April 2026

1st April 2026 Emma Julian

The Thonet bentwood chair is our focus for April, and it’s a thing of beauty – simple, light and almost impossibly graceful.

Although Thonet’s pioneering bentwood furniture actually predates Art Nouveau, those flowing curves later felt perfectly at home in the cafés and interiors of turn-of-the-century Vienna. Michael Thonet’s experiments with steam-bent wood also helped transform furniture manufacture, paving the way for elegant designs that could be produced on an industrial scale.

This isn’t the first time Thonet has appeared at Pickle. Back in 2017 Emma explored his wonderfully curvaceous Café Daum coat stand, and we’ve recently expanded that story with more about the development of bentwood furniture and why Thonet remains such an important figure in design history.

Emma has also taken a closer look at the timeless design of Thonet’s bentwood chairs on Design Debate, including their connections with Art Nouveau and Modernism.

This illustration forms part of our 2026 Art Nouveau calendar. You can download the April artwork for desktop, tablet and phone below.