Eero Saarinen in Womb Chair of his design for Knoll Associates, 1948.

Courtesy Eero Saarinen Collection.
Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University  Library.

This exhibit will feature an assortment of iconic modern chairs from the 1940s to 2000 and show the relationship between ancient furniture forms and contemporary ones.  Examples of furniture from ancient Greece, Egypt, and the Near East will be presented in placard-form and the viewer will be able to compare them directly with the existing modern chairs on display.  The exhibit is also the first time the campus' Humanities Division and Interior Design Program will unveil the permanent collection of modern furniture begun in 2009.

                                                                                GUEST LECTURES FOR THIS EXHIBIT 

Wednesday, March 3
Waddell Building LW 118 5pm
Oscar Fitzgerald
Modern Chairs--17th Century to the 21st Century

Dr. Oscar P. Fitzgerald is a well known historian, author, lecturer and consultant on American and European decorative arts, fine art, architecture and maritime history.

Most recently he was awarded a prestigious James Renwick Fellowship, and his catalogue of the Renwick Gallery’s Studio Furniture collection was published in 2008.

His book, Three Centuries of American Furniture, the standard text book in the field, was first published in 1982 and went through four printings.  A revised and expanded edition, entitled Four Centuries of American Furniture, was released in 1995.  Exhibition catalogues include The Green Family of Cabinetmakers: An Alexandria Institution and In Search of Joseph Nourse, 1754-1841: America’s First Civil Servant.

His latest book, New Masters of the Wooden Box, a catalogue of contemporary boxes, accompanies an exhibit traveling the country for three years starting in September 2009.    

Friday, March 19
Waddell Building LW118, 3:30pm
Ford Peatross
Early Modern Furniture-- Saarinen and Eames

Mr.  Peatross is the curator of architecture and design at the Library of Congress and his publications include Buildings Structures an Sites, (1983), Capital Drawings: Architecture Designs for Washington, Korab Archive (2008).  He was instrumental in the organization of a series of award-winning and critically acclaimed traveling exhibitions and associated publications: "Temple of Liberty, Building the Capitol for a New Nation" (1995), "Frank Lloyd Wright, Designs for an American Landscape, 1922-1932" (1996-1998), and “The Work of Charles and Ray Eames, A Legacy of Invention" (1999-2006), and has been an advisor for many others.  

Friday, March 26
Waddell Building LW118, 3:30 pm
Sam Kubba
Furniture of the Ancient Mesopotamia

Dr. Kubba is an award winning architect with an international practice and is a member of Consultant’s collaborative.  His publications include Space Planning for Commercial and Residential Interiors, Property Condition Assessments (2008), Architectural Forensics(2008), and Mesopotamian Furniture(2006)