Chair
1965 (made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
The design of this printed card chair by Peter Murdoch is typical of the 1960s and early 1970s in trying to make good and groundbreaking design fun and affordable for more people. As the catalogue for the 1980 Whitechapel Art Gallery exhibition 'Chairs 1918-70' comments: "With a unit cost measured in pennies, a chair of this kind can be completed on one machine at the rate of one per second, and can be shipped in a minimal volume - 800 chairs in a pile no more than four feet [approximately 122 cm] in height".
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Materials and techniques | Polyethylene coated laminated paperboard, printed |
| Brief description | Child's chair (unformed) of white card printed with a pattern of red discs, designed in England by Peter Murdoch 1965 |
| Physical description | Child's tub chair, produced as a flatpack: the shape is cut from white card printed with a pattern of red discs, and folds into a curved seat on a cylindrical base. |
| Dimensions | Judging by the related object Circ.17-1970, if assembled the chair would make up into a seat 1 foot 8¾ inches in diameter at the top, and 1 foot 2¾ inches at the base |
| Production type | Mass produced |
| Credit line | Given by Peter Murdoch |
| Object history | Given by the designer, Peter Murdoch, with a version in another colourway; RF 70/162 |
| Production | Attribution note: According to the original registered description, the design was the first chair of paper/ card to be designed for mass productiion. The original description also atates that the chair is made of fibrecard, which is probably a period specific sense: early 21st century usage of the term appears to be related to fibre optics and other electronic applications. The Whitechapel Art Gallery exhibition catalogue entry for Circ.17-1970, another colourway of the same design, describes the material as using three different papers to make a board of five laminations ('Chairs 1918-1970'). |
| Summary | The design of this printed card chair by Peter Murdoch is typical of the 1960s and early 1970s in trying to make good and groundbreaking design fun and affordable for more people. As the catalogue for the 1980 Whitechapel Art Gallery exhibition 'Chairs 1918-70' comments: "With a unit cost measured in pennies, a chair of this kind can be completed on one machine at the rate of one per second, and can be shipped in a minimal volume - 800 chairs in a pile no more than four feet [approximately 122 cm] in height". |
| Associated object | CIRC.17-1970 (Colourway) |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | CIRC.18-1970 |
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| Record created | January 12, 2009 |
| Record URL |
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