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Peter Shire: Chairs
Since the 1970s, Peter Shire (b. 1947) has been working at an intersection where craft, fine art, and industrial design collide. He has built his career drawing freely from each area and combining traditions with mischievous invention. Shire’s chairs are colorful, bold, playful and innovative. Part artist, part architect, and part designer, Shire continues the tradition of avant-garde design, working at the fringes of mainstream industry. His fanciful chairs connect popular culture, early aeronautics and classic modernism. Based on the notorious Memphis group aesthetic, the international design movement that came out of Italy in the 1980s, Shire’s often humorous work demonstrates a thorough knowledge of materials and design history.
Playing with the common elements of domestic life comes naturally to Peter Shire. Shire’s early teapots attracted the eye of Ettore Sottsass (1917–2007), one of the founders of Memphis. He found Shire’s teapots “fresh, witty, and full of information for the future,” and fellow members of Memphis agreed. The group, which sought to revitalize design with its bold, colorful, and novel approach to product design, invited Shire to Milan to work with them. This led to a series of projects exploring the intersections of industrial design and fine art, and gave Shire the opportunity to work in glass, metal and other new medium
Since the Memphis years, Shire’s work has continued to expand. Drawing inspiration from the ever-changing city of Los Angeles and his Echo Park neighborhood, he continues to design and construct furniture and sculpture, while also branching out into large-scale public works, drawings, and paintings. Shire has completed numerous commissions for public spaces and private buildings across California.
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