Photograph courtesy of the Robin and Lucienne Day Foundation
Robin and Lucienne Day: an auction at twentytwentyone
Design retailer twentytwentyone has worked closely with the Robin and Lucienne Day Foundation for over a year on the At Home with the Days exhibition, to take place during London Design Festival. But this is no ordinary exhibition, oh no, this exhibition coincides with a five-day auction where you can bid for your very own piece of British design history. All 93 exhibits are up for grabs and the proceeds will go to fund the work of the Robin and Lucienne Day Foundation. The project has a deep personal agenda at its heart: the selling exhibition was conceived by Paula Day, the daughter of the late Robin and Lucienne no less, and well-regarded design retailer twentytwentyone. This was no coincidence; there is a history between the Days and twentytwentyone. Simon Alderson, co-founder of twentytwentyone, had developed a close working relationship with the couple – in 1999, Robin Day designed the ‘Avian’ armchair and sofa range specifically for the store. He also gave twentytwentyone the rights to produce and sell his classic 1952 Reclining Chair. Twentytwentyone also became the official retailer of Lucienne Day fabrics, partnering with Glasgow School of Art, who digitally reproduced the popular 1950s patterns. The store also gained the sole license to reproduce her tea towel designs, which have been on sale there since 2006.
Photograph courtesy of the Robin and Lucienne Day Foundation
Robin and Lucienne Day: memories from the mid century
Here at MidCentury, we were keen to find out a bit more about the auction (after all, this kind of thing doesn’t every day!), so we caught up with the daughter of Robin and Lucienne, Paula Day, who shared some childhood memories of her parents and gave us the heads up on some of the items we can expect to see at the auction. 
Can you tell us a bit about some of the pieces in the auction?
There are some unique Robin Day furniture pieces from my parents’ homes. In fact much of the furniture from their legendary Cheyne Walk living room is in the sale, including the handsome Hille dining table and upholstered polypropylene dining chairs, the glass shelving units custom-made to hold my parents’ collection of unusual objects, and the one-off transparent coffee table that stood at the heart of the open sitting area. There is also the prototype for the ‘Leo’ easy chair, which my father used in his bedroom at their weekend cottage, and a lovely lightweight elm dining table that he designed as a one-off piece for the kitchen in their later Chichester home. From my mother’s oeuvre, there’s some rare Lucienne Day Rosenthal china, which I found hidden away at the back of a kitchen cupboard. I love the graceful ‘Four Seasons’ designs, and the exquisitely drawn lines of ‘Columbine’. The silk mosaics on offer include a very early piece that I found stowed away in a sideboard in my parents’ house in Chichester. The squares are larger than those in my mother’s later work, and I’m certain it was an experimental piece she made herself. 
All product photographs courtesy of twentytwentyone
Are there any items you’ll be particularly sorry to see go?
I like nearly everything, but of course I don’t have enough space in my own home to keep it all. For example, I considered taking on the extensive set of Kay Bojesen ‘Grand Prix’ stainless steel cutlery, which my parents bought in the early 1950s, a few years before I was born, and used every day right up to their deaths in 2010. And I really like the Arabia ‘Ruska’ dinner set, which they bought when it was first produced in the 1960s for their weekend cottage. There’s a great deal of classic Scandinavian kitchenware too, such as the Arne Jacobsen Cylinda Line stainless steel gravy pourers, and the Quistgaard enamel fondue set. 
What is your strongest memory associated with any one item in the sale?
The pair of black and white ‘Magnetic’ fabric curtains dating from 1957, the year she created this fabulous design, which hung at the French windows opening onto my mother’s terrace garden at Cheyne Walk. She would have made them herself and they were there as far back as I can remember. When my parents moved to Chichester in 1999, they were cut down to make curtains for my father’s room. My parents clearly continued to like the design, and saw no reason to replace them despite all the changes of fashion that occurred during the half century in which they were used. The lovely irony is that this design is now once again the height of fashion! 
