Bertoia Seat Pads
Vintage 1980s American Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Chairs
Steel
Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Children's Furniture
Steel
Vintage 1980s American Modern Dining Room Chairs
Steel
Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Stools
Wrought Iron
Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Chairs
Metal
Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Chairs
Metal
Vintage 1960s Mid-Century Modern Chairs
Metal
Vintage 1950s American Mid-Century Modern Side Chairs
Steel
Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Lounge Chairs
Steel, Wire
Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Lounge Chairs
Steel, Wire
Vintage 1980s American Mid-Century Modern Stools
Metal
Vintage 1970s American Mid-Century Modern Chairs
Chrome
Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Lounge Chairs
Metal
Vintage 1950s American Mid-Century Modern Armchairs
Metal
Vintage 1970s American Mid-Century Modern Side Chairs
Metal
Vintage 1980s American Mid-Century Modern Lounge Chairs
Iron
Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Chairs
Chrome
20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Armchairs
Metal, Chrome
Early 2000s American Modern Lounge Chairs
Bouclé, Upholstery
Early 2000s American Modern Dining Room Chairs
Steel
Vintage 1950s American Mid-Century Modern Stools
Chrome, Metal
Vintage 1980s American Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Chairs
Steel
Mid-20th Century Mid-Century Modern Chairs
Chrome
20th Century American Windsor Chairs
Metal
Vintage 1960s Italian Chairs
Metal
Vintage 1960s North American Mid-Century Modern Lounge Chairs
Metal
20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Chairs
Metal
Vintage 1950s Finnish Mid-Century Modern Chairs
Fabric, Wood
People Also Browsed
2010s American Mid-Century Modern Wall Lights and Sconces
Brass, Bronze, Enamel, Nickel
21st Century and Contemporary Brazilian Modern Dining Room Chairs
Wood
2010s Brazilian Modern Stools
Textile, Cane, Wood, Hardwood, Leather
2010s Brazilian Beds and Bed Frames
Leather, Upholstery
Vintage 1980s Italian Mid-Century Modern Stools
Metal
Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Sets
Carrara Marble, Aluminum
2010s American Mid-Century Modern Stools
Metal
Mid-20th Century German Bauhaus Lounge Chairs
Steel
Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Chairs
Acrylic
2010s Brazilian Modern Chairs
Textile, Cane, Wood, Hardwood
2010s Brazilian Modern Chairs
Textile, Cane, Wood, Hardwood
21st Century and Contemporary Swiss Modern Sideboards
Chrome, Steel
21st Century and Contemporary Swedish Mid-Century Modern Table Lamps
Textile
Vintage 1970s French Stools
Aluminum
Mid-20th Century Danish Mid-Century Modern Beds and Bed Frames
Cane, Teak
Late 20th Century Italian Mid-Century Modern Stools
Wood, Rope
Recent Sales
21st Century and Contemporary American Modern Chairs
Steel
21st Century and Contemporary American Modern Chairs
Steel
21st Century and Contemporary Italian Modern Chairs
Steel
20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Side Chairs
Steel
Vintage 1970s American Mid-Century Modern Chairs
Stainless Steel
Vintage 1980s American Mid-Century Modern Stools
Steel
20th Century American Chairs
Steel
Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Lounge Chairs
Metal
Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Chairs
Metal
Vintage 1950s American Mid-Century Modern Children's Furniture
Metal
Mid-20th Century Mid-Century Modern Chairs
Steel
Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Children's Furniture
21st Century and Contemporary Mid-Century Modern Side Chairs
Metal
20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Chairs
Metal
Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Side Chairs
Iron
Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Side Chairs
Mid-20th Century Chaise Longues
20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Stools
Chrome
Antique Mid-19th Century Mid-Century Modern Lounge Chairs
Stainless Steel
Late 20th Century Mid-Century Modern Stools
Steel, Chrome
Early 2000s American Mid-Century Modern Stools
Steel
Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Chairs
Metal
Vintage 1950s American Chairs
Vintage 1950s American Mid-Century Modern Patio and Garden Furniture
Vintage 1970s American Dining Room Chairs
Mid-20th Century Mid-Century Modern Chairs
Wire
Vintage 1950s Mid-Century Modern Armchairs
Steel
Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Chairs
Steel
Mid-20th Century American Modern Lounge Chairs
21st Century and Contemporary Italian Mid-Century Modern Stools
Steel
Late 20th Century Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Chairs
Vintage 1950s Mid-Century Modern Lounge Chairs
Steel
Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Side Chairs
Steel
Late 20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Stools
Chrome
Vintage 1950s American Modern Chairs
Metal
Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Lounge Chairs
Steel
Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Side Chairs
Metal
Late 20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Side Chairs
Metal
Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Lounge Chairs
Metal
Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Lounge Chairs
Metal
Vintage 1970s American Mid-Century Modern Lounge Chairs
Metal
Vintage 1960s Italian Mid-Century Modern Stools
Chrome
Vintage 1960s North American Mid-Century Modern Lounge Chairs
Metal
Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Chairs
Wire
20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Chairs
Metal
Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Lounge Chairs
Metal
Mid-20th Century Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Chairs
Wire
20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Chairs
Metal
20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Chairs
Chrome
Vintage 1950s American Mid-Century Modern Side Chairs
Steel
Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Side Chairs
Steel
Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Chairs
Metal, Wire
Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Armchairs
Metal
Vintage 1970s Hollywood Regency Stools
Chrome
Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Chairs
Metal
Vintage 1950s German Mid-Century Modern Stools
Steel
Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Chairs
Metal
Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Side Chairs
Metal
Vintage 1950s Italian Mid-Century Modern Chairs
Metal
Vintage 1980s American Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Chairs
Metal
Bertoia Seat Pads For Sale on 1stDibs
How Much are Bertoia Seat Pads?
