manufactured by Royal Metal Manufacturing Company, Chicago
chrome-plated steel, stainless steel, painted steel, silk velvet upholstery
31¹⁄₂ x 22¹⁄₂ x 26 in. (80 x 57.2 x 66 cm)
with manufacturer's label Royalchrome DISTINCTIVE FURNITURE ROYAL METAL MFG. CO. CHICAGO-NEW YORK-LOS ANGELES and painted museum accession number 1983.117

Archer M. Huntington, New York
Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas, acquired from the above in 1983

Business Week, New York, March 1939, p. 47 (for an advertisement featuring the same model of chair)
J. Ford and K. Morrow Ford, Design of Modern Interiors, New York, 1942, p. 60 (for a period photograph of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel A. Marx's dining room with the model)
D. Garrard Lowe, Lost Chicago, New York, 1975, p. 46 (for a period photograph of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel A. Marx's dining room with the model)
M. Naeve, Identifying American Furniture, Nashville, 1981, p. 54, fig. 113
D. Hanks, Donald Deskey: Decorative Designs and Interiors, New York, 1987, pp. 58, no. 69; 193 (for a discussion of Royal Metal Manufacturing Company)
E. and R. Dubrow, Styles of American Furniture 1860-1960, Atglen, 1997, p. 168
L. O’Brien, Ultramodern: Samuel Marx, Architect, Designer, Art Collector, New York, 2007, pp. 125, 131, 133 (for period photographs of interiors with the model)
S. Brown and A. Griffith Winton, The Designs of Dorothy Liebes: A Dark, A Light, A Bright, exh. cat., Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York, 2023, pp. 20-21, fig. 6

This model can be found in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. no. 1987.469.6) and The Art Institute of Chicago (inv. no. 1970.1217.1-2).

Christie’s would like to thank David Hanks for his assistance with the cataloguing of this lot.

Last image: Courtesy of the Donald Deskey Archive, Cooper Hewitt-Smithsonian Design Museum, New York.

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Lot Essay

One of the United States most prolific designers, Donald Deskey studied architecture at the University of California at Berkeley before turning to abstract painting and starting his career in advertising. After brief stays in Chicago, New York, Paris and Pennsylvania, Deskey officially started his career in design when returning to New York in 1926, when he received his first commission to design a department store's windows. This first commission incorporated modernist aspects and innovative use of materials which led him to design a series of modern display windows for the department store Saks & Company. After meeting prominent designers and architects of the time, Deskey was encouraged to design and market screens, furniture, lamps and small decorative objects, and by the late 1920s had designed an interior for John D. Rockefeller, a client connection that later helped him win the competition for the design of Radio City Music Hall.

Alongside his private Art Deco interior commissions, Deskey, as a modernist pioneer in the United States, designed inexpensive furnishings for contemporary manufacturers that were meant to be mass-produced. Most of them incorporated industrial materials such as steel, chromium, nickel, and glass, although sometimes incorporating exotic wood in a French Art Deco manner. This duality makes it difficult to classify the designer as either Art Deco or Modernist, and even his custom furnishings, commissioned from a high-end clientele, were ultimately meant to be mass-produced and affordable. Therefore, it is common to observe in his creations a mix of modernist and decorative aspects.

In 1939, Deskey collaborated with the Chicago based Royal Metal Manufacturing Company to produce a suite of furniture for the New York World’s Fair, The World of Tomorrow exhibition, which included the present model of armchair. The design was so successful that it went into serial production shortly after. The present lot is both simple and functional, with minor decorative details in the form of tapered armrests and feet ended by rounded finials. The arms are extensions of the rear stiles giving the armchair a futuristic appearance contrasted by the sophisticated upholstery work.