Newson, Marc

▪ 2009

born 1963, Sydney, Australia

      Hot on the heels of the opening in 2007 of his luxe first-class lounges for Qantas Airways in the Melbourne and Sydney international airports, Australian designer Marc Newson in 2008 had a second solo exhibition at New York City's Gagosian Gallery. Newson's approach was deemed “an experimental exercise in extreme structures and advanced technologies,” and the gallery displayed some of his best-known objects. Though the show could represent his household goods and furniture, it could not begin to encompass the interior spaces he designed—his recording studio or restaurant interiors.

      Newson attended the Sydney College of the Arts and graduated in 1984 with a degree in jewelry and sculpture. The following year he won a grant from the Crafts Board of the Australia Council, which enabled him to create his breakthrough piece, the aluminum and fibreglass Lockheed Lounge (1986). This was the first of several limited-edition chairs. Like many of his later furniture pieces, it is made of atypical materials. It has a seamless exterior (extruded substances captivated him) and a modernist yet somewhat retro form variously described as biomorphic or zoomorphic. In 1987 Newson moved to Japan, where he worked mostly with the design company Idée, creating among other objects the Charlotte chair (1987), the Super Guppy lamp (1987), the Embryo chair (1988), the three-legged carbon-fibre Black Hole table (1988), the Orgone lounge (1989), the Felt chair (1989), and a wicker chair (1990).

      Newson moved to Paris in 1991 and designed household products for Philippe Starck and later glassware for Iittala in Finland and Alessi, Magis, and Flos in Italy. He formed a partnership with the Swiss businessman Oliver Ike to create Ikepod, a watch company, in 1994. Newson's award-winning shapes and watch cases of gold, silver, and titanium—each signed and numbered—made his watches among the most exclusive pieces of jewelry in the world. (The company was relaunched in 2005, with different partners.) In 1997 Newson moved to London, where he began to design vehicles—among them the MN01 bicycle for Biomega (1999), the 021C concept car for Ford (1999), and the livery of a privately owned jet, Falcon 900B (1999). In 2006 Newson was named creative director of Qantas. In the U.K. he was named (2006) Royal Designer for Industry.

      Newson's work was in the collections of the Design Museum in London; the Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Paris; the Museum of Modern Art, New York City; the Powerhouse Museum of Sydney; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Kathleen Kuiper

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