Dining table with four chairs. The table has a black Formica top and continuous bent-tubular-steel legs. The cantilevered chairs are also made of continuous tubes of steel with black-upholstered cushions.

1930

Dining Table and Four Chairs

Designed by: Donald Deskey (1894-1989)

Material: Chromium-plated tubular steel, plastic laminate, upholstery

Produced by: Ypsilanti Reed Furniture Company, Ionia, Michigan

Dimensions: Table: 71.8 x 152.5 x 76.2 cm; Chairs: 81.4 x 40.6 x 54.4 cm (each)

Donald Deskey, best known for his 1932 Radio City Music Hall interiors, was one of the first American designers to introduce tubular-steel furniture in North America. This table features tubular steel and plastic laminate—novel materials in 1930 that were being used by European architects such as Marcel Breuer. Deskey’s side chairs, in fact, are a nod to a chair Breuer designed in 1928.

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Liliane and David M. Stewart Collection, gift of Victoria Barr from the Estate of Mr. and Mrs. Alfred H. Barr, Jr.,* D88.139.1–5