A rare Kem Weber chair shows, the European side of American modernism

Magazine Antiques, May, 2008 by Martin Filler

Nothing is more exciting to a passionate connoisseur--even a seasoned expert who has helped redefine his chosen specialty--than discovering an elusive object he'd despaired of ever finding, let alone being able to own. But when that rare opportunity presented itself last fall to the New York-based modern design aficionado John C. Waddell, he--true to form--acted fast and won one of the top prizes of his distinguished collecting career: a long-lost wooden dining chair made in 1927-1928 to the designs of Kem Weber, one of the underappreciated giants of American design and a pivotal figure in the transmission of modernism from Europe to the United States.

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Waddell, now retired after decades as chairman of an electronics company, is devoting his still-undiminished energies to the third great twentieth-century collection he has assembled--the first two of which are now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Two decades ago, the museum acquired his pathbreaking five-hundred-work survey of modernist photography, subject of a traveling exhibition and catalogue, The New Vision: Photography between the World Wars. Waddell's holdings gave the Metropolitan Museum instant credibility in a medium previously ruled by the Museum of Modern Art. He then moved on to create another seminal overview--of industrial design made in this country during the same period as the photography he had collected. Acquired by the Metropolitan Museum in 2000 and memorialized in another traveling show and publication, American Modern, 1925-1940: Design for a New Age had an even more profound effect on how its subject matter was viewed.

Given Waddell's reputation as one of the handful of today's most discerning experts in his field, he is often approached by dealers with prime material fresh to the market. Rarely are these great bargains. "Things have to get to a certain price level before they're offered to me," he says with a resigned smile, and notes that only seldom is he contacted by antiques pickers who try to circumvent dealers. "The smart pickers are afraid to endanger their bread-and-butter relationships by coming directly to me," explains Waddell, no stranger to skullduggery, having worked as a young man for the CIA during the Kennedy administration. "And the few who try to cut out the dealers want me to swear secrecy, knowing that if word ever got out they'd be dead in the trade."

Landing his latest treasure had less to do with undercover intrigue than Waddell's diligent collecting ethic, which includes keeping a sharp eye on publications, both new and historical, as well as being punctual. For years there have been complaints about the alleged declining quality of New York's preeminent twentieth-century decorative arts fair, Sanford Smith's Modernism, held each November at Manhattan's Park Avenue Armory. Some have noted the fair's growing number of photography dealers as well as the absence of certain important galleries, but Waddell considers Modernism's opening night an essential event.

"I always arrive at the preview promptly at the opening hour," he reports, "because that's when the great trophies are won. I was flying down the center aisle of the Armory when this chair caught the corner of my eye, and I knew immediately that if I didn't act fast I'd never see it again." Actually, another example of this Kem Weber piece had already caught his eye, in a 2006 sales catalogue from Los Angeles Modern Auctions, organized by Peter Loughrey, who later took a booth at the 2007 New York show. In New York, Loughrey's asking price for one of the four chairs he'd bought a year earlier turned out to be not much higher than the $18,000 the first had fetched at his auction house, and within a matter of minutes of spotting it, Waddell became the chair's proud new possessor (though he won't confirm how much he paid).

As opposed to some collectors for whom purchase is the peak moment, after which their interest begins to wane, for Waddell that's when the real fun begins. He adores doing primary research into hitherto unknown aspects of a work's conception, manufacture, copyright, marketing, and distribution--indeed everything from the biography of its designer to reasons for its commercial success or failure. Waddell has backed up every piece he owns with a wealth of documentation, from registration papers to contemporary periodicals. Being so well informed gives him added confidence in knowing where and when to pay big money for important pieces. (It must be added that in relation to today's insanely overinflated art market, most areas of the decorative arts, even at the high end, seem ridiculously underpriced in comparison.)

Although Waddell has been no stranger to the work of Weber (four pieces by the designer are among the objects he gave to the Metropolitan Museum), this latest find represents a significant departure for him in several respects. It was one thing for Waddell to move from photography to industrial design after he divested his first collection. When he stuck to American modernism the second time around, however, some cynics wondered if he was simply reconstituting the same body of work after the museum had given his collection its imprimatur.