Exhibition Review: Simple Furniture and All That: Gerald Summers and the 1930s Plywood Renaissance in London

Yep, I am posting this after the exhibition has finished... 

R & Company’s new exhibition quietly illustrates the lasting appeal of simplicity

January 24 - April 11, 2025

R & Company, New York

Photograph: my own

Coinciding with the release of the highly anticipated 2024 publication Gerald Summers & Marjorie Butcher: Makers of Simple Furniture, 1931-1940, by design historian and leading scholar on the subject, Martha Deese, this exhibition offers a timely exploration of the designs discussed in the book, alongside works by Breuer - the introductory wall text pithily asserting that “there were nearly as many threads connecting Summers with Breuer as the seven sheets of plywood which formed his iconic and organic bent plywood armchair.”

Presented against a gentle backdrop of forest green walls, Summers' armchair sits elevated on a raised platform, along with three other plywood creations: a towel horse, a chaise longue and a stackable dining chair. In the middle of the space, a cocktail bar designed by Summers stands on its own green plinth, accessorized with a martini glass and a few, unfortunately empty, liquor bottles. Indeed, the threads connecting the designers’ work are clear to see even from initial glance – the shared celebration of plywood’s beauty and practicality, through the creation of radical new forms suited to modern ways of living.

Though we may associate plywood with modernity, its history dates back to 2600BC with its origins in ancient Egypt and China, where the use of laminated timber has been found in objects such as jewellery boxes and coffins. It was during the 1850s that plywood started to become used on an industrial scale, when John Henry Belter, a cabinet maker based in New York, patented a technique for moulding furniture which increased the speed of manufacture and reduced the cost of production. From the 1920s, modernist and avant-garde designers used plywood to explore new forms, and throughout the 1930s, Alvar Aalto, Charles Ray Eames, Gerald Summers and Marcel Breuer each designed plywood furniture pieces intended for manufacture, symbolizing the machine age.

Chair, ca. 1860, by John Henry Belter. Moulded rosewood-faced plywood back, solid rosewood and oak frame. Image: © V&A

The exhibition presents a modest selection, featuring three pieces by Summers and two by Breuer. This makes it small in comparison to more expansive shows of the past that have similarly explored themes of plywood and modernism. Several of recent significance include MoMA’s Plywood: Material, Process, Form, from 2011-13, the V&A’s 2017 exhibition Plywood: Material of the Modern World and R & Company’s very own Bend It Like Breuer: Modern Plywood of the 20th Century, in 2019. Considering the extensive exhibition history, this current show does not necessarily break new ground, nor does it set out to. Instead, it places these historical furniture pieces within a commercial gallery context, where many would have first encountered them, reminding us of the setting in which these designs became part of the wider public consciousness. 

As the title suggests, the exhibition shines a spotlight on the London avant-garde that briefly flourished until the outbreak of the Second World War. At the time, the three most innovative companies producing plywood furniture were Makers of Simple Furniture, by Gerald Summers and Marjorie Butcher, Isokon, by Jack Pritchard, and Heal’s, a large firm of furniture dealers. During his time in London, Breuer designed pieces for the latter two. The exhibition features pieces from all three companies, providing a compact but inclusive overview of the creative output in London during these years. 

Armchair in cut and bent birch-laminated plywood. Designed by Gerald Summers for Makers of Simple Furniture, 1934. Photograph: from R & Company

Summers’ Bent Plywood Armchair (1934-39) is the most iconic of his furniture pieces and the only product by Makers of Simple Furniture known to have been sold in the United States. Its inclusion in this New York gallery show, where it is once again for sale, therefore seems particularly fitting. What made this armchair most remarkable, and still does, is that it was made from a single sheet of plywood with no joints. Epitomizing sleek, simple and modern design, the armchair was always on display in Gerald and Marjorie’s London shop, just as it is this exhibition, positioned in the window to be noticed by passers-by. 

Chaise Longue in cut out plywood with leather upholstered seat. Designed by Marcel Breuer for Heal's, 1936-39. Photograph: my own

Stepping into the gallery, what first catches the eye due to its bold red leather upholstering is Breuer’s Chaise Longue (1936-39) manufactured and retailed by Heal’s. Facing diagonally towards Summers’ armchair, the curved shape of the armrests mirrors the curves of Summers’ design, helping the eye draw connections between the two forms. Breuer’s Chaise Longue appears quite a bulky construction and is an indicator of the direction towards which his designs were heading – toward free-form cutout-plywood constructions that seemed to have little to do with his earlier furniture.

