Lot 241
£20,160
Auction: MODERN MADE Part II | 01 November 2024 | Lots 80 to 444
birch plywood
75cm high, 59.5cm wide (29 ½in high, 23 3/8in wide)
Private Collection, London.
English designer Gerald Summers and his partner Marjorie Butcher opened their London shop, Makers of Simple Furniture, in 1931. The firm’s proprietors saw themselves as outsiders, with a mission to create simple and functional furniture responsive to the requirements of the modern home. Confidently employing Summers’ rational approach to design with an emphasis on function, materials, and methods of manufacture, he produced more than 200 designs during its short tenure, before it closed in 1940. Conceived, in Gerald’s words, as “furniture for the concrete age,” these pieces helped shape the notion of the modern interior in Britain.
Makers of Simple Furniture’s products found an enthusiastic audience among forward-thinking members of the British public. Department stores and furnishing shops in London, such as Heal’s, carried many of the firm’s stock designs, and pieces were placed in progressive design exhibitions. Today, as more of his designs come to light, we, too, can experience firsthand the rare combination of simplicity, utility, and beauty that distinguishes Gerald’s work in its entirety and makes his furniture as compelling to us in the twenty-first century as it was to the avant-garde in the 1930s.