Chair Transformation #17A
"Samaras in Greek means ‘saddle maker’," the artist wrote in his 1970 statement on Chair Transformations. Chairs are a central part of Samaras’s formal vocabulary and feature in his work across a range of media. In the mid-1960s, he took up this functional object as sculpture, reimagining it in a variety of forms. His drawings, which mostly correspond to actual sculptures, depict chairs that are split in half, missing a seat, or too small, soft, or fragile to use. After having this chair fabricated to his specifications in 1969, Samaras covered it with cotton batting. Over time its white surface became soiled, and in the 1980s Samaras decided to strip the chair down to its original frame and marbleize its surface with white on black paint.
Artwork Details
- Title: Chair Transformation #17A
- Artist: Lucas Samaras (American (born Greece), Kastoria 1936–2024 New York)
- Date: 1969–70/ca. 1980
- Medium: Acrylic on plywood
- Dimensions: 33 × 14 7/8 × 18 3/4 in., 8.4 lb. (83.8 × 37.8 × 47.6 cm, 3.8 kg)
- Classification: Sculpture
- Credit Line: Gift of the artist, 2014
- Object Number: 2014.40.4
- Rights and Reproduction: © Lucas Samaras
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art
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