Rodney Kinsman Artwork valuations, appraisals and auction estimates

Rodney Kinsman (1943 - ) studied furniture design at the Central School of Art in London. Together with Jurek Olejnik and Bryan Morrison, he founded OMK Design in 1966 to make the furniture they designed. Read the full biography

Rodney Kinsman (1943 - ) studied furniture design at the Central School of Art in London. Together with Jurek Olejnik and Bryan Morrison, he founded OMK Design in 1966 to make the furniture they designed. Among the first designs launched by OMK was Rodney Kinsman's 1966 "F Range" chair, a block of foam plastic covered in vinyl. This typical 1960s piece of furniture can be considered Rodney Kinsman's most obviously elegant design; he would later focus on designing furniture that would remain popular for its technical construction. In 1971 Rodney Kinsman designed the enormously successful "Omstak" chair with a tubular steel frame, seat and back in pressed sheet metal covered with epoxy resin. The bizarre holes in the seat and backrest make the chair more stable. Considered the epitome of 1970s high-tech design, the "Omstak" chair is still produced by the Italian firm Bieffeplast. In the 1980s, Rodney Kinsman produced pieces that were at the opposite extreme of the colorful and exuberantly decorative anti-design produced by Memphis and others. They include the "Vienna" chair designed by Rodney Kinsman in 1984 and the "Tokyo" line of 1985. In 1981 Rodney Kinsman and Peter Glynn-Smith co-designed the "Transit" seating system for public buildings. Originally intended for Gatwick Airport, "Transit", like the "Sevilla" row of seats (1991: designed for Expo '92), was a highly successful seat furniture system and more than a hundred airports and other buildings are equipped with these systems. In 1983 Rodney Kinsman became a Fellow of the Society of Industrial Artists and Designers and, in 1988, Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Art.