“Queen Anne” side chair
designed 1984
These "Queen Anne" side chairs were part of the collection of chairs, tables and a sofa designed for Knoll Inc., in 1984 by architect Robert Venturi with contributions from his wife, architect Denise Scott-Brown. Their Knoll furniture line included a variety of historical styles—Chippendale, Queen Anne, Empire, Hepplewhite, Sheraton, Biedermeier, Gothic Revival, Art Nouveau, and Art Deco, designed to break down barriers between traditional and modern design.
Chairs in the "Queen Anne" style with the colorful, laminated "Grandmother's Tablecloth" pattern are in collections at the Met, MoMA, and Art Institute of Chicago, to name a few, but few collections have the chair in natural wood.
These chairs are part of the museum’s small grouping of constructed objects designed by architects in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Two tubular chairs by Marcel Breuer, a Frank Lloyd Wright window designed for the Coonley Playhouse in Chicago, and a window by John La Farge were joined several years ago by an Elevator Screen designed in 1893 by Louis Sullivan for the Chicago Stock Exchange.
Molded laminated wood
Gift of Knoll International
2013.30.2
Provenance: Gift from Knoll International to the Seattle Art Museum, 1990
