Richard Meier 'King Richard' Candlesticks for Swid Powell, 1983

A striking pair of postmodern candlesticks designed in 1983 by acclaimed American architect Richard Meier for Swid Powell, the influential New York tableware company founded in 1982 by Nan Swid and Addie Powell. Swid Powell pioneered the concept of architect-designed decorative arts, commissioning leading postmodern architects — including Meier, Michael Graves, Robert Venturi, Robert A.M. Stern, and Frank Gehry — to translate their signature architectural languages into silver, porcelain, and glass tableware.

Each candlestick is constructed from two intersecting flat silver-plated panels forming an open, X-shaped shaft, pierced with borders of small and large square cutouts that recall the geometric ornament of the Vienna Secession — particularly the work of Josef Hoffmann and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, both acknowledged touchstones for Meier's 1980s object designs. The shaft rises from a flat circular base raised on four ball feet, terminating in a cylindrical candle cup recessed into the upper structure. The architectural rigor and rectilinear grid motifs are hallmarks of Meier's built work translated into tabletop scale.
Produced in a limited run as part of Swid Powell's celebrated first wave of architect-designed objects, this model — along with Meier's related designs for the company, including bowls, trays, and picture frames — remains among the most recognizable and collected examples of 1980s American postmodern design.
Location: Miami