Side Chair

Although most Art Deco patrons were French, one of the era’s most complete, important residential design projects was realized in America: a penthouse apartment in San Francisco designed for Templeton Crocker (1884–1948), the millionaire grandson of the founder of the Union Pacific Railroad Company. Completed in 1928, the apartment contained a master bedroom, dining room, and breakfast room by Dunand; the noted French designers Jean-Michel Frank, Pierre Legrain, and Madame Lipska created the other rooms. The apartment was dismantled and sold in 1959. The "sponged" surface of the chair is characteristic of lacque arraché, a technique Dunard favored, wherein a final coat of lacquer is applied over a roughened layer—in this case, metallic gray over black. By polishing the entire surface, the raised peaks of the black lacquer were revealed, creating a mottled yet smooth effect.