Launching Wednesday, March 23, up-and-coming Emma Scully Gallery will present a very special show in the name of visionary British designer Jane Atfield in tandem with the 30th anniversary of her revolutionary RCP2 chair – one of the first pieces of design made exclusively from recycled plastics.
Jane Atfield’s pioneering work in sustainability and ecologically conscious design began during her time studying furniture design at the Royal College of Art (RCA). There, she came across a small sample of Missouri-based manufacturers Yemm & Hart’s recycled, high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic board sheets. Jane commissioned Yemm & Hart to produce a prototype, shown at her RCA graduation in 1992. After the RCP2 Chair’s successful debut, Atfield founded MADE OF WASTE, where she produced and designed new works from recycled plastic sheets.
This series of re-editioned chairs presented by Emma Scully Gallery and produced in collaboration with Yemm & Hart are in honor of the first RCP2 Chair. Three colors have been manufactured: a replica of Jane and Stephen Yemm’s first multicolored prototype, a blue MADE OF WASTE edition (in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, The Design Museum London, and the British Crafts Council,) and a new, never before created black and white. Also on view is an original Atfield-designed table, produced for the first time for this exhibition.
| Hours | Tuesday to Saturday: 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM |
| Venue | Emma Scully Gallery |
| Type | Design Exhibition |
| Duration | 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM |
| City | New York City |
About
Emma Scully Gallery
Emma Scully Gallery champions cutting edge contemporary collectible design. Located in a 19th Century townhouse on the Upper East Side, we present challenging work in a rich historic context. We represent and support the work of groundbreaking living artists, designers, and craftspeople. Critical to the gallery’s mission is the exhibition program where new work is commissioned around conceptual themes. This intellectual backbone of our collection, resulting from years of exhibition, is the question of how to deal with the challenges of creating for the today’s material society: the landscape of superabundance, the ecological cost of overproduction and the shift from the physical to the digital world. In promoting equity the gallery recognizes the need to facilitate production in order to support the broadest range of talent in the design community. The gallery therefore acts as manufacturer for a portion of the collection work.
