2024 - April 29,
Curated by Lee F. Mindel, FAIA in collaboration with Jacques Lacoste
Galerie56, New York City February 1
2024
Galerie56, New York City
February 1, 2024 - April 29, 2024
“Les Enfants Terribles” is the seventh selling exhibition at Galerie56, a platform conceived to celebrate the intersection of art, architecture and design. The exhibition marks the first official collaboration between Galerie56 and Galerie Jacques Lacoste, solidifying the longstanding personal and professional relationship between New York based architect, designer and historian Lee F. Mindel, FAIA and world renowned gallerist Jacques Lacoste.
While the exhibition’s title refers to the novel published by Jean Cocteau in 1929, which was adapted to the screen by Cocteau and Jean-Pierre Melville in 1950, it also pertains to Mindel and Lacoste; their shared interest for design, boundless curiosity, and innovative translations of tradition have defined their own respective legacies.
However, the “holy terrors” mentioned in the title are first and foremost the designers thoughtfully brought together in this exhibition. Whether architects, decorators, or artists, their avantgarde thinking and unorthodox approaches have altered the course of 20th century design between the second half of the 1920s and the end of the 1950s. “Les Enfants Terribles” highlights the work of Pierre Chareau, Eileen Gray, Paul DupréLafon, Jean Luce, Jean Royère, Jean Prouvé, Charlotte Perriand, Le Corbusier, Serge Mouille, Max Ingrand, Georges Jouve, Alexandre Noll, Mathieu Matégot and Denise Gatard, and Antoine Poncet.
Vive la France!
Jean Prouvé initially trained as a wrought iron craftsman before quickly shifting focus to folded sheet metal. He completed his first pieces of furniture as early as 1924, later producing limited series of furniture in his workshops in his native Nancy, France. His visionary approach combined functionality with well balanced proportions, resulting in elegant ergonomic designs. This is demonstrated in his Cité Chair (1930) and Stool N.307, whose radical shape is derived from the seat of a farming tractor.
Conférence Chair no. 355
1954
Black lacquered tubular metal, leatherette seat, solid oak armrests
Pierre Chareau was a self-taught architect and interior designer who established his own workshop in 1919. Inspired by natural elements and avant garde techniques, he developed a style characterized by elegant lines and juxtaposed precious and industrial materials. Most famous for designing Maison de Verre, France’s first house made of steel and glass, Chareau also designed most of the furniture for the house, including the rare MT876 Desk (1929).
GEORGES JOUVE
Low Table 1955
Black lacquered metal and black enameled ceramic
Alexandre Noll began leaning into his artistic talent in the 1920s, further developing the woodworking techniques that he practiced sparingly during the first World War. His wood engravings gradually led him to create larger sculptural pieces. His best known works were created by carving sculptures out of single blocks of wood, including teak, mahogany, sycamore, and most often, ebony wood. Noll’s appreciation for the beauty and singularities found in each species of wood and careful attention to proportion are demonstrated in his various ebony bowls and mahogany chairs (1950).
Eileen Gray spent her childhood in London, where she was one of the first women to be admitted to Slade. It was there that she took up painting in 1989 before undergoing an apprenticeship in a London-based lacquer workshop. After moving to Paris in 1902, she further developed her training in lacquer work and cabinet making, and established herself as one of the most desired designers of lacquered screens and decorative panels.
In 1921, Eileen Gray became romantically involved with Romanian architect and writer Jean Badovici, who encouraged her growing interest in architecture. The pair studied theoretical and technical texts, took drafting lessons, and traveled to study key buildings while utilizing their knowledge by reworking the architectural designs. In 1926, she began work on a holiday home near Monaco for herself and Badovici. Since foreigners could not wholly own property in France, Eileen Gray bought the land in Badovici’s name. The house she designed, named E-1027 as a discreet code for the lovers’ names, was universally recognized as an architectural masterpiece.
