Few are more revered in the pantheon of great American furniture designers than Vladimir Kagan, the German-born visionary who rose to prominence in the mid-twentieth century with his ultra-seductive biomorphic furnishings. Despite a fruitful seven-decade career, Kagan is perhaps best known for his alluring Serpentine sofa, which debuted in 1950 and has evolved into the ultimate design-world status symbol.
In fact, when The New York Times published Kagan's obituary in 2016, writer Jacob Bernstein dubbed the curved piece the designer's "best-known" creation, describing it as something "that might be found if the Jetsons decided to relocate from Orbit City to the Trousdale Estates in Beverly Hills."
To understand why the popular Vladimir Kagan Sofa has gained such global acclaim, it's necessary to return to Kagan's Germanic roots. Born in the famed Rhineland region in 1927, he moved to New York with his mother when he was ten years old to reconnect with his father, Illi, a Bauhaus-style cabinetmaker and sculptor. Following his graduation from Columbia with a degree in architecture, Kagan went to work at his father's midtown Manhattan cabinetry shop, where he honed his woodworking and cabinetmaking skills.
The family business, which included an Upper East Side furniture shop run by Kagan's mother, grew in 1950, when the young designer formed Kagan-Dreyfuss with printmaker Hugo Dreyfuss. During this new venture, Kagan noticed a gap in the market, which was previously dominated by chairs and sofas with inner-spring seats topped with loose, down-filled cushions.
"It was a time-honored technique that was thought to be the ultimate in comfort," Chris Eitel, director of design and production at Vladimir Kagan Design Group, explains. Kagan, on the other hand, wanted to incorporate the traditional cushion into the structure of the sofa itself, upholstering everything together for a unified look. "By doing so, he gained the freedom to create revolutionary designs," Eitel explains.
Meanwhile, the Serpentine's snakelike shape was specifically designed to complement the interiors of clients who wanted to showcase their art, which was a popular trend during the heyday of mid century furniture modernism. "Up until this point, it was most common to put a straight sofa against the wall," Eitel tells Galerie. "By bringing the sofa into the centre of the room, Vladi created space for his clients to view and appreciate their new, larger-scale artworks."
Kagan, ever the consummate party host, wanted his sofa to encourage face-to-face social interaction. "He likened people sitting on straight sofas to 'birds sitting on a wire,'" Eitel explains. The solution was an exaggerated semicircle with a bulge at one end and a sinuous back that could accommodate eight or nine people rather than the traditional four.
The Serpentine caused quite a stir when it was finally made public. "Nothing like it had ever been seen before," says designer Amy Lau, who became close friends with Kagan in the 1990s and was a frequent collaborator. "The sofa was more than just a piece of furniture. It felt like I was sitting on sculpture." As one of the first curved sofas to hit the market, the piece catapulted Kagan to fame and led to commissions from celebrities including Marilyn Monroe, Lily Pons, and Gary Cooper.
By the 1980s, "tastes were changing, and the trend was shifting more toward a cold, clinical look of modernism," according to Lau. "Vladi described to me, looking back, that he was even thinking of possibly retiring or semiretiring at the time." However, after collaborating with gallerist Ralph Pucci and releasing new work that included fibreglass, among other materials, he experienced a resurgence in visibility in 2002. "Throughout his seven decades of working in various styles, it was as if he had a design laboratory in his head," Lau recalls.
"We started doing great work together around that time, pulling different styles from his work from different decades and coming up with new ideas." Nature inspires us both, and we enjoy sculptural forms, craftsmanship, artistry, and coming up with new and unique ideas."
Throughout this time, the Serpentine—still buoyed by its versatility and ease of pairing with other styles—began to appear in prominent interiors, appearing in rooms created by top interior designers such as Lau, Tony Ingrao, Randy Kemper, Jean-Louis Deniot, Martyn Lawrence Bullard, and Julie Hillman. "It checks all the boxes for me," Hillman says. "It does not take control. It looks great with pieces from all eras. I don't like repeating myself, but this is a piece that I never tyre of—and it's great for socialising."
Following his death, Holly Hunt purchased the Vladimir Kagan Design Group in order to preserve the designer's legacy by ensuring the quality of his products remained high. "Today at Kagan, we still use the same construction techniques that Vladimir reinvented in the 1950s to make the Serpentine sofa, as well as other Kagan sofa designs," Eitel says.
A vintage Kagan (made before 1990) or a Kagan Classic in good condition can often outperform a new one. (A vintage Serpentine and ottoman fetches more than $65,000 at auction in 2008.) "This was the most iconic sofa of the 1950s and 1960s, and it is now regarded as the ultimate design status symbol of the New Look at the time it was designed." This is why I believe there are so many copies," Lau explains. If you're looking for an original, make sure it comes with an attached plaque to ensure authenticity, as Kagan mentioned on his blog. Otherwise, "beware of want tobe or interpreted versions of his work," Lau warns.
