R & Company is pleased to announce participation as a lender to the exhibition, “Sergio Rodrigues,” to be held in summer 2018 at Itaú Cultural, São Paulo, an institute dedicated to research and education inspired by the sensitivity and creativity in the world of Brazilian art and culture.
On loan to the exhibition is a unique, commissioned version of Sergio Rodrigues’ iconic “Poltrona Sheriff” Lounge Chair, designed in 1961. The present example was specially commissioned by Soraia Cals in 1999, and was handmade by Rodrigues to be featured on the cover of the monograph Sergio Rodrigues edited by Cals (Icatu, 2000).
The roots of Rodrigues’ work lie in his use of traditional raw materials such as jacaranda, peroba, and imbuia to create icons of Brazilian taste, value, and identity. The “Sheriff” Chair is a closely related variant of the award-winning Sofá Mole (Soft Sofa) of 1957, which took the first prize at the IV Concorso Internazionale del Mobile in Cantù, Italy in 1961. Shortly thereafter, ISA of Bergamo, Italy, acquired the rights to reproduce “Poltrona Mole 2,” and the company changed the name to “Poltrona Sheriff.”
This dynamic design combines the richness and warmth of Brazilian hardwood with supple light brown leather, achieving a form that is both comfortable and strong. Rodrigues’ design, often viewed as a direct response in contrast to the rigidity of European Modernism and the International style, is an embodiment of Brazil’s vibrant and progressive movements in architecture and design of the 1960s.
“You don’t sit the chair– you recline in it, you lay back in it, you stretch out in it.”
-Soraia Cals, ed. Sergio Rodrigues, Rio de Janeiro: Icatu, 2000: 137.