Very Rare Wagon Wheel Armchair

Wharton Esherick
Very Rare Wagon Wheel Armchair, 1939

Dimensions:
23 × 23 × 40.5 in (W x D x H)
58.42 x 58.42 x 102.87 cm

Material: oak and leather with wrought iron struts

The Wagon Wheel Chair is one of Esherick’s very rare, early pieces. Esherick made 2 of them for a tack (harness) room in Mt. Kisco, NY in 1932 and 3 more around the same time for another Mt. Kisco resident. Each chair is different in various ways as Esherick wanted each piece that he made to be unique. Like the Hammer Handle Chair, he worked with found parts, in this case wagon wheels, to create a unique and innovative design.

In 1939, he decided to make the Wagon Wheel Chair again, redesigned with an iron strut. This one is oak with leather and wrought iron struts. It’s 100% original condition, including the leather seat and back. Leather had breaks on the right rear of the seat, which were cosmetically repaired in order to preserve all of the original leather.

Wharton Esherick (1887 – 1970) was an internationally significant figure in the landscape of art history and American modern design. As a sculptor, Esherick worked primarily in wood and extended his unique forms to furniture, furnishings, interiors, buildings, and more. A Philadelphia-area modernist sculptor deeply influenced by the Arts & Crafts movement, Wharton Esherick designed and built furniture distinctive for its asymmetric, prismatic forms. His goal was to design furniture that functioned as sculpture, and sculpture that functioned as furniture.