Design
1939 (made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
Jack Pritchard employed a succession of continental Modernists to work for his British furniture company Isokon, including the Viennese emigré Egon Riss. Riss designed the 'Penguin Donkey' specifically to carry the new Penguin paperbacks, which for the first time made available reasonably priced, best-quality, international literature to a wide public. Books were stacked in the side elements (or 'panniers') and newspapers and magazines slotted into the centre. The organic, curvilinear shape of the Donkey, raised on legs rounded in elevation, was made possible by the use of very thin plywood.
To advertise the bookcase, a leaflet was included in every Penguin book. Had war not broken out the Donkey might well have been Isokon's first commercially successful product. However, it has had an afterlife, being reinvented several times: in 1963 Pritchard sold a new version ('Mark 2'), revised by the well-known designer Ernest Race, and in 2003 Isokon's successor firm, Isokon Plus, began making the Donkey 3, designed by Shin and Tomoko Azumi.
To advertise the bookcase, a leaflet was included in every Penguin book. Had war not broken out the Donkey might well have been Isokon's first commercially successful product. However, it has had an afterlife, being reinvented several times: in 1963 Pritchard sold a new version ('Mark 2'), revised by the well-known designer Ernest Race, and in 2003 Isokon's successor firm, Isokon Plus, began making the Donkey 3, designed by Shin and Tomoko Azumi.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Materials and techniques | blueprint on paper |
| Brief description | Design for Penguin Donkey bookcase, Egon Riss for Isokon Furniture Company, blueprint, London, 1939 |
| Physical description | Blueprint of a design for the 'Penguin Donkey' bookcase, designed by Egon Riss for the Isokon Furniture Company. The sheet contains a front view of the shelves, section view of the bookcase and a list of parts. |
| Dimensions |
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| Style | |
| Subject depicted | |
| Summary | Jack Pritchard employed a succession of continental Modernists to work for his British furniture company Isokon, including the Viennese emigré Egon Riss. Riss designed the 'Penguin Donkey' specifically to carry the new Penguin paperbacks, which for the first time made available reasonably priced, best-quality, international literature to a wide public. Books were stacked in the side elements (or 'panniers') and newspapers and magazines slotted into the centre. The organic, curvilinear shape of the Donkey, raised on legs rounded in elevation, was made possible by the use of very thin plywood. To advertise the bookcase, a leaflet was included in every Penguin book. Had war not broken out the Donkey might well have been Isokon's first commercially successful product. However, it has had an afterlife, being reinvented several times: in 1963 Pritchard sold a new version ('Mark 2'), revised by the well-known designer Ernest Race, and in 2003 Isokon's successor firm, Isokon Plus, began making the Donkey 3, designed by Shin and Tomoko Azumi. |
| Associated objects |
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| Collection | |
| Accession number | CIRC.248-1975 |
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| Record created | July 1, 2009 |
| Record URL |
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