MAASTRICHT.- TEFAF Design, the stylish newcomer to TEFAF Maastricht in 2009, will exhibit works by some of the greatest names in the history of design when the world’s most influential art and antiques fair opens at the MECC (Maastricht Exhibition and Congress Center) in the southern Netherlands from March 12-21, 2010. They will include a suite by Frank Lloyd Wright, a unique sculpture by Gio Ponti, a rare chair by Le Corbusier and furniture that Otto Wagner made for his own apartment.
TEFAF Design will also move to a new location within the Fair. The nine specialist dealers will exhibit next to but be entirely separate from the TEFAF Modern section of The European Fine Art Fair. In their new home on the ground floor they will keep the special atmosphere created for their 2009 debut in the upstairs hall with a sushi bar in the center of the section. Their ranks will be reinforced by the Gallery Fancsaly from Milan, one of the world’s leading dealers in 20th century Italian glass and design.
“TEFAF Design was very successful at the 2009 Fair,” says Philippe Denys, the Brussels based specialist in European design, who was one of the driving forces behind the establishment of the new section. “Previously design had been under-represented at TEFAF and it brought a new spirit to the Fair and new clients who approach the art and antiques market differently.”
L’Arc en Seine from Paris will bring a 'coffee table' dating from c1940 by the French designer Paul Dupré-Lafon (€280,000), a Max Ingrand 'desk' and Cat Butler, a superb 'bronze' by Diego Giacometti depicting a cat standing on its hind legs (€75,000). Bel Etage, Wolfgang Bauer of Vienna will exhibit a pair of 'mahogany armchairs' inlaid with mother of pearl designed by the Austrian Josef Urban and executed by Sandor Jaray in 1908 (€95,000). Urban later moved to America and became head of stage design at the Boston and Metropolitan Operas and then director of the New York branch of Wiener Werkstätte, the production community of artists, designers and architects. Bel Etage will also bring furniture by Austria’s most important architect Otto Wagner to TEFAF Design. Wagner liked to include a flat for himself in many of the apartment houses that he built and Bel Etage will exhibit furniture made for a building in Döblergasse in Vienna’s 7th District.
A suite of three c.1955 armchairs and an ottoman in walnut and weaved wool by Frank Lloyd Wright, the American architect, interior designer and writer, will be one of the highlights on the stand of Galerie Eric Philippe of Paris along with a copper and brass chandelier by the Finnish designer Paavo Tynell, dating from the same period. Another northern European designer will be featured by Philippe Denys of Brussels who will exhibit a Grand Piano made of natural leather, chromed steel, lacquered wood, ivory and transparent celluloid. It was designed by Poul Henningsen in Denmark in 1931.
Gallery Fancsaly of Milan, the new exhibitors in TEFAF Design, will show "Cut Out Thought", the only brass sculpture ever made by the Italian architect-designer Gio Ponti and executed by Sabattini in Milan in 1976. It was meant to be a joke, the expression of his thoughts when sketching a female portrait. The work was once part of the Lisa Licitra Ponti Collection. Another highlight of their stand will be a unique decorated 'glass vase', dating from about 1952, by Flavio Poli.
One of the three first copies of the famous chair made for Le Corbusier’s Villa Church in Ville-de’Avray in France in 1928 will be exhibited by Galerie Ulrich Fiedler from Berlin, while Sebastian & Barquet of New York will show a Lucio Fontana table top with reverse-decorated glass dating from 1952. The walnut table was designed and manufactured by Osvaldo Borsani ($120,000). Yves Macaux of Brussels will bring a lamp designed by Joseph Hoffman for the Vienna home of Magda Mautner von Markhof, who commissioned important interior design projects in the early 20th century.
