Armchair c. 1936

Curator: Here we have Nicholas Gorid’s "Armchair," created around 1936. It’s a drawing featuring geometric and line-based decorative art elements. My first thought? This armchair is a throne for introverts! Editor: Ah, that's interesting. The drawing strikes me as simultaneously luxurious and stark. The neoclassical urn detail, centered and framed so formally, almost feels like a stage for solitary contemplation. Does this drawing give any insights into the rise of private domestic space? Curator: Absolutely. Designs like this reflected changing social values around privacy and personal comfort. Furniture becomes more than just functional—it's a stage for expressing identity within the confines of the home. The piece also evokes earlier empires while also reflecting contemporary trends in streamlining. Consider who would purchase a piece like this and how wealth would inform taste and function. Editor: And isn't it interesting how the floral motifs of the urn collide with the hard angles of the arm design to the right. The floral one is all baroque movement, and the other looks machine-stamped. Maybe there's tension between handmade craftsmanship and industrialization there? Curator: Yes, precisely. That interplay between the organic and geometric underscores a broader social debate of the era: What does “progress” look like and who benefits from it? It is this tension, the blending of classical motifs with geometric elements that defines art deco. And the floral aspects do not necessarily escape these categorizations of streamlining, they just adopt them using traditional methods of woodcarving. Editor: Well, looking at this as an artist, that stark linework and repetition have a weird calming effect. If that chair existed I bet you could think about some hard topics while sitting on it, you know? The piece uses clean lines in a time of massive anxiety. I feel that. Curator: It's almost as if Gorid captured a yearning for stability and order amidst social and economic uncertainties, so your reading seems apt. I like your view about that capacity for solace that it could potentially offer as well, there is room for personal connection. Editor: This has given me such good imagery; I think I know where I will be mentally later while I am stuck in my easy chair, trying to de-stress. Curator: I will walk away pondering more how the rise of consumerism and the anxieties around modernity shaped even the most seemingly mundane objects, the Armchair.