As part of the "American / Brazilian / Japanese Design" sale organized by PIASA auction house on Thursday, July 2, 2020, at 6 pm, a chair by Joaquim Tenreiro will be offered to collectors.
Once again, Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2012) was right. When the writer Francisco Inacio Peixoto commissioned him in 1942 to build his residence in the small town of Cataguases - 300 km from Rio de Janeiro - the architect called upon those who best embodied Brazilian modernity in his eyes.
Thus, alongside the landscape painter Roberto Burle Marx (1909-1994) and the painter Candido Portinari (1903-1962), who has just exhibited his works at the Brazil Pavilion at the World's Fair in New York, the talent of the young designer Joaquim Tenreiro is put to good use. Tinged with an influence of Le Corbusier's drawings, the pieces that came into being as a result of this commission from Oscar Niemeyer (the first of a large series) constitute the designer's birth certificate.
The following year he opened his own workshop "Langenbach & Tenreiro" in Rio de Janeiro and from 1947 onwards a sales outlet. It was in that year that Joaquim Tenreiro created one of his greatest masterpieces: the tripod chair, offered for sale by PIASA. This piece is the subtle fruit of the encounter between the technical virtuosity of woodworking, inherited from his father and his training as a cabinetmaker, and his passion for painting. Its estimate is between 125,000 and 150,000 euros.
Joaquim Tenreiro (1906-1992)
Cadeira de tres pès
Tripod chair with tapered feet
Imbuia, pau marfim, pau ferro and peroba wood
Production: Tenreiro Moveis e Decoracoes,
Brazil (label)
Creation date: 1947
H 75,5 × L 66 × P 57 cm
Like the colours on the painter's palette, the different types of wood (roxinho, pau marfi, imbuia, mogno and pau ferro) gracefully animate the lines of this chair, which was used symbolically in the setting of a play by Silveira Sampaio (1914-1964) on the theme of a love triangle.
Joaquim Tenreiro (1906-1992)
Cadeira de tres pès
Tripod chair with tapered feet (detail)
Joaquim Tenreiro was a real bridge between Portugal, where he was born, and Brazil, where he was welcomed in 1928. As the daily do Brasil pointed out after his death in 1992, he was a major architect of the construction of the Brazilian identity.
