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Henry P. Glass – Chairs – Bridge Set
See also: Kling Studios • Lamps • Radios
Glass Biography • Elly & Henry Documentary
 Click on image to view larger version | DH 1 Chair This 1966 rendering is unusual for an industrial designer. While obviously demonstrating to the potential client four variations of the same chair design [upholstered, bare wood, or showing two versions of the headrest], what’s unique to this presentation is that the four variations are “Exacto” knife cut-outs of Prismacolor on paper perspectives collaged on black paper. As such, they slightly stand out no thicker than the mat with minute shadows under each perspective. Though Glass used this rendering technique through the late 1960s and early 1970s, its fragile nature guarantees this work was never duplicated. The original chair designs were kept in the Glass files and in 2001 sold to the ArchiTech Gallery collection. Henry P. Glass design |
 Click on image to view larger version | Design For A Folding Chair More diagrammatic than the other works in this show, this primarily lineprint design has a unique purple hand coloring for the seat and back and Glass’s full ink signature under his Northfield stamp. Titled and dated to the month, this plan, section, elevation, and perspective shows in one sheet the entire vocabulary of an industrial design. The original chair designs were kept in the Glass files and in 2001 sold to the ArchiTech Gallery collection. Henry P. Glass |
 Click on image to view larger version | Kenmar-Glass Lounger Though Glass patented a belt driven recliner for Kenmar a year later, this design for them specifies the decorative brass buttons down the back mimicking the hinge along the side of the arm. While the arm itself seemed to conceal the belt that drove the reclining back and upward moving footrest, the idea may have been too complicated for what eventually was marketed as the “Omega Chair” the following year. But what is apparent is the long design process he sometimes used for a new idea and how long the client would stay with it. The original chair designs were kept in the Glass files and in 2001 sold to the ArchiTech Gallery collection. Henry P. Glass [Associates] |
 Click on image to view larger version | Reclining Chair While this is a 1948 lineprint produced in the studio, two things stand out: 1] Glass drew the blue stretch fabric, orange webbing straps, and metallic chrome tinting on the tube frame and 2] it shows he was still reinventing his earlier designed combination back and footrest first committed to paper in 1940 and with this 1948 design, ten years before he had been granted its patent. With “House” written in in ink on the bottom-right space for “Client,” he was designing the chair for himself as there was no client named and, with its description with exclamation point written at the top, he clearly hoped there would be one to read it. The original chair designs were kept in the Glass files and in 2001 sold to the ArchiTech Gallery collection. Henry P. Glass |
 Click on image to view larger version | The Mantis This 2001 design in graphite and colored pencil was a variation of Glass’s famous 1976 “Cricket” for the Brown Jordan Company and a 1986 wooden version. Created for me during the gallery exhibition, “The Perfect Chair,” it utilizes the same narrow webbed straps for the folding metal frame but slightly reconfigures them to fall frontward to the ground to form an approximation of front legs as in the wooden design. To cradle the lounger’s head a bit higher, the back frame is elongated and notched for the straps to rest as in the Cricket. As in the Brown Jordan version, The Mantis was designed to fold to less than an inch deep. The original chair designs were kept in the Glass files and in 2001 sold to the ArchiTech Gallery collection while this drawing was a gift at that time. Henry P. Glass |
 Click on image to view larger version | Thonet Industries Chairs This jewel-like drawing of two bentwood lounge chairs has the 360 Central Park West [New York] address which dates it to 1940-41. The stylistic language tells us it was most likely designed for Chicago’s Thonet Industries as Glass was known to design for them on his working trips then. This is the earliest known use of his belt system connecting an elevating footrest to a reclining back. Here, utilizing a strap work pulley of arm webbing, the two versions anticipate his 1958 “Omega” Chair for Kenmar. Here, Glass has also invented a new type of industrial design rendering in that the literal perspectives show two versions of a lounger but whose orange canvas is figuratively cut away on each to showcase the structure. The original chair designs were kept in the Glass files and in 2001 sold to the ArchiTech Gallery collection. Henry P. Glass |
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