Reynolda House exhibit takes note of chairs

They are all around us, and, at some point, somebody designed the chair you’re sitting in – though if it’s not very comfortable you may question their design qualifications.

I bet you have one – a favorite chair, one that calls to you at the end of a long day. Or maybe you have a status chair, one that looks good but isn’t so comfortable.

Recliners comfort us. Rockers remind us of Grandma.

One thing I have always liked about Reynolda House Museum of American Art in Winston-Salem is it was once someone’s home. It illustrates what it might be like to live with works by great artists – Thomas Hart Benton, Charles Sheeler, Thomas Eakins – in the living room, the bedroom, even the bathroom.

Curators at Reynolda are re-framing everyday objects as art in “The Art of Seating: 200 Years of American Design,” and with objects that are already in the historic house.

Reynolda House is the exhibition’s only venue with its own decorative-arts collection on view in its original setting.

“The Art of Seating” is organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville, Fla., and toured by International Arts & Artists, Washington. Phil Archer, director of public programs, and Julia Hood, coordinator of education, are the co-curators.

“Phil and I both have a passion for furniture,” Hood said. “So it was an opportunity to make a connection to the historic house, where we have furniture that we don’t talk about enough, by bringing a show that would really help highlight that.”

“There’s nothing more accessible than a chair,” Archer said.

“We can use chairs as touch points to talk about American history and ideas,” Hood said.

In the exhibit, an ornate, red Victorian chair, circa 1850, was designed by Thomas E. Warren, who had been designing railroad cars, Hood said. “He was thinking about the way that chairs and people move, and so it pivots all around on its base.”

It has a round, cushiony seat, eight large springs below the seat and is on casters instead of feet. In it, a person can spin, and bounce both up and down and on a diagonal.

“It shows the Victorian obsession with comfort and with travel, trains and technology,” Archer said.

One chair was designed in North Carolina, “Current,” at the Penland School by Vivian Beer. Beer will give a talk in November to coincide with the opening of the Piedmont Craftsmen’s Fair’s 50th-anniversary celebration.

“We started thinking about our region as central to furniture manufacturing for the past 100 years,” Archer said. “The exhibition doesn’t have a North Carolina focus; it’s a national story, but we thought it would be a great chance to talk about the kind of industry that was happening here.”

This story was originally published September 19, 2014 at 8:22 PM.