Incollect Magazine - Issue 6

30 www.incollect.com The Untamed genius of by benjamin genocchio Paul Evans aul Evans’ furniture designs elicit mixed, often extreme reactions. There are those who point to the American-born designer’s originality and superb craftsmanship with metal. Then there are others, less generous, who recoil at the roughness around the edges, finding his designs heavy, brutal, and ugly. Evans’ highly individual, expressive metal objects are in many ways the opposite of the refined sensibility of American design in the second half of the 20th century — Karl Springer, for example. Yet his unique combination of fine execution, materials, and craftsmanship has proven to be not only the basis for an enduring contribution to the history of American furniture design but a thriving contemporary market. Today Evans is among the most collectible of 20th-century American makers. His designs have sold at auction and galleries for more than $250,000. His success rests in part on his singular, distinctive aesthetic vision but also on the fact that he died in 1987, at age 55, creating a scarcity of his bespoke, hand-made pieces. “In the last 15 or 20 years, the value of his pieces has steadily increased due to the continued interest generated by art collectors and interior designers,” says Francis Lord from Milord Antiques in the New York Design Center and “Skyline Series” dining table, 1973. Welded polychromed and patinated steel. From Milord Antiques on Incollect.