Fernando Campana and Humberto Campana Two Red Prototype Jenette Chairs Estudio Campana Brazil, 1999 PVC threads, wood, metal 37-1/2 x 16-1/4 x 19-3/4 inches (95.2 x 41.3 x 50.0 cm) (each, approximately) The present lot comprises two of the fifteen documented prototype Jenette chairs confirmed by Estúdio Campana. LITERATURE: D. Alfred, Campana Brothers: Complete Works (So Far), New York, 2010, p. 261 (model illustrated). Jenette Kahn and Al Williams: An Appreciation It's not every day that you get to meet someone who has an iconic chair named after her, in part because there are not that many examples in the first place. Perhaps the most famous, The Cesca (1928) by Marcel Breuer (originally known as the B32 during its Thonet era) did not even become the Cesca until more than 30 years later, when Dino Gavina renamed the chair after Breuer's young adopted daughter Francesca. But it happened to me in December 2001, when Jenette Kahn visited the exhibition for my auction that month. I was the Director of 20th Century Design at Phillips, de Pury & Luxembourg, and we were selling edgy postwar and contemporary furniture in our new Chelsea galleries near the High Line. Not long after, House & Garden published a feature on Jenette's Harlem townhouse in their April 2002 feature, and there was a photograph of an absolutely mind-blowing surrealist mirrored basement dining room, a "skewed Versailles" as Jenette would later describe her vision, featuring a suite of fantastic chairs with red and white paintbrush bristles designed by the Campana Brothers. At the time, there was virtually no distinction between the primary and secondary markets of contemporary design, and the Campana Brothers were one of several major artists who were consigning their prototypes and editions directly to my auctions, because they didn't have gallery representation in New York. I had never actually met them, though; we were corresponding via email only. Jenette was the first significant patron of Fernando and Humberto in New York. She had been introduced to them by her friend Paola Antonelli, the legendary MoMA design curator who had organized the Projects 66 exhibition in 1998 on Ingo Maurer and the Campanas. Jenette purchased two chairs, including the Bubble Wrap chair in this auction, from Fernando and Humberto as soon as the exhibition closed. Jenette's friendship with the Campanas blossomed, and they would stay at her townhouse when they visited New York. They became part of a circle of artists and designers who frequented Jenette and Al's vibrant Harlem salon. Jenette commissioned them to design the suite of dining room chairs, to go with a circa 1940 Louis XIV style dining table by Maison Jansen (related to the model originally commissioned by the Duke and Duchess of Windsor) which she had acquired from the dealer and designer Louis Bofferding. The end result perfectly captured both the sexy madness of the space as well as the vibrant brilliance of the woman herself. Jenette's storied career as president and editor-in-chief of DC Comics, where she broke the glass ceiling and revolutionized the storylines, and her love of movies, art, and animation was summed up in these chairs. Brush begat brushstrokes. The Jenette chair is theatrical. The chair is a logical step in the history of Fernando and Humberto's designs too, as they were shifting from the industrial materials used in their MoMA exhibition to something more refined. The backstory behind the making of the prototypes captures the DIY spirit of both contemporary design at the turn of the century (before the art market corrupted it with French foundries and bronze editions) as well as the genius of Al Williams, Jenette's contractor-turned-partner. After the Campanas made several prototypes in Brazil, it was decided that Jenette's suite would be made in the United States, under the supervision of Al and the designer Lloyd Schwan (another friend of Jenette's whose furniture is in this sale, as well as the collections of multiple design museums). 30,000 feet of PVC bristle was manufactured in New York. A Mennonite woodworker who worked for Knoll made the seats. The Jenette chair was a cross-cultural exchange of the highest order. In 2005 the chair was streamlined and mass produced by the Italian firm Edra, and several of these examples are in museum collections. It was in 2002 that Jenette first invited me into her home, and soon afterwards we attended a party where I finally met the Campana Brothers. When Jenette left DC Comics to become a film producer, I was fortunate enough to sell a few pieces from her collection to create some space for her offices, and she shared so many amazing stories about the designers she had met in the 1990s, from buying furniture from Nicola L. in her Chelsea Hotel apartment, to being hit on by Yonel Lebovici! As the years passed, and I continued to visit Jenette and Al in Harlem every few years, my appreciation of their collection grew, as I looked past the radical design which I was ostensibly there to discuss. Years before museums began to re-hang their galleries of American art to tell a new, more truthful history, Jenette and Al's collection was a celebration of diversity, equity, and inclusion. They didn't shy away from including "low" pop culture amongst their "high" contemporary art, or collecting works that reflected the history of Harlem and the African-American experience, or championing the photographic appropriations of Carrie Mae Weems. I always found myself obsessing about their Panoram jukebox, a museum-quality artifact from the Jim Crow era, when African-American bars in the 1930s and 40s featured coin-operated "soundies" which played early music videos by black and white musicians. Finally, I need to give a major shout-out to In Your Space, Jenette's history of her collections and interiors, which was published by Abbeville Press that same year. I have always viewed it as a spiritual sequel to Cara Greenberg's two classics on design, Midcentury Modern: Furniture of the 1950's and Op to Pop: Furniture of the 1960's. Although Jenette initially went through a phase of collecting midcentury design, the strengths of her collection are mostly from the 1970s to the end of the century, and her collecting memoir serves as a sourcebook to the era, complete with listings of her favorite dealers (the late Jim Walrod was at the top) and designers. I have enjoyed more than twenty years of friendship with Jenette and Al. While I will miss visiting their Harlem house and its collection (from the photographs by Carrie Mae Weems to the Magritte-inspired steam-powered train coming out of the fireplace) I am comforted with the knowledge that I can always visit them at "Chill Hill" in Connecticut, where their love of contemporary art and design also found a canvas. James Zemaitis HID12401132022 © 2024 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved www.HA.com/TexasAuctioneerLicenseNotice