A Brutalist Gouge-Carved Free-Form Low Table, French, circa 1960–1970

A Brutalist Gouge-Carved Free-Form Low Table, French, circa 1960–1970

The thick free-form top with hand-gouged surface and irregular organic outline, raised on four splayed legs joined by an H-form stretcher. 

Catalogue note:

In the 1960s and 1970s a strand of European design turned away from the machined precision of post-war modernism towards furniture that wore the marks of its making. The term brutalist, borrowed loosely from the raw-concrete architecture of the same decades, came to describe pieces that celebrated mass, texture and visible handwork. Here the surface of the top has been worked all over with the gouge, leaving a rhythmic, faceted texture that catches the light, while the free-form outline rejects the right angle entirely. The splayed legs and H-stretcher keep the base deliberately simple, so that the sculpted slab reads as the focus. The approach recalls the hand-hewn work of French makers of the period, from the craft workshops of the Alps and Provence to the sculptural furniture associated with ateliers such as Les Mains d’Or.