Fans of 20th-century design will want to visit the Philadelphia Museum this summer to see A Taste for Modern: The Jeanne Rymer Collection of Twentieth-Century Chairs (on view through September 20), an exhibit of twenty-three chairs from a group of thirty-five that were donated to the museum by Jeanne Rymer in 2007. The collection spans the entire 20th century, with a special focus on design from the 1950s, and includes iconic chairs by Jean Prouvé, Hans Wegner, Harry Bertoia, and Ettore Sottsass, to name just a few. I recently spoke with Rymer, a former professor and head of the department of industrial design at the University of Delaware, about her passion for modernist chairs. The slideshow below will give readers a taste of the exhibition. 
Tell me about your collection and how you got interested in modernist chairs.
Typical of my generation, I didn’t enter the work force until after I had been married and raised three children, and it was then that I went for an advanced degree and became a professor of interior design—my specialization was residential design—so I was completely immersed in the material. I taught at different institutions and ended up at the University of Delaware. It was about twenty years ago, that my chair collection started. The Rago auction house was nearby in Lambertville, New Jersey, and they had modern auctions twice a year which I never missed. That was how the collection began, and most of my chairs came from there. At the time, my partner and I lived in a house that was much too big for us, so the whole lower level of the house leant itself to being a museum—visitors could come and see the chairs without intruding on our personal space. I had two collections: the first, inherited from my mother, was of Arthurdale furniture made during the Depression, and the second was my modernist chair collection, which numbered 80 or more pieces. When I moved to the west coast I let the Philadelphia Museum select the chairs they wanted, and the rest were donated to the University of West Virginia, my alma mater, which has just established a new museum building.
What were your criteria for selecting chairs for your collection?
Building the collection was a very serious pursuit. I would study the auction catalogs thoroughly and determine what I really wanted beforehand, and how much I was willing to spend. For me, generally speaking, it had to be well-known designers and well-known designs. They had to be in good condition, and reasonably affordable. There was a time, however, when the prices began to skyrocket and the competition was just too much. I found very few chairs on the secondary market. I liked going to the auctions myself. I trusted my own judgment. I concentrated on American made designs, and those made after the Second World War when the whole field of furniture just exploded. I focused on chairs for an important reason: when you have a chair you have in a rather small piece of furniture all you need to know about a style or a designer. And people can relate to them—we have backs, and legs, and arms—we connect with them.
Were you interested in collecting new materials or design “firsts”?
Yes, I was very interested in materials—first wood, then molded plywood and molded plastic. For example, when I look at Frank Gehry’s Wiggle Chair, made entirely of cardboard, that seems very new and creative to me—there’s a freedom about it.
Can you tell me about a favorite design from your collection?
One chair that I loved a lot was designed by Michele De Lucchi during the Memphis period—the “First” chair. I think it was hard for people to accept all the new materials that could be shaped into chairs—we had been sitting in wooden chairs for so long! It took some stretching of the mind until we could accept some of these strange materials and these strange designs. The chairs that I like most are the unique ones.
Is there a chair design or designer that you feel is underappreciated?
I think Frank Gehry has done many interesting things. I have two of his High Sticking Chairs, a design from 1992, and I love them. Since I bought them I have kept them in my own home, and I used them as “mom’ and “pop” chairs at the dining table.