Harry Bertoia for sale on 1stDibs
Sculptor, furniture and jewelry designer, graphic artist and metalsmith, Harry Bertoia was one of the great cross-disciplinarians of 20th-century art and design and a central figure in American mid-century modernism. Among furniture aficionados, Bertoia is known for his chairs such as the wire-lattice Diamond chair (and its variants such as the tall-backed Bird chair) designed for Knoll Inc. and first released in 1952.
As an artist, he is revered for a style that was his alone. Bertoia’s metal sculptures are by turns expressive and austere, powerful and subtle, intimate in scale and monumental. All embody a tension between the intricacy and precision of Bertoia’s forms and the raw strength of his materials: steel, brass, bronze and copper.
Fortune seemed to guide Bertoia’s artistic development. Born in northeastern Italy, Bertoia immigrated to the United States at age 15, joining an older brother in Detroit. He studied drawing and metalworking in the gifted student program at Cass Technical High School. Recognition led to awards that culminated, in 1937, in a teaching scholarship to attend the Cranbrook Academy of Art in suburban Bloomfield Hills, one of the great crucibles of modernism in America.
At Cranbrook, Bertoia made friendships — with architect Eero Saarinen, designers Charles and Ray Eames and Florence Schust Knoll and others — that shaped the course of his life. He taught metalworking at the school, and when materials rationing during World War II limited the availability of metals, Bertoia focused on jewelry design. He also experimented with monotype printmaking, and 19 of his earliest efforts were bought by the Guggenheim Museum.
In 1943, he left Cranbrook to work in California with the Eameses, helping them develop their now-famed plywood furniture. (Bertoia received scant credit.) Late in that decade, Florence and Hans Knoll persuaded him to move east and join Knoll Inc. His chairs became and remain perennial bestsellers. Royalties allowed Bertoia to devote himself full-time to metal sculpture, a medium he began to explore in earnest in 1947.
By the early 1950s Bertoia was receiving commissions for large-scale works from architects — the first came via Saarinen — as he refined his aesthetic vocabulary into two distinct skeins. One comprises his “sounding sculptures” — gongs and “Sonambient” groupings of rods that strike together and chime when touched by hand or by the wind. The other genre encompasses Bertoia’s naturalistic works: abstract sculptures that suggest bushes, flower petals, leaves, dandelions or sprays of grass.
As you will see on these pages, Harry Bertoia was truly unique; his art and designs manifest a wholly singular combination of delicacy and strength.
Find vintage Harry Bertoia sculptures, armchairs, benches and other furniture and art on 1stDibs.
A Close Look at mid-century-modern Furniture
Organically shaped, clean-lined and elegantly simple are three terms that well describe vintage mid-century modern furniture. The style, which emerged primarily in the years following World War II, is characterized by pieces that were conceived and made in an energetic, optimistic spirit by creators who believed that good design was an essential part of good living.
ORIGINS OF MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE DESIGN
- Emerged during the mid-20th century
- Informed by European modernism, Bauhaus, International style, Scandinavian modernism and Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture
- A heyday of innovation in postwar America
- Experimentation with new ideas, new materials and new forms flourished in Scandinavia, Italy, the former Czechoslovakia and elsewhere in Europe
CHARACTERISTICS OF MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE DESIGN
- Simplicity, organic forms, clean lines
- A blend of neutral and bold Pop art colors
- Use of natural and man-made materials — alluring woods such as teak, rosewood and oak; steel, fiberglass and molded plywood
- Light-filled spaces with colorful upholstery
- Glass walls and an emphasis on the outdoors
- Promotion of functionality
MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE DESIGNERS TO KNOW
- Charles and Ray Eames
- Eero Saarinen
- Milo Baughman
- Florence Knoll
- Harry Bertoia
- Isamu Noguchi
- George Nelson
- Danish modernists Hans Wegner and Arne Jacobsen, whose emphasis on natural materials and craftsmanship influenced American designers and vice versa
ICONIC MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE DESIGNS
- Eames lounge chair
- Nelson daybed
- Florence Knoll sofa
- Egg chair
- Womb chair
- Noguchi coffee table
- Barcelona chair
VINTAGE MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE ON 1STDIBS
The mid-century modern era saw leagues of postwar American architects and designers animated by new ideas and new technology. The lean, functionalist International-style architecture of Le Corbusier and Bauhaus eminences Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius had been promoted in the United States during the 1930s by Philip Johnson and others. New building techniques, such as “post-and-beam” construction, allowed the International-style schemes to be realized on a small scale in open-plan houses with long walls of glass.
