Design 
28 February 2024
Design 
115

Albert Frey

Lounge chair from the Frey House I, Palm Springs

USA, 1940-47
plywood, upholstery 27½ h × 24 w × 36 d in (70 × 61 × 91 cm)
estimate: $5,000–7,000
result: $6,930
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provenance: The Artist | Elsie de Wolfe | Private Collection | Los Angeles Modern Auctions, Modern Art & Design, 6 March 2011, Lot 3 | Private Collection
literature: Albert Frey, Architect, Rosa, ppg. 71-83

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Radical Forms

A Chair from Frey House I

The present lot or very similiar inside Frey House I, photographed by Julius Shulman.


Known for his many Modernist structures in Palm Springs, Swiss architect Albert Frey designed and built Frey House I on Paseo del Miramar in 1940. One of his most celebrated commissions, according to Joseph Rosa, Frey House I was the "first house to exhibit his new interest in horizontal wall planes extending into the landscape." Frey sold the home in 1960 to a developer who razed it and subdivided the two-acre lot. As Jack Byron has written, "Frey House I proved to be a laboratory for experimenting with radical built forms that still have the power to confuse, shock and impress over half a century later." 

The exterior of Frey House I, photographed by Julius Shulman.
Photo courtesy UCSB ADC Omeka.
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