It is still possible. Possible to find furniture of historical significance at design fairs. At the current TEFAF New York, held at the Park Avenue Armory, Paris-based dealer Oscar Graf, whose creative efforts focus on turn-of-the-century design masterpieces, presents a pair of chairs which Frank Lloyd Wright designed for the dining room of his Warren Hickox House, the Prairie School style residence he completed in Kankakee, Illinois, in 1900. The dining room, which came to be synonymous with Wright’s early style, was modeled after drawings which the famed architect published earlier in the Ladie’s Home Journal. While the house itself, privately owned, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, the dining furniture was sold to a private collector as early as 1967, and long before the market for Wright’s furniture began to evolve. I have learnt from Graf that the chairs were held by the original buyer until 1987, when four of them were sold at Leslie Hindman auctioneers and two at Sotheby’s, in October 1987. Out of the six, these are the only two which are on the market for sale, gems of the highest historical significance, the type of museum-quality pieces of furniture which are sought after by connoisseurs. When you visit TEFAF this weekend of early next week, don’t miss the Oscar Graf booth.