Materials developed for wartime use became available for domestic goods and were incorporated into mid-century modern furniture designs. Charles and Ray Eames and Eero Saarinen, who had experimented extensively with molded plywood, eagerly embraced fiberglass for pieces such as the La Chaise and the Womb chair, respectively.
Architect, writer and designer George Nelson created with his team shades for the Bubble lamp using a new translucent polymer skin and, as design director at Herman Miller, recruited the Eameses, Alexander Girard and others for projects at the legendary Michigan furniture manufacturer.
Harry Bertoia and Isamu Noguchi devised chairs and tables built of wire mesh and wire struts. Materials were repurposed too: The Danish-born designer Jens Risom created a line of chairs using surplus parachute straps for webbed seats and backrests.
The Risom lounge chair was among the first pieces of furniture commissioned and produced by legendary manufacturer Knoll, a chief influencer in the rise of modern design in the United States, thanks to the work of Florence Knoll, the pioneering architect and designer who made the firm a leader in its field. The seating that Knoll created for office spaces — as well as pieces designed by Florence initially for commercial clients — soon became desirable for the home.
As the demand for casual, uncluttered furnishings grew, more mid-century furniture designers caught the spirit.
Classically oriented creators such as Edward Wormley, house designer for Dunbar Inc., offered such pieces as the sinuous Listen to Me chaise; the British expatriate T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings switched gears, creating items such as the tiered, biomorphic Mesa table. There were Young Turks such as Paul McCobb, who designed holistic groups of sleek, blond wood furniture, and Milo Baughman, who espoused a West Coast aesthetic in minimalist teak dining tables and lushly upholstered chairs and sofas with angular steel frames.
As the collection of vintage mid-century modern chairs, dressers, coffee tables and other furniture for the living room, dining room, bedroom and elsewhere on 1stDibs demonstrates, this period saw one of the most delightful and dramatic flowerings of creativity in design history.
Finding the Right seating for You
With entire areas of our homes reserved for “sitting rooms,” the value of quality antique and vintage seating cannot be overstated.
Fortunately, the design of side chairs, armchairs and other lounge furniture — since what were, quite literally, the early perches of our ancestors — has evolved considerably.
Among the earliest standard seating furniture were stools. Egyptian stools, for example, designed for one person with no seat back, were x-shaped and typically folded to be tucked away. These rudimentary chairs informed the design of Greek and Roman stools, all of which were a long way from Sori Yanagi's Butterfly stool or Alvar Aalto's Stool 60. In the 18th century and earlier, seats with backs and armrests were largely reserved for high nobility.
The seating of today is more inclusive but the style and placement of chairs can still make a statement. Antique desk chairs and armchairs designed in the style of Louis XV, which eventually included painted furniture and were often made of rare woods, feature prominently curved legs as well as Chinese themes and varied ornaments. Much like the thrones of fairy tales and the regency, elegant lounges crafted in the Louis XV style convey wealth and prestige. In the kitchen, the dining chair placed at the head of the table is typically reserved for the head of the household or a revered guest.
Of course, with luxurious vintage or antique furnishings, every chair can seem like the best seat in the house. Whether your preference is stretching out on a plush sofa, such as the Serpentine, designed by Vladimir Kagan, or cozying up in a vintage wingback chair, there is likely to be a comfy classic or contemporary gem for you on 1stDibs.
With respect to the latest obsessions in design, cane seating has been cropping up everywhere, from sleek armchairs to lounge chairs, while bouclé fabric, a staple of modern furniture design, can be seen in mid-century modern, Scandinavian modern and Hollywood Regency furniture styles.
Admirers of the sophisticated craftsmanship and dark woods frequently associated with mid-century modern seating can find timeless furnishings in our expansive collection of lounge chairs, dining chairs and other items — whether they’re vintage editions or alluring official reproductions of iconic designs from the likes of Hans Wegner or from Charles and Ray Eames. Shop our inventory of Egg chairs, designed in 1958 by Arne Jacobsen, the Florence Knoll lounge chair and more.
No matter your style, the collection of unique chairs, sofas and other seating on 1stDibs is surely worthy of a standing ovation.