Gabbertas Studio’s Most Iconic Designs Come to Auction

Mark Gabbertas was born in Yorkshire in 1962 and came to the world of furniture design in a circuitous way, having started his working life in advertising before changing career path to train as a cabinet maker. He worked as an apprentice at Codrington Furniture and then with Stemmer and Sharp in the acclaimed Oblique Workshops in Hackney. It was in Hackney that he chose to found his own design/making studio in 1994. In 2001, he established the Gabbertas Studio in West London to focus on furniture design, before moving the main studio to the Oxfordshire countryside in 2016 and opening a second studio in Milan.

^{A Mirodan 'Markant' coffee table. Estimate £500-700. Lot 388 | DESIGN Wednesday 5 May 2021}

The Studio is recognised as one Britain’s leading furniture design studios, having won multiple awards both nationally and internationally. The Studio has a reputation for designing innovative and commercially relevant work and they continuously produce designs that push the boundaries of contemporary design, whilst simultaneously ensuring their enduring relevance. The Studio is known for its rigorous pursuit of solutions that have both functional integrity and an enduring aesthetic in the belief that it is all too easy to shock, but much more difficult to please.

The Studio has collaborated with leading international brands such as Gloster, Allermuir, Boss, and Oasiq so it is highly likely you will have sat at or sat on one of the studio’s designs at some stage.

Sworders Design department is delighted to be offering a selection of some of the Gabbertas Studio’s most iconic designs, some of which are extremely rare versions of designs or prototypes made by the hand of Mark Gabbertas himself.

The Toto chair, for example, originally designed for Boss Design, is a unique version of the high back chair which was adapted by the Studio for inclusion in the 'Fabricate' exhibition in collaboration with A W Hainsworth at the London Design Festival 2015. The offered pair has been upholstered in different colourways of the premium Hainsworth wool fabric, the same as used for the uniform for the Royal Horse Guards.

^{A pair of Boss Design 'Toto' club chairs. Estimate £300-500. Lot 387 | DESIGN Wednesday 5 May 2021}

Similarly, the two Markant tables are probably the only examples of this design that will come to market for many years, these having been designed in 2008 for a now disappeared Belgian brand, Mirodan. The other designs offered all have a similar and unique history, either as the studio’s own samples or prototypes for assessment or for use in photography shoots.

^{Two contemporary deer antler coffee tables designed by the Gabbertas Studio. Estimates £3,000-5,000. Lots 596 & 409 | DESIGN Wednesday 5 May 2021}

The centerpiece however is the pair of extraordinary deer antler coffee tables. These were in fact made by the Gabbertas Studio team as prototypes, from carefully selected Scottish antlers which are then either lacquered or flocked and cut to precisely the correct length before having a stainless steel disk inserted for ultra-violet attachment to the glass tops. The design concept is based on the juxtaposition of the naturally irregular form of the antler with the regular geometry of their arrangement, which in turn suggests a natural landscape.

Take a look at the full collection in the online catalogue for our DESIGN sale, to be held over two days on Tuesday 4 & Wednesday 5 May.

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