Art Peritus Selects

Meier, Richard (American, b.1934)

Selling as a dining set with table, or separately as a set of eight chairs.
Chairs include removable blue seat cushions.

Richard Meier’s iconic chair was originally designed in the 1970s for a small reading room at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Inspired by early twentieth-century chair designs by Josef Hoffmann, Meier’s chair was lauded for its curved composition and simple lines that echoed Frank Lloyd Wright’s spectacular rotunda design.

In the 1980s, Meier approached Knoll manufacturers with the chair design, from which a whole line of other furniture was inspired, including the current dining table as well as side chairs, chaise lounge, coffee, and side tables. As Meier later explained, “these are designs for the things I like. I designed the coffee table because I wanted one myself.” Launched in 1982, the Meier Collection was celebrated for its modernist spirit, while concurrently looking back to traditional woodworking methods of American craftsmen in his use of solid maple forms left either in a natural state, or, as in the present example, in meticulous, hand-rubbed black or white lacquer finish.

Originally from New Jersey, Meier studied architecture at Cornell University and later worked in New York for Marcel Breuer before launching his own firm in 1963. Like many designers of the 1970s and 1980s, Meier’s work harkens back to early 20th century Modernist designers such as Josef Hoffmann, Le Corbusier and Mies Van der Rohe. Among Meier’s many lifetime achievements in design and architecture, he is best known for designing the Getty Center, Los Angeles and Paley Center for Media, in Beverly Hills, California; the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art, Spain; and the Hague City Hall, Netherlands.