The exhibition also features an example of a less successful plywood product. Breuer designed several iterations of the stackable dining room chair, Model BC3, for Isokon, but struggled to resolve some key issues with its construction.  The Chair suffered from a lack of stability and the back brace was not strong enough to support the back. On display in the show is the second version, which went into production in late 1936. This version was far more complex, but only a little less problematic. Requiring nine pieces along with many glued and bolted joints, it lacked the structural and visual continuity characteristic of Breuer’s designs. 

Early dining chair in walnut and birch plywood. Designed by Marcel Breuer and manufactured by Isokon, 1936. Photograph: R & Company

For those already with some knowledge on the topic, the current show provides an interesting comparison between two of its pieces: Summers’ armchair – an example of successful modern design, and Breuer’s BC3, which largely failed in concept and function. It certainly reminds us that good designers are occasionally capable of producing a not-so-good product. The exhibition would have benefited from providing more contextual background, as the wall text and object labels offer little in terms of information or explanation. However, given the commercial gallery setting, it is understandable that it refrains from delving into the kind of in-depth analysis typically found in a museum context.

The exhibition manages to encapsulate a moment during the inter-war years in a way that feels suspended in time, possibly owing to the fact that none of the pieces on display are still in production. This sets it apart from the other exhibitions mentioned, which displayed pieces from a broader timespan, some of which we still encounter in our everyday lives – think Charles Eames’s LCW Chair, or Alvar Aalto’s ubiquitous Stool 60. The onset of war impacted the British furniture industry greatly, as it relied heavily on imported woods, which became virtually unobtainable. For small businesses, this all but guaranteed the end, and by 1940, Makers of Simple Furniture and Isokon had closed. 

Eames LCW Chair, upholstered. Designed by Charles Eames, 1946. Manufactured by Herman Miller. Image: from Herman Miller website

Stool 60. Designed by Alvar Aalto, 1933. Image: from Alvar Aalto website

Beyond the exhibition area, demarcated by a forest green partition wall, the space opens up into the main gallery, where reception desk and other furniture items for purchase are displayed. These items are grouped carefully on the floorspace – a sofa, chair and coffee table are arranged on a carpet as if it were the inside of a private living room. The layout allows you to walk around the furniture pieces and engage with them closely, emphasizing the contrast between this area and the exhibition itself. Here, the furniture feels accessible. Within the exhibition, the pieces are treated more like artifacts, elevated on a platform that removes them from their intended function in a domestic space. 

Situated inside a commercial gallery, the show nonetheless reveals how these plywood furniture pieces are not relics of the past, but part of an ongoing dialogue about the relationship between function and aesthetics in design, particularly in domestic spaces. Walking back through the exhibition, having browsed the main gallery floor, what becomes strikingly clear is how innovative the plywood pieces still appear today.

“Simple Furniture and All That: Gerald Summers and the 1930s Plywood Renaissance in London” is on view at R & Company until April 11th 2025.

Sources:

Deese, Martha. Gerald Summers & Marjorie Butcher: Makers of Simple Furniture, 1931–1940. Hatje Cantz, 2025

MoMA, Plywood: Material, Process, Form. MoMA online: https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1119

R & Company, Bend It Like Breuer: Modern Plywood of the 20th Century. R & company online: https://r-and-company.com/exhibition/bend-it-like-breuer/ 

R & Company, Simple Furniture and All That: Gerald Summers and the 1930s Plywood Renaissance in London. R & Company online: https://r-and-company.com/exhibition/simple-furniture-and-all-that-gerald-summers-and-the-1930s-plywood-renaissance-in-london/ 

V&A, A short history of plywood in ten-ish objects. V&A online: https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/a-history-of-plywood-in-ten-objects 

V&A, Inside the Plywood: Material of the Modern World exhibition. V&A online: https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/inside-the-plywood-material-of-the-modern-world-exhibition?srsltid=AfmBOorbG0AK0BWYd9cGRqKaslfsH1Jl5Z60euvQo8-yHREbq49l539_

Wainwright, Oliver. Beneath the veneer: our unbending fascination with plywood. 12 July 2017, The Guardian online: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/jul/12/plywood-material-of-the-modern-world-va 

Wilk, Christopher. Marcel Breuer, furniture and interiors. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1981: 126-136