEZIA 1982 NEW YORK 1983."

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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