Shiro Kuramata, "Miss Blanche" Chair

Friedman Benda, New York

Acquired from the above by the present owner

Matthias Dietz, Japan Design, Cologne, 1992, pp. 74-75

Makoto Uyeda, ed., Shiro Kuramata: 1934-1991, exh. cat., Tokyo, 1996, pp. 26-27, 39-40, no.1, p. 48, 187, no. 8, p. 192, no. 4

Alexander von Vegesack, et al., 100 Masterpieces from the Vitra Design Museum Collection, exh. cat., Weil am Rhein, 1996, cover, pp. 179, 204-205

Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Shiro Kuramata 1934-1991, exh. cat., Tokyo, 1996, pp. 39-40, no. 1, p. 187, no. 8

Domus, no. 788, December 1996, p. 56

Charlotte & Peter Fiell, eds, 1000 Chairs, Cologne, 2000, p. 599

Jean-Louis Gaillemin, ed., Design Contre Design: Deux siècles de créations, exh, cat., Paris, 2007, p. 301

Shiro Kuramata and Ettore Sottsass, exh. cat., Tokyo, 2010, p. 68 (for a drawing), pp. 69, 208, 211, no. 27

Deyan Sudjic, Shiro Kuramata: Essays and Writings, London, 2013, pp. 77, 104-105

Deyan Sudjic, Shiro Kuramata: Catalogue of Works, London, 2013, p. 362, no. 541

Named for the famous Blanche Dubois from Tennessee Williams play A Streetcar Named Desire, Shiro Kuramata's iconic Miss Blanche armchair was first exhibited at the KAGU exhibition, held during the Tokyo Designer's Week at Axis Gallery Annex in 1988, a year before its Paris debut at Galerie Yves Gastou in 1989, where the present lot was purchased. Kuramata had envisioned exhibiting the chair in Paris from the early stages of the design process: "Take this chair [Miss Blanche]: I was determined from the start to bring it to Paris. That's what inspired me... Don't look for logic. It comes from an image – the one of France, or Europe – that I made for myself. It's a feeling."The exhibition was an unequivocal success, with every piece, including the prototypes, finding buyers. 

The technicalities involved in the production of Miss Blanche were complex: the design required each artificial rose to be held in place for extended periods of time until the resin had hardened sufficiently. Experiments with natural roses were conducted, but the flowers would burn up in the acrylic resin, prompting a serendipitous moment when Kuramata decided "...it has to be fake [materials] because Blanche Dubois is a fake."

Only 56 models of Miss Blanche were produced. Versions of the chair are held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, the Dallas Museum of Art, and the Vitra Design Museum.