Grant Stanley Featherston (17 October 1922 – 9 October 1995) was an Australian furniture designer whose chair designs in the 1950s became icons of the

Atomic Age The Atomic Age, also known as the Atomic Era, is the period of history following the detonation of the first nuclear weapon, The Gadget at the ''Trinity'' test in New Mexico, on July 16, 1945, during World War II. Although nuclear chain reactio ...

. He was born in

Geelong Geelong ( ) (Wathawurrung: ''Djilang''/''Djalang'') is a port city in the southeastern Australian state of Victoria, located at the eastern end of Corio Bay (the smaller western portion of Port Phillip Bay) and the left bank of Barwon River, ...

, Victoria. In 1965 he married Mary Bronwyn Currey, an English-born interior designer, and the couple worked in close partnership as interior designers over several decades. He is most famous for his furniture designs, especially The 'Contour Chair R160’ chair. He marketed his modernist chairs through art galleries including

Peter Bray Gallery Peter Bray Gallery (a commercial gallery) was established as Stanley Coe Gallery in 1949 before being renamed in 1951, after a change of management. Situated at 435 Bourke Street, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Victoria, Australia, it closed in ...

in Melbourne and they are now highly collectable on a par with fine art and in 2013 began to attain high prices at auction. He is considered Australia's best known furniture designer. His work has been featured in several museum retrospectives of post-war furniture, including the

National Gallery of Victoria The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and most visited art museum. The NGV houses an encyclopedic art collection across two ...

2013 exhibition, Mid-Century Modern Australian Furniture Design.

Works

Furniture designs

*''R152 Chair '' (1951) Grant Featherston *''Wing Chair'' (1951) Grant Featherston *''R160 Lounge chair'' (1951) Grant Featherston *''R161 & R161H'' (1952) sofa, Grant Featherston *''Z300 Chaise longue'' (1953) Z300 Grant Featherston (Made under licence by Gordon Mather Industries since 1989) *''Talking chairs'' (1967) Grant and Mary Featherston

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Featherston, Grant Modernist designers Australian designers Furniture designers 1922 births 1995 deaths People from Geelong

Works

Furniture designs

Further reading

References