Trichome

Grant Featherston
Born
Grant Stanley Featherston

(1922-10-17)17 October 1922
Geelong, Victoria, Australia
Died9 October 1995(1995-10-09) (aged 72)
NationalityAustralian
OccupationFurniture designer
Notable workContour Chair R160
SpouseMary Featherston

Grant Stanley Featherston (17 October 1922 – 9 October 1995) was an Australian furniture designer whose chair designs in the 1950s became icons of the Atomic Age.

He was born in Geelong, Victoria.[1] In 1965 he married Mary Bronwyn Currey, an English-born interior designer, and the couple worked in close partnership as interior designers over several decades.[2]

He is most famous for his furniture designs, especially The 'Contour Chair R160’ chair.[3] He marketed his modernist chairs through art galleries including Peter Bray Gallery in Melbourne and they are now highly collectable on a par with fine art[4] and in 2013 began to attain high prices at auction.[5][6] He is considered Australia's best known furniture designer.

His work has been featured in several museum retrospectives of post-war furniture,[7][8] including the National Gallery of Victoria 2013 exhibition, Mid-Century Modern Australian Furniture Design.[9]

Works[edit]

Furniture designs[edit]

  • R152 Chair (1951) Grant Featherston
  • Wing Chair (1951) Grant Featherston
  • R160 Lounge chair (1951) Grant Featherston
  • R161 & R161H (1952) sofa, Grant Featherston
  • Z300 Chaise longue (1953) Z300 Grant Featherston (Made under licence by Gordon Mather Industries since 1989)
  • Talking chairs (1967) Grant and Mary Featherston

Further reading[edit]

Whitehouse, Denise. "Design for Life: Grant and Mary Featherston", 2018, Heide Museum of Modern Art, (ISBN 9781921330629).

  • Isaac, Geoff. "Featherston" Hardback, September 2017, Thames & Hudson (ISBN 978-0500501108)
  • Lane, Terence. "Featherston chairs: [exhibition] National Gallery of Victoria, 30 March-7 August 1988" Paperback – 1988 (ISBN 978-0724101306)

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Home". featherston.com.au.
  2. ^ Whitehouse, Denise (2019). "Featherston, Grant Stanley (1922–1995)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. ISBN 978-0-522-84459-7. ISSN 1833-7538. OCLC 70677943. Retrieved 3 March 2020.
  3. ^ "Famous Australian Furniture Designers - The Top 8". Architecture & Design. Retrieved 3 June 2024.
  4. ^ "A chair with flair - the value of designer furniture". 18 June 2014.
  5. ^ "Modernist furniture goes boom". Archived from the original on 26 July 2014.
  6. ^ "Why this Featherston tatty looking chair is worth $11,000". Australian Financial Review. 12 July 2017. Retrieved 1 August 2023.
  7. ^ "Australia's own 20th century furniture designs on show". 20 May 2014.
  8. ^ including The National Gallery of Victoria exhibition Mid-Century Modern: Australian Furniture Design.
  9. ^ "Broadway World - Broadway News, Tickets, Videos & More".

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