Provenance: Acquired late 1930s by private collector, UK.

In designing the furniture for Isokon, Breuer not only translated the design of his steel and aluminium chairs into plywood, he also drew inspiration from one of his fellow architects, Finnish Alvar Aalto (1898–1976), whose comparable Paimio Chair was distributed in the UK by Finmar at the time. Short Chair was a beautiful and gracious translation of his 1932–33 aluminium lounge chair into the plywood icon the Short Chair would become. Breuer's plywood lounge chair came in a “Short” and “Long” version, though the shorter length of the Short Chair seemed to exaggerate the curves, making it even more organic than the Long Chair. The seat and back were moulded from a single piece of plywood, and the strength and elegance of the material give the impression of a “floating” seat, suspended in its frame. The plywood seat for the Short Chair was made in batches by the Estonian company Luterna, distributed by the British company Venesta. They were shipped to Britain in ply packing crates, which Isokon re-used to make the laminated wood frames. The frame was thus locally made in London, and then assembled with the pre-bent seat from Estonia. Originally the chair would have been used with a cushion made to order and customized to the buyer's preference. The cushion on this presented example is covered by the original upholstery, presumably designed by Marion Dorn (1896–1964), a contemporary textile designer residing in London from 1923–1940, who significantly contributed to British interiors throughout her career.