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Low table

ca.1930
Not on view
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.
The Low Table’s extreme minimalist structure clad in book-matched burl wood is typical of Jean Michel Frank’s expensive and luxurious veneers, which often include parchment, shark skin, mica, or straw. Like Sottsass’s Tartar table, Frank’s emphasizes the surface, or the skin, as the sensual invitation to interact with the furniture. Here, Sottsass inverts Frank’s formula with a complex structural composition faced in low-cost and banal but artfully patterned and colored plastic laminate and plywood.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Low table
  • Artist: Jean Michel Frank
  • Date: ca.1930
  • Medium: Burlwood veneer on plywood
  • Dimensions: 8 × 23 3/4 × 49 1/2 in. (20.3 × 60.3 × 125.7 cm)
  • Classification: Furniture
  • Credit Line: Collection of John C. Waddell
  • Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art