All Photos By Gail

Valuing geometric simplicity and economy of means, Lina Bo Bardi (1914 – 1992) designed the Poltona Bowl Chair with a steel frame and stackable seat containing two circular cushions.

The shell on the metal ring can be adjusted in all directions to suit the position of the sitter. Bo Bardi, who emigrated from Italy to Brazil in 1946, played a lead role in advancing modernist architecture and design in postwar Brazil. Among the landmark buildings she designed was her Sao Paulo home, the Glass House (Casa de Vidro) which she furnished with Poltrona Bowl Chairs.

Photographed in the Museum of Modern Art in NYC, where it is on display for the first time as part of the exhibit, Making Space: Women Artists and Postwar Abstraction, on view through August 13th, 2017.