Phillips de Pury & Company is pleased to announce that Marc Newson’s seminal work, Lockheed Lounge, 1985 will be offered at Phillips de Pury & Company’s London Design sale on April 30.

Marc Newson’s Lockheed Lounge, LC1, 1985 will be offered with a pre-sale estimate of £500,000 – 700,000.

Made from a fiberglass core and riveted sheet aluminum, Lockheed Lounge was entirely hand-crafted by Marc Newson on the advent of his post-graduate career. The form belies the genesis of his contemporary design vocabulary – aerodynamic fluidity and seamlessness – which would later evolve with the use of computer software and state of the art production processes; the execution of the piece retains a hand-hewn and earthly touch.

At Sydney College of Arts, Marc Newson studied sculpture, jewelry and furniture design. In 1985, he graduated with the outlines of a plan: technical materials, futurism. Later that year he began shaping the Lockheed Lounge. His intention had been to cover its fiberglass core with a single sheet of aluminum: “I tried laminating it, but the thing fell apart…eventually, I came up with the idea of beating little pieces of metal into shape with a wooden mallet and attaching them with rivets.”

Since first riveting Lockheed Lounge for his 1986 exhibition at Roslyn Oxley Gallery in Sydney, Newson has returned continually to the hourglass shape as inspiration for much of his work: Pod Drawers, Embryos and Orgone Lounges. Airplanes, cars and surfboards are metaphors for Newson, their construction and materials a common point of departure, but the human torso is as fertile a seed for his imagination.

The few examples of this piece, which launched the career of one of today’s greatest designers, can be found in key museum collections including the Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, and the Powerhouse Museum Sydney, Australia as well as in important private collections. The example being offered is one of the earliest Lockheed Lounge being one of four artist proofs which preceded the edition of ten, and originally owned by the designer’s mother which since 1999 has been in a private collection. It was this piece that was loaned for use in Madonna’s video for the pop hit, Rain which went on to receive the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards that year for Best Art Direction.

Alexander Payne, Worldwide Director of Design: “We are extremely proud to offer this magnificent work by Marc Newson. The design is one of the most significant contributions to the quantum leap that design vocabulary has taken in the last 20 years and this example bears exceptional provenance. To offer this piece at this time creates a unique opportunity for buyers to acquire this most important work.”

Phillips de Pury & Company has continually driven the auction market for rare and important works by today’s most important designers and architects in its pioneering Design sales. The London Design sale in April will present this highly significant work by Marc Newson along with other pioneers in contemporary design including Atelier van Lieshout, Maarten Baas, Jeroen Verhoeven, Ron Arad and Zaha Hadid.