Chairs on Paper

Chair love runs deep among designers and design aficionados. In posters featuring iconic chairs, poster designers offer their own two-dimensional celebrations of these beloved objects.

  • Featured

    Ralph Schraivogel
    Henry van de Velde, Museum für Gestaltung Zürich
    1993

  • Werner Jeker
    Sièges en vedette, Design de 1972 à 1993, Musée des arts décoratifs, Lausanne
    1994

  • Sold

    Sebastian Fehr
    Jasper Morrison, Thingness
    2016

  • Sold

    Tapani Aartomaa
    Alnus Poster
    2023

    • Chairs feature prominently in the history of modern design. Industrial designers and architects love to try their hand at this compact expression of form and function, and some chair designs have achieved iconic status in the design cannon.

    Poster designers, in turn, find innovative ways to represent chairs in two-dimensions – abstracting their form or integrating the chair design into a larger composition.

  • Werner Jeker
    Schweizer Möbel-design, Museum für Gestaltung Zürich
    1986

  • Sold

    Designer unknown
    Thonet Bauhaus
    ca. 1987

  • Sold

    Designer unknown
    Artek, Alvar Aalto
    1991

  • TSTO
    Artek 80
    2015

    • Posters featuring chairs serve as advertisements for the products themselves and celebrations of their designers. Chair exhibitions, a popular offering at design museums, provide another opportunity for poster designers to translate the form of the chair to a flat paper medium.

  • Greige
    Artek, Stool 60
    2013

  • Greige
    Artek, 10-Unit System
    2013

  • Greige
    Artek, Kiki Lounge Chair
    2013

  • Greige
    Artek, Paimio
    2013

  • Gielijn Escher
    Tribute to Jan Bons, 90 Affiches (Zig Zag), Kunsthal Rotterdam
    2008

  • Featured
    Sold

    Jan Bons
    Rietveld, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
    1959