LaVerne Coffee Table

Name: LaVerne Coffee Table
Brand: Philip and Kelvin LaVerne
Price: 28820.88 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

Wonderful example of an engraved and patinated bronze-clad wood 'Chan' coffee table by father-and-son team Philip and Kelvin LaVerne. Signed. American Mid-Century coffee/cocktail table with a circular / round etched bronze veneer top depicting an elaborate Chinoiserie genre scene with natural patina with red and blue highlights above a bronze veneer octagonal base. Patination and polychromed bronze and pewter. Octagonal base beneath a circular top. The father and son team of Philip (1907-1987) and Kelvin (1937-) LaVerne created custom, limited edition pieces of furniture that were both functional objects and stunning displays of artistry. Their distinctive sculpted bronze pieces harmoniously combine innovative metalworking techniques with traditional motifs. The technique used by Philip and Kelvin was based on bronze-casting methods that were centuries old, tweaked to give each piece its own distinctive patina. It involved burying hand-carved bas relief slabs of bronze and pewter for six weeks in a container full of special soil that allowed them to oxidize naturally, causing the metal to change colors. This process for making the patinated bronze series started around 1954 and took six years for the LaVernes to refine.

Creator:

Philip and Kelvin LaVerne (Artist)

Dimensions:

Height: 16.93 in (43 cm)Diameter: 47.51 in (120.65 cm)

Style:

Mid-Century Modern (Of the Period)

Materials and Techniques:

Bronze,Wood,Patinated

Place of Origin:

Central America

Period:

Late 20th Century

Date of Manufacture:

Circa 1970

Condition:

Seller Location:

London, GB

Reference Number:

1stDibs: LU9791239742922

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Shop All Philip and Kelvin LaVerne

Philip and Kelvin LaVerne

Look closely at any vintage furniture designed by father-son duo Philip and Kelvin LaVerne and a cacophony of stylistic influences reveals itself.

The LaVernes’ position at the intersection of art and design was the result of their combined backgrounds: Philip (1907–87) studied painting with Ashcan School artist John Sloan at the Art Students League of New York, while his son, Kelvin (b. 1937), attended the Parsons School of Design, taking classes in art history, furniture design and metalwork. The resulting merge of stylistic elements and innovative processes make for singular designs that defy categorization, striking a balance between modern and traditional, intricate and minimal, art piece and functional item. Their work was also strikingly different from the modern furniture created by Philip’s brother Erwine and his wife, Estelle, of Laverne Originals.

The LaVernes began producing one-of-a-kind furniture and sculpture in the mid-1950s out of a studio on Wooster Street in New York City before opening a showroom on Manhattan’s East 57th Street. As their 1960s advertisements declared: “It’s not just functional and not just art, it’s an investment.”

The LaVernes married a stunning array of techniques and styles to achieve their singular, deeply layered look for one-of-a-kind and limited-edition pieces. Chinoiserie motifs abound on many of their acid-etched tables, but art from ancient Greece and Egypt also served as inspiration. The influence of figurative sculptors is evident in designs like coffee tables and side tables with bronze bodies serving as frames or bases; other pieces, meanwhile, have deeply detailed surfaces and strikingly simple silhouettes.

The duo developed their own unconventional methods — sometimes to an extreme — for finishing their pieces: Techniques employed by the LaVernes included acid washing and burying furniture underground in a mixture of soil and chemicals to achieve a desired patina through oxidation. While they sometimes used pewter and silver, bronze was one of their most commonly employed materials, either etched or cast and sometimes paired with glass tops. Their partnership ended when Philip died in 1987 and Kelvin shifted his practice to sculpture.

Find an extraordinary range of vintage Philip and Kelvin LaVerne tables, decorative objects and other furniture on 1stDibs.