Grant Stanley Featherston (17 October 1922 – 9 October 1995) was an Australian furniture designer whose chair designs in the 1950s became icons of the Atomic Age.
Grant Featherston | |
|---|---|
| Born | Grant Stanley Featherston 17 October 1922 Geelong, Victoria, Australia |
| Died | 9 October 1995 (aged 72) Heidelberg West, Victoria, Australia |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Occupation | Furniture designer |
| Notable work | Contour Chair R160 |
| Spouse | Mary Featherston |
He was born in Geelong, Victoria.[1] In 1965 he married Mary Bronwyn Currey, an English-born interior designer, and the couple worked in close partnership as interior designers over several decades.[2]
He is most famous for his furniture designs, especially The 'Contour Chair R160’ chair.[3] He marketed his modernist chairs through art galleries including Peter Bray Gallery in Melbourne and they are now highly collectable on a par with fine art[4] and in 2013 began to attain high prices at auction.[5][6] He is considered Australia's best known furniture designer.
His work has been featured in several museum retrospectives of post-war furniture,[7][8] including the National Gallery of Victoria 2013 exhibition, Mid-Century Modern Australian Furniture Design.[9]
Works
editFurniture designs
edit- R152 Chair (1951) Grant Featherston
- Wing Chair (1951) Grant Featherston
- R160 Lounge chair (1951) Grant Featherston
- R161 & R161H (1952) sofa, Grant Featherston
- Z300 Chaise longue (1953) Z300 Grant Featherston (Made under licence by Gordon Mather Industries since 1989)
- Talking chairs (1967) Grant and Mary Featherston
Further reading
editWhitehouse, Denise. "Design for Life: Grant and Mary Featherston", 2018, Heide Museum of Modern Art, (ISBN 9781921330629).
- Isaac, Geoff. "Featherston" Hardback, September 2017, Thames & Hudson (ISBN 978-0500501108)
- Lane, Terence. "Featherston chairs: [exhibition] National Gallery of Victoria, 30 March-7 August 1988" Paperback – 1988 (ISBN 978-0724101306)
References
edit- ^ "Home". featherston.com.au.
- ^ Whitehouse, Denise (2019). "Featherston, Grant Stanley (1922–1995)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. ISBN 978-0-522-84459-7. ISSN 1833-7538. OCLC 70677943. Retrieved 3 March 2020.
- ^ "Famous Australian Furniture Designers - The Top 8". Architecture & Design. Retrieved 3 June 2024.
- ^ "A chair with flair - the value of designer furniture". 18 June 2014.
- ^ "Modernist furniture goes boom". Archived from the original on 26 July 2014.
- ^ "Why this Featherston tatty looking chair is worth $11,000". Australian Financial Review. 12 July 2017. Retrieved 1 August 2023.
- ^ "Australia's own 20th century furniture designs on show". 20 May 2014.
- ^ including The National Gallery of Victoria exhibition Mid-Century Modern: Australian Furniture Design.
- ^ "Broadway World - Broadway News, Tickets, Videos & More".