The designer Frank Oelke, born 5.2.1943 (†23.8.2009) in Dresden, lived and worked mainly in Freiburg and Munich.
After a classical apprenticeship as a carpenter he was led abroad by what he called his ‘creative restiveness’ at the End of the 60's. He gained experiences in Sweden, while fitting the interior of exclusive yachts and in South Africa he re-furnished First Class hotels. After a short stop in America he came back to Germany permanently.
Against the German ‘Cheap-is-beautiful-wave’ in the 70's he set his own design ideas with unusual, timeless forms, using exclusive materials and first-class, complex processing. This required on thing over all: A great deal of handicraft. Often he did not use differentiated sketches: ‘The object forms itself while I work on it’.
In early years mainly active as an interior decorator his work later shifted more and more towards furniture design.
The inspiration for his collection ‘Anatomy’ was the lip sofa of Spanish surrealist Salvador Dali.
Part of this collection is the ear shaped armchair ‘Audio’, its abundant construction offers a variety of different sitting positions, in addition to a stereo system inclusive loudspeakers which are integrated into the frame.
The toilet ‘Clo’ is shaped in form of a human hand. The paper rolls discreetly from the thumb; a pull on the small finger starts the flush.
The bed ‘Pedus’ looks like two feet with oversized toes at the end. In the original design the bed was not just painted it was gilded all around.
On fairs, exhibitions and also on television, for example in Thomas Gottschalks show ‘Na Sowas’ or in the ‘Sport Studio’ his pieces were shown.
In later years he focused his creative energy on chairs.
By elaborate choice of material and form he created swinging chairs. The series owes its name ‘Looping’ to the round forms of the curved high-grade steel pipes used.
To this series belongs the object ‘Looping Steel’ which is made completely out of stainless steel. The backrest and the seat are manufactured out of one piece of rolled steel. Round forms, like balls or roles in strong colours, mark the other models of this collection.
In the following collection of bar stools the environment of the stool determined its appearance. A coffee bean as seat face created the stool ‘Espresso’, the ‘Corkscrew’ has a leather seat with a twisted sub-construction and also body forms are back in Oelkes designs: a tongue as seat face framed by a seat-back in the shape of lips.
Often Oelke described his objects as: ‘Art that can be inhabited’.
All pieces of his work were built as one of a kind or in strictly limited editions.
