Galeria Bessa Pereira presents an original pair of organic side tables by Ado Chale, from circa 1970, created with prime organic materials such as petrified sequoia, from a fossilized tree trunk the artist discovered during one of his travels to the Arizona desert.
These cross sections were carefully sliced, enhancing its stunning patterns, then diamond polished, producing a couple of unique gleaming top surfaces in shades of vibrant rust with translucent grey clouds and burnt umbers, that contrast with the monochrome black lacquered steel in Chale’s iconic tripod bases.​
The importance of these artworks lies in their singularity, but most importantly in the representation of essential elements that defined Ado Chale’s production of late 1960s and 1970s, which is still relevant in the contemporary international Art Market.
Ado Chale (b. 1928) is an artist and designer of Belgian nationality, based in Brussels. Making his debut in the art world as a metalworker during the 1950s, Chale dedicated most of his work during this decade to the making of silver jewerly, also designing his first resin tables embedded with marcasite.
Opening his first gallery in 1962, along with his spouse Huguette Schaal, in Rue de Livourne, Brussels, Ado Chale soon gained recognition for his work, taking part in the Pavilion of Europe at the Universal Exhibition in Montreal in 1967 and bringing the attention of international companies which would later acquire his artworks, as was the case of Brussels’ Hilton Hotel when ordering 25 marcasite mosaic tables from the artist, in the year of 1968.
At the end of the 1960s, the artist dedicated his work to the search of gemstones, both precious and semi-precious stones, traveling to Arizona, India, France and Madagascar, amongst other places around the globe. Ado Chale’s production diversified and increased during the decade of 1970, in which he produced furniture designs best know for the use of organic materials and minerals such as fossilized sequoia, malachite and jade, but also their unique forms, textures and patterns.
Chale’s work has been exhibited at the Ixelles Museum in Belgium, at the Palais des Papes in Avignon, at the Museum of Fine Arts in Nancy, at Seibu’s Museum in Tokyo, Japan, and most recently at the Parisian Galerie Yves Gastou in 2002.