What is your favourite design from the Day combined portfolio?
Actually the things that mean most to me are those they made by hand themselves, such as my own elm dining table, and some very early silk mosaics depicting spring and summer trees. I’ve kept nearly all of their own handiwork, but there are some things I couldn’t find room for. For example my father designed and made a series of three practical wooden trays, and one of these is in the sale. 
How aware were you of the significance of your parents as designers when you were growing up?
Of course I was told that my parents were famous designers. From my point of view as a child, I just knew they spent all day in the studio doing very important work, so I could only creep in quietly, usually to my mother’s side of the room, though occasionally my father would beckon me over and draw a little cartoon on the edge of his drawing board. Their actual designs were just part of normal life. I had her wallpaper swatches and his coloured plastic samples to play with. 
Do you remember meeting any other ‘great’ Modern designers as a child?
My parents were very private people, and their close friends were those who shared their love of nature and the outdoors, particularly my father’s mountaineering friends. The celebrated Finnish designer Tapio Wirkkala and his artist wife Rut Bryk were rare kindred spirits in the design fraternity. In the early 1970s we spent a wonderful holiday with them in their remote log cabin in Finnish Lapland. Set alongside a lake, it was only accessible by water. After a wood-fired sauna we would run outside and jump in the lake to cool off! Tapio Wirkkala was a great bear of a man and Rut Bryk was small and soft-spoken. My parents loved the sensitivity and organic qualities of their work and treasured their gifts. There are a number of Tapio Wirkkala pieces in the sale.
Photograph courtesy of the Robin and Lucienne Day Foundation
The Robin and Lucienne Day Foundation
I asked Paula about how the Robin and Lucienne Day Foundation came into being. “Soon after my parents died, I discovered that various companies had already moved in to exploit their names by selling debased versions of their designs. I had never expected to be responsible for their design legacies, but I was not prepared to allow their life’s work to be treated like that. So I set up the Foundation to help look after their work. For me it’s a very personal commitment. I cared for my parents in their last years, and since they died I have seen it as my job to care for their work.”
And a worthy cause it certainly is. The Foundation states that among its aims it strives to promote knowledge, appreciation and understanding of the nation’s design heritage, to encourage provision of public access to the design legacies of the Days, and to provide educational opportunities in a form true to the democratic spirits of Robin and Lucienne Day. Paula explains, “The Foundation is an educational charity. One of our objectives is to spread knowledge about the work of Robin and Lucienne Day, so that people can be inspired by it. We collaborate with design writers and journalists, museum curators and academics, and responsible people in the design industry who want to develop authentic new productions of the original designs.”
The Foundation also hopes to provide funding for specific design projects. Paula says, “If we had a motto I think it would be ‘Great Design for the Future’; our mission is to maintain my parents’ great designs into the future, and to help educate great future designers”. The money raised from the auction will first be used for the digitalisation of the Day archive.
Useful Links
Click here for details of At Home with the Days selling exhibition and to register for the auction Read more about Lucienne Day’s silk mosaics in Walls of Silk: A Lucienne less known in MidCentury issue 07 For information on the Robin and Lucienne Day Foundation, click here For the full range of licensed Robin Day products, including ‘Avian’ seating and the Reclining Chair, see here To view the collection of Lucienne Day tea towel and fabrics, go to here Paula Day will take part in panel discussion Design: Managing the Legacy as part of London Design Festival. The Design Museum will be showing items from Robin Day’s Chichester studio shed as part of their ‘Collections Lab’, with a recording of Paula and his draughtsman John Simmons talking about the way he worked. We feature a stunning interior fitted with custom-made Robin Day furniture in Hille: A Bespoke Modernist Home from 1968 plus there’s an interview with Simon Martin, who knew the Days, in Curator’s Choice published in MidCentury Issue 01 If you fancy a chuckier read, check out Lucienne Day: In the Spirit of an Age