Did you know? Robert Wilson’s love of chairs began one Christmas.
When I was 8 years old, I went to visit my uncle, who lived in the White Sands desert in New Mexico. He had a white adobe house, and he lived like a monk. It was very simple: a mattress on the floor and a Navajo blanket and some Native American pots.
There was one chair in this small house, and I said to him, “That’s a beautiful chair.” And at Christmas, he sent me the chair for a Christmas present.
It was thin and narrow, a wooden chair. This chair was very important. As a very young man growing up in Texas, usually I got a shotgun or cowboy boots for Christmas. When I was 17 , my cousin — my uncle’s son — wrote me a letter and said, “My father sent you this chair, and it’s mine, and I’d like it back.”
I sent it back to him, and from that day on I started collecting chairs. I do still collect chairs.
See the full interview from the New York Times.
View some of the chairs and more from the Robert Wilson Collection Sale, on view through December 31.
Images courtesy of the Watermill Center and Robert Wilson.
Hope you had a lovely holiday!