Incollect Magazine - Issue 2

2022 Incollect Magazine 55 From the personal collection of Kelvin LaVerne and the only one made, purchased directly from the artist by Lobel Modern. A cast bronze coffee table “Fluidity” with male and female figures entwined, arching from a platform base and supporting a thick oval glass top. Photos courtesy Lobel Modern. Civilizations series drew on classical Greek, Roman, Chinese and Japanese motifs, followed by more abstract and modern designs as evidenced in the Eternal Forest tables inspired by nature and Mother Earth, and the Fantasia series, which is purely abstract. The Historical Civilizations series is the most well-known and popular, in particular, the Chan tables depicting Chinese landscape and interior motifs. The imagery was inspired by scroll paintings the LaVernes researched in books and New York museums. When someone commissioned a Chan table from the catalog it was made, and no one knows how many were produced, but no two are entirely alike. “There are slight variations in patterns, no two patinated in the same way and no two were ever painted in exactly the same way,” says Lobel. “The whole point was that each person wound up with a unique work of art.” The Chan tables are among the most densely detailed designs and therefore not for everyone. “They have a very strong presence and are as much a work of art as a piece of furniture, not the type of table on which you put books,” Francis Lord says. “You want to see the table without anything on it just like you would a work of art. They are appreciated by collectors and designers that know LaVerne, as well as by clients that have never seen them before but are attracted by the uniqueness.”