The furnishings exhibition “Zalszupin 100” at Sean Kelly Gallery in Los Angeles celebrates late Polish-Brazilian designer Jorge Zalszupin on the centenary of his beginning. A pioneer of Brazilian modernism, Zalszupin died in 2020, two several years right before turning 100.
Curated by Brazilian structure specialist Ulysses de Santi, quite a few of Zalszupin’s operates on display screen have been procured from private collections. Over the previous two many years, the gallery painstakingly sourced the customized furniture he made for places of work and properties across Brazil among the late 1950s and early ’70s. Some items belonged to Zalszupin’s beloved types, like the Ina armchair, which he designed for (and named after) his sister.
Zalszupin worked as each a furniture designer and an architect, ran 1 of the major home furniture factories in Brazil, and in his afterwards decades explored portray. His oeuvre is linked by his use of sensuous strains, a modernist sensibility, and an affinity for functioning with nontraditional components and woods indigenous to Brazil. His get the job done consists of references to both worldwide design and style trends and his possess encounters, such as Tea Trolley, a bar cart encouraged by the infant strollers he saw rising up in Poland.
Jorge Zalszupin, Tea Trolley (ca. 1960s). Brazilian jacaranda, rosewood, metallic. Courtesy of Sean Kelly Gallery.
Jorge Zalszupin was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1922. In 1949, he built his way to Brazil, where he fell in enjoy with the landscape and the architecture, and lived the relaxation of his lifetime, starting to be one particular of the definitive designers of Brazilian modernism.
His foray into furniture style and design began before long soon after he released his architecture exercise in Brazil in 1951. Clients started requesting parts to match the aesthetic of their structures and Zalszupin was ready to satisfy their desire. In 1959, he designed his to start with operate of furniture—Poltrona Dinamarquesa, or Danish Chair. The seat’s curved wood frame and modern day Scandinavian sensibility established the tone for Zalszupin’s prolific vocation. That similar 12 months he launched the L’Atelier, a carpentry agency that grew into one particular of Brazil’s biggest furniture makers.
Set up check out, “Zalszupin 100.” Photo: Brica Wilcox, courtesy of Sean Kelly Gallery.
Zalszupin imagined creatively about products and tactics. Early on he created a signature patchwork rosewood pattern that authorized him to use leftovers from other productions. He would protect the area of a piece of furniture with rectangular scraps of rosewood in different shades and styles.
Whilst Zalszupin is known for his use of native Brazilian woods like jacaranda, rosewood, and ironwood, he also investigated and experimented with new equipment and systems through his career, which include his plastic laminate collection. His innovative use of components paved the way for the modernism motion that characterised Brazilian style and design in the decades to occur.
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