In the Style of Pedro Friedeberg (Born 1936) Mexican, Wooden Hand Chair Sculpture. Richly dark polished and carved wood. A miniature version of the iconic design first created by the artist in the 1960s. NOTE: Not for sitting on, it's too small. Please see size. 

Condition: Signs of repair. 

Size: 13 x 15 x 21 in. 

Pedro Friedeberg was born on January 11th, 1936 in Florence, Italy to German-Jewish parents. His parents escaped from Europe at the beginning of World War II, arriving in Mexico when he was three years old. Upon learning of the Holocaust he disavowed his German heritage, and was not raised Jewish but rather atheist. He was made to learn violin and speak several languages, and frequently ran away from home, exploring art, philosophy, and religion with various elders in his community. After becoming captivated by the Renaissance architecture of European-style churches in the New World he began sketching and later painting them, and was particularly inspired by the works of Canaletto, Piranesi, and modernists like M. C. Escher. He studied for a while in Boston and then entered the Universidad Iberoamericana in 1957 to focus on architecture. After three years he quit, as his professors favored symmetrical architecture such as that of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and his own designs tended to emulate Antoni Gaudí, which earned him failing grades. In his third year, however, he met the artist Mathias Goeritz, who encouraged him to pursue art and hired him to be his secretary, introducing him to many others and involving him with multiple artistic projects. His first solo exhibition took place in 1960 at the Galería Diana. This led him to meet surrealist artists such as Leonora Carrington and Alice Rahon and become a member of Los Hartos (The Fed-Up) in 1961. This group was based on Dadaist principles: the creation of anti-art for art’s sake, rejecting political and social painting. He aspired to ridicule or satirize “isms” in art, and developed a lifelong reputation for eccentricity similar to Salvador Dali. Friedeberg created murals for institutions in Mexico and abroad, illustrated books and book covers, created furniture and set designs, and continues to paint to this day. His furniture designs were fantastical and rejected the then-dominant austere international style of architecture in the 1960s, and he is best known for his “hand-chair” that was first created in 1962 and has since been copied by hundreds of other designers and companies. In the 1960s he had sixteen exhibitions in Mexico, France, New York City, Portugal, and the Pan American Union in Washington, D.C. in 1963. In the 1970s he had nineteen exhibitions in various cities in Mexico and the United States, as well as in Barcelona, Haifa (Israel), and Canada. Since the 1980s he has almost exclusively exhibited in Mexico, particularly since his marriage to his fourth wife, Carmen Gutierrez, with whom he has two children, Diana and David. He has been quoted as saying the experience changed his life, forcing him to stop traveling and drinking constantly. Awards include the Córdoba Argentina Biennale in 1966 (2nd prize), the Solar Exhibition in Mexico City in 1967 (1st prize), the Argentina Engraving Triennale in Buenos Aires in 1979, the XI Biennale of Graphic Works in Tokyo (Special Award) in 1984, and he was named an “Artistic Creator” by the National System of Mexican and Foreign Creators in 1993. His works can be found in the permanent collections of the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Musée du Louvre in Paris, and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. He lives in Mexico City, and continues to create as well as occasionally lecture on the nature of industrial art, Op Art, and the process of crafting art for art’s sake, considered one of the greatest living surrealists of his time.

Signs of repair.