Canadian Design Icon

We recently had the pleasure of restoring a pair of chairs by Canadian designer Russell Spanner (1916-1974). They are from his Catalina collection circa 1952. His designs were sold in Eaton’s and Simpson’s department stores. They were manufactured in Toronto at Spanner Products Limited, a family owned business.

Apparently, Spanner was quite an accomplished amateur wrestler and was known to test the strength of his designs by jumping on them and throwing them across the factory floor.

We enjoyed working on these chairs. Spanner's designs have really stood the test of time. The condition of the chairs when they came into our possession was pretty rough. They had been painted with a shiny brown paint, and the original vinyl upholstery was pretty drab. So we removed the paint to find the lovely walnut wood underneath. The new gold-toned upholstery compliments the warmness of the wood. The exposed brass screws that were part of the original design give it an industrial look that still feels current today.

Sources : stylenorth.ca, A Spanner in the works: The furniture of Russell Spanner (Robert Fones)

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