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Peter Shire Memphis Milano Brazil Table in Lacquered Wood, Italy c. 1981

$21,500 $17,200

Peter Shire (b. 1947)

An exceptionally imaginative and dynamic architectural console, dining table, and desk by Peter Shire for Ettore Sottsass’ Memphis Group. A striking interplay of geometric forms in lacquered wood, this asymmetric, multi-purpose piece features an elongated triangular top in sunflower yellow. It’s raised on an emerald green shark-fin leg that slices the air with brio, offset by a sharp black isosceles base in a rounded salmon-pink foot that recalls a halved log of spam.

A founding member of the Memphis Group alongside Ettore Sottsass and Marco Zanini — and, with Sottsass, the movement’s best-known talent — Shire creates a dialogue between form and surface in boundary-stretching works that live at the intersection of art and design. His rejection of modernist rigidity and playful subversion of Bauhaus, Art Deco, and Futurist modalities in a visually unexpected new language make him an essential contributor to the postmodern critical debate.

Literature: Memphis: Furniture Milano, manufacturer’s catalogue, 1981. Memphis: Research, Experiences, Failures and Successes of New Design, Barbara Radice, p. 58.

  • Origin: Italy
  • Period: c.1981
  • Dimensions: 80" W x 31 1/4 D x 28 1/4 H
  • Materials: Lacquered wood
  • Condition: Very good; wear consistent with age and use.

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