THE ROBIN DAY CHAIR SERIES
John Stuart International
[Robin Day]: THE ROBIN DAY CHAIR SERIES. New York: John Stuart International, 1968. Original edition. Saddle stitched printed glossy wrappers with three-hole binding punch. 16 pp. Fully illustrated in black and white line art. Includes a four-page “New Family Supplement 1970” and matching eight-page Price List dated October 1, 1970. Studio stamp inside front wrapper, otherwise a fine set.
8.5 x 11 saddle-stitched softcover catalog with line art and design specifications of the Robin Day Chair designs licensed and manufactured by John Stuart International. Curatorial information includes item numbers, finishes, dimensions, and color chart. I suspect this information could be useful to some people out there.
Hailed as the British counterparts to Charles and Ray Eames, Robin and Lucienne Day electrified the British design scene in the 1950s with their startling furniture and textile designs. Indeed, their influence over the next five decades has been so profound that their early products were recently reintroduced by Conran's Habitat. Robin Day's influential furniture designs pioneered the use of materials such as plywood, steel, and plastic. His stacking polypropylene chair is one of the best-selling chairs in the world.
Robin Day, the creator of the best-selling Polypropylene chair,was renowned as a furniture designer, but also excelled in many other fields over the years, including exhibition design, graphics and product design. Lucienne Day, an outstanding textile designer, gained early recognition with Calyx, her acclaimed furnishing fabric for the Festival of Britain in 1951, and she also designed stunning wallpapers, ceramics and carpets. Pioneers of “Contemporary” design during the 1950s and 1960s, and joint design consultants to the John Lewis Partnership from 1962 to 1987, Robin and Lucienne Day, who both died in 2010,were legendary figures with an international reputation.