THONET INDUSTRIES
Thonet Industries Inc., Andy Warhol [Illustrator]
Andy Warhol [Illustrator]: THONET INDUSTRIES. New York: Thonet Industries Inc., [1960]. Original edition. Square quarto. Wire spiral binding. Printed glossy wrappers. 22 pp. Illustrated with color and black and white photographs and three full page drawings. Multiple paper stocks and elaborate graphic design throughout. Housed in the original Thonet mailing envelope with a November 3, 1960 cancellation. A fine copy.
9.5 x 9.5 spiral bound marketing brochure for Thonet Chairs circa 1960. Features commissioned artwork by J. Suzuki, Bob Gill, and Andy Warhol. Artwork printed on matte blue sheets with Thonet text to versos. Booklet design by Ben Robinson and printed by the Lenmore Press.
Andy Warhol’s upward trajectory as an in-demand Commercial Artist has been well documented: “Andy Warhol couldn’t think of anything much to say except that he has eight cats named Sam, when asked for a character portrait, despite the facts, most of them gleaned elsewhere, that: he studied painting and design at Carnegie Tech in home-town Pittsburgh; came to New York in 1949; found Vogue, Glamour, and Harper’s Bazaar, among others, very pleased with such blotting-paper drawings . . . and won an Art Director’s Club medal for a drawing he did for the Columbia Broadcasting System.” — Interiors Cover Artists, Interiors and Industrial Design July 1953
From the Andy Warhol Museum: “Although best known for his silkscreen paintings, Andy Warhol was also an excellent draughtsman. Drawing was a constant part of his artistic practice. As a child he took classes at the Carnegie Museum of Art, and he won several awards for drawings he produced in high school. At Carnegie Institute for Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University), where Warhol earned a degree in pictorial design, his offbeat, nontraditional and sometimes irreverent drawing style did not always meet his professors’ academic standards. At one point they forced him to do extra work over the summer to remain in good standing at school. Upon graduation, Warhol moved to New York to begin his commercial design career.
From the Andy Warhol Foundation: “Work came quickly to Warhol in New York, a city he made his home and studio for the rest of his life. Within a year of arriving, Warhol garnered top assignments as a commercial artist for a variety of clients including Columbia Records, Glamour magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, NBC, Tiffany & Co., Vogue, and others. He also designed fetching window displays for Bonwit Teller and I. Miller department stores. After establishing himself as an acclaimed graphic artist, Warhol turned to painting and drawing in the 1950s, and in 1952 he had his first solo exhibition at the Hugo Gallery, with Fifteen Drawings Based on the Writings of Truman Capote. As he matured, his paintings incorporated photo-based techniques he developed as a commercial illustrator. The Museum of Modern Art (among others) took notice, and in 1956 the institution included his work in his first group show.
In 1830, Michael Thonet began experimenting with what was soon to be known as "bentwood" furniture and it was not long before Thonet and his sons were producing this furniture on an industrial scale. The name Thonet quickly became synonymous with a high standard of exquisite craftsmanship and Thonet's bentwood products soon joined the ranks of the most famous and most imitated furniture products of modern times.
During the late 19th century, many bentwood furniture designs were created by Thonet, with the help of unknown artists and artisans. However, by the turn of the century, a new design trend had emerged, and furniture manufacturers recruited renowned artists and architects of the time to create innovative new products. Throughout the early 20th century, the volume, expertise and reach of the Thonet Company’s manufacturing capabilities attracted many of the world’s leading designers: Otto Wagner, Marcel Breuer, Le Corbusier’s, and Mies Van der Rohe.
In 1941, as demand for their furniture in the USA continued to grow, Thonet came to the US and began production in Statesville, North Carolina. Soon after they added locations in Sheboygan, Wisconsin and New York City, where the factory was outfitted with state of the art radio frequency bending equipment to produce the highest quality plywood furniture parts available at that time. The idea of using bent plywood to produce chairs became increasingly popular during the middle of the 20th Century and the technology was evolving rapidly. No one knows who was really first to use bent plywood for seating during this period. However, it is indisputable that the process traces back to Michael Thonet’s patent in the mid-1800s, more than 100 years before anyone else. [warhol_2019]