ANTOINE PONCET 1903-1999
Born into a family of artists and formally trained by the acclaimed French sculptor Germaine Richier, Antoine Poncet developed a rigorous yet sensitive style of sculpture. After establishing himself in Paris in 1948, Poncet was Ossip Zadkine’s pupil before becoming a primary collaborator of Jean Arp from 19531955. He absorbed the modern principles and references of the many artists who trained him while narrowing his own personal design identity, going on to produce plaster, marble and bronze versions of sleek, well balanced forms. In 1956, his immense talent was recognized at the Venice Biennale, and he began exhibiting his work at Iris Clert’s gallery in Paris. His early successes were the beginning of a long international career during which the sculptor continued to pursue groundbreaking research of movement and balance in modern sculpture.
At a time when the sophistication synomymous with the Art Deco movement began to seem outdated, Jean Royère began designing elegant furniture that heralded his own personal style, emancipated from any conventions. As the oddball of the French interior design scene, Royère imposed his poetic inspirations and alluring color palette into his work. His bold style was dictated by a great rigor that combined elongated lines with slick curves, and began to gain the attention of the most demanding clients in Paris. Each of his designs, whether furniture or lighting, acted as an element in a wider scheme, with each project supplying a pretext to conceive a decor as a whole.
Despite having no formal training as a designer, Royère opened his own interior design practice in the 1930s, and his career had fully flourished by the 1950s. The soft lines and proportions that he became known for are testified in the oak Trapeze coffee table (1941), as well as his Ondulations sofa (1961), pair of Baquet armchairs (1950), ten-arm Bouquet wall light (1950), and his oak Croissillon desk (1955).
Widely considered one of the most definitive ceramicists of the 20th century, Georges Jouve became interested in ceramics as a result of being displaced during World War II. Born in France to two decorator parents, and the younger brother of ceramicist Denise Gatard, Jouve studied architecture and art history before serving in the French military. After being captured and detained in a German camp for two years, he managed to escape to his stepparent’s home in a small potters village in the south of France. It was here that he began working with clay found in the local soil to express his creativity and make a living. Jouve’s sculptures were less about solving issues of functionality and more about producing objects of beauty, contemplation, and enjoyment. After the war, Jouve’s designs became deeply embedded in Parisian life and its art scene before reaching a broader audience in the rest of the world after his death in 1964.
GEORGES JOUVE
Ceramic Box, signed Jouve and monogrammed alpha under the base 1955
Yellow, black and white enameled ceramic
Denise Gatard, the older sister of ceramicist Georges Jouve, studied at the School of Applied Arts in Paris, rue Duperré. Here, she entered the workshop of Jean Dunand and began to learn the lacquer techniques utilized throughout her career as a sculptor. She presented her first collection of ceramic cups, vases and lamps at the Galerie de l’Arcade in Paris in 1947, and later would show her earthenware jewelry collection at the Galerie du Siècle in Saint-Germaine-des-Close. In the 1950s, Gatard and her husband Maurice Pré expanded their workshop and increased their production of ceramic sculptures and jewelry significantly.
Green, white and black enameled ceramic
CHARLOTTE PERRIAND 1903-1999
Largely influenced by her time in Japan, as well as her appreciation for the French mountains, Charlotte Perriand promoted an art of living that sought to balance individual equilibrium and well being after World War II. While she remained faithful to the functionalist principles established by UAM, Perriand’s formal vocabulary gradually softened to include more organic designs, ultimately allowing for a larger degree of freedom in its use. Her simple yet elegant outlines managed to materialize a timeless form of modernity, as exemplified in the ash and sipo sideboard she designed alongside Pierre Jeanneret in 1950 and the mohogany coffee table designed in 1956. Perhaps, her 1953 design for a threelegged walnut shepherd’s stool can be considered one of her most iconic pieces, demonstrating her appreciation for Japanese simplicity and rural French functionality.
CHARLOTTE PERRIAND & PIERRE JEANNERET
Sideboard No. 1
Circa 1939-1945
Ash and sipo wood
JEAN PROUVÉ
No. 307 Stool 1952
Jean Luce was a French ceramicist and glassware designer who began working in his father’s ceramic shop in his early career. In 1921, he showed his first collection of work at the Musée Galliera Paris, and later opened up his own shop in 1923. In the 1930s, Luce began to specialize in ceramic and glass tableware, concentrating on incorporating experiemental shaping and decorative techniques. His work is characterized by linear and geometric motifs forms by hand or painted from stencils. While his earlier work incorporated clear enamel, he later moved on to work with sandblasting.
