Joaquim Tenreiro is the great god of Brazilian furniture, the son of a Portuguese cabinetmaker who combined old-fashioned methods with luxurious Brazilian woods and essentially pioneered Brazilian Modernism in furniture form. He never sold out to a Brazilian Knoll or Herman Miller, working constantly on smaller commissions, a number of which were recommended by Oscar Niemeyer. So many pieces are singular at Bossa Annex, which has opened one of the most comprehensive shows of his work. It’s titled “Inventing a Modern Tropical Living,” and this isn’t even slightly hyperbolic.
There are things most modernists simply didn’t do; rattan fell largely out of fashion, except in the case of Marcel Breuer’s Cesca and Pierre Jeanneret’s Chandigarh chairs. No one would design a chaise with cane panels for both the head and footrests except for Tenreiro — this is one he designed for a construction bigwig in Ipanema. The move lightens the piece at both ends, which is grounded by splayed rosewood legs. On view at Bossa Annex through June 30.