Sit Down! Chairs from Six Centuries (21 October, 2010–16 January, 2011) at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine, celebrates one of the most useful objects found wherever people gather. Sit Down! considers broad stylistic trends in European and American furniture from 1470 to the present, including Gothic, rococo, neoclassical, the revivals and reforms of the nineteenth century, and the American studio movement of the twentieth century. The exhibition examines the evolution of style, the nature of technological innovation, and the social meaning of seating furniture. Works on display are from the museum’s collection, with important loans of works by Samuel Gragg, Gustave Herter, Josef Hoffmann, Marcel Breuer, and Robert Venturi. Paintings, portraits, and pattern books complement the selection and establish cultural context.
