1910s Piet Klaarhamer Side Chair
Piet Klaarhamer
period: 1910s
origin: The Netherlands
dimensions: h84 x w39 x d44.5 cm (sh43 cm)
material: wood
Piet Klaarhamer was an early modernist designer who pursued innovation and purity. His furniture designs show clear constructions, honest use of simple types of wood without the use of decoration. Klaarhamer managed to transfer this formal language to his students, including the well-known architects Piet Elling and Gerrit Rietveld.
The chair without armrests is the chair upon which Gerrit Rietveld based his design for his well known 'Military Chair'. The chair with armrests has the same details as a cabinet that Klaarhamer designed and which Rietveld, when he was still a young carpenter, constructed.
These chairs are quite unknown but very deeply embedded in the history of Rietveld his oeuvre. They are documented quite well in the monograph on Klaarhamer. Rietveld wrote about them to Architect J.J.P. Oud in a letter offering them for a project some years later, also depicted in the literature.
Pairs perfectly with its matching desk chair.
