One of the new wave of Australian designers to emerge in the immediate post-war years, Grant Featherston (1922-1995) designed his first chair in 1947. In the early 1950s he developed the now famous 'Contour' range of chairs. First launched in 1951, the 'Contour' was an immediate success, its innovative plywood shell formed using a process that Featherston developed himself in the absence of suitable plywood bending technology locally. In 1957 Featherston was appointed consultant designer to Aristoc Industries, a Melbourne manufacturer of metal furniture. This highly fruitful collaboration resulted in the production of a variety of chairs including the 'Mitzi' (1957), 'Scape' (1960), the 'Expo 67 talking chair' and the 'Stem' chair of 1969.

In 1966 Featherston formed a partnership with his wife Mary Featherston (nee Curry, born England 1943), an interior designer who had studied at RMIT. Their 'Expo 67' chair, with its polystyrene shell, was only the beginning of a run of chairs that, in the spirit of the times, explored the limitless possibilities of plastics in the creation of innovative seating forms:

' ... the integrated one-piece plastic chair [represented] ... the pinnacle of the furniture designer's aspirations. Plastics and moulding technology expresses the synergetic challenge most eloquently. No other material so inherently speaks of body and process, offering a 'negative' of the human body.'
(Grant Featherston, 'Design reflections', In Future, no 4, Feb-March 1987. Quoted in Terence Lane, Featherston Chairs, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1988, p12)

The rotation-moulded, polyethylene 'Stem' chair took 18 months to reach production stage and was one of the most technologically sophisticated chairs ever made in Australia. It, and other innovative designs by the Featherstons helped expand the technological capabilities of local furniture manufacturers at a time when there viability was constantly under threat from foreign imports.

The Featherstons' efforts to keep the local industry competitive while supplying the market with chairs that were technologically and stylistically equal to overseas examples resulted in an important body of work that has significantly enriched Australia's design history.

Designed by Grant Featherston, as part of the Contour series, 1951-1955. Patent application for the R.152 lodged in May 1951.

Marks on underside state that the chair was manufactured by Grant Featherston, 1 Alfred Plaza, South Melbourne.

Purchased by the owner from Georges Ltd, in Melbourne, in the early 1950s.

Chair, R152 Contour Chair, plywood / fibre horsehair / wadding / rubber / hardwood / calf skin, designed and manufactured by Grant Featherston, Melbourne, c. 1951

Wooden cruciform base with four tapered legs. Body contoured with concave shape to seat and back. Upholstered in brown and white calf skin.

Designed: Featherston, Grant; Melbourne, Victoria

Made: Featherston, Grant; Melbourne, Victoria; 1951


Owned: Georges Ltd; Melbourne, Victoria

Marked on underside of chair, 'This chair has a contour frame of flexible plywood resilient upholstering of latex rubber illuminized hair hair / fibre wadding star buttoned cover / contemporary furniture designed and manufactured by / Grant Featherston / 1 Alfred Plaza / South Melbourne'.

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890 mm

570 mm

700 mm