Charles Hollis Jones

CHARLES HOLLIS JONES (USA, 1945).
Gueridon, ca. 1970's.
In methacrylate and metal.
Measurements: 56,5 x 50 x 50 cm.

Gueridon in methacrylate and golden metal, designed by the American Charles Hollis Jones, an artist who became famous conceiving translucent furniture like the one we show. The combination of an elegant design of historicist inspiration but refined in lines harmonizes with the play of transparencies granted by the polymethylmethacrylate.

California-based furniture designer and artist Charles Hollis Jones made his reputation - and contributed to a lasting legacy for a material one might not immediately consider intellectual - with chairs, tables and other furniture made of the substance known scientifically as polymethylmethacrylate. But while the common thread in Jones' work is the presence of translucent materials, his designs are anything but drab. The son of an Indiana carpenter, Jones has always been fascinated by structures and reinventing the expected in new ways. He began working with furniture makers while still a teenager and rose to fame in the 1960s and '70s, researching and experimenting with techniques for shaping acrylic into unconventional forms. "If I design a T-A-B-B-L-E without thinking about the name, then I can pretend I've never seen one," he told PIN-UP magazine . His design combinations range from Lucite, brass and glass in elegant dining tables to more unusual Lucite applications such as legs for upholstered sofas and frames for Tibetan leather chairs.

Jones' work is as varied as his client list, which includes Frank Sinatra, Sylvester Stallone and the Kardashian's. For Tennessee Williams he created a writing chair called the Wisteria chair. Jones also collaborated several times with modernist architect John Lautner, designing furniture that seemed to disappear into its surroundings.