Incollect Magazine - Issue 2

Incollect Magazine 49 2022 T he prestigious address of 46 East 57th Street in New York was once the showroom for the father and son team of Philip (1907–1987) and Kelvin (b. 1937) LaVerne, maverick designers who created limited edition pieces of furniture that are both functional objects and idiosyncratic works of art. oday it is the back entrance to 432 Park Avenue, a thin skyscraper designed by the Spanish architect Rafael Vinoly and the tallest residential tower in the Western Hemisphere, rising 92 floors to over 1,396 feet into the air. Much as Vinoly’s skyscraper represents an astonishing creative collaboration of the skills of architects, engineers, scientists and designers, so, too, was the furniture of Philip and Kelvin LaVerne. Both of the LaVernes were artists, but they nonetheless brought a scientific, architectural and even multidisciplinary spirit to Previous page and above: This monumental Brutalist screen was a custom commissioned piece ordered in 1965 directly from the studios of Philip and Kelvin Laverne for a private residence in New Jersey. The screen is comprised of 25 vertical rows of 5 elements with a total of 125 panels, and mounts to an anodized gold track allowing the panels to be rotated up to 180 degrees to allow for varying amounts of light to pass through. All of the panels were handmade in the Laverne Studios in NY and each individual panel is unique. They were created by etching the panels with acid and then using a proprietary applied patina technique to create a distinct design on each one. They can also be opened like a curtain and could work equally well as a room divider, wall sculpture or window covering. Photos courtesy 20cdesign. furniture design. So much so, that the complexity of the process and material experimentation involved made their work both highly original and impossible to copy, reproduce or fake. Philip called their furniture “functional art.” It is sculpture, but much else besides: they constantly experimented with traditional artisanal processes of making, especially fret and filigree work, an interlaced decorative design carved into sheet metal or cut out with a saw, evident in a piece like “Viola”, a table with a top made of a delicate, finely hand-cut abstract design in metal around a central image of a viola secured on a cast and welded base that creates the shadow of the instrument on the floor below. “Viola” is on display at Lobel Modern Inc., a gallery operated by design dealer Evan Lobel in the New York Design Center at 200 Lexington Avenue in Manhattan. Today, Lobel shows and sells more works including many rare and elusive finds, by the