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"Capitello" Chair

Designer Studio 65 Italian
Manufacturer Gufram Italian
1971
Not on view
Franco Audrito and Piero Gatti founded Studio 65 as a radical response to functionalism. The Capitello side chair subverts a traditional icon of classical high culture—the Greek ionic capital and column—and replaces it with a Pop-inspired icon for a new generation skeptical of the establishment. Hard, noble marble is substituted by cushy, cheap, self-skinning polyurethane foam. The load-bearing structural pillar of government and financial institutions is brought down from its lofty heights in the form of a lounge chair that delights and surprises with its irreverent humor and biting sociopolitical critique.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: "Capitello" Chair
  • Designer: Studio 65 (Italian)
  • Manufacturer: Gufram (Italian, founded 1952)
  • Date: 1971
  • Medium: Polyurethane foam, latex rubber containing paint
  • Dimensions: 26 1/2 x 40 x 44 1/2 in. (67.3 x 101.6 x 113 cm)
  • Classification: Furniture
  • Credit Line: Purchase, Friends of Twentieth Century Decorative Arts Gifts, by exchange, 2003
  • Object Number: 2003.12a, b
  • Rights and Reproduction: © Gufram s.r.l.
  • Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art

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