Meet Interior Design’s Most Wanted Fantasist and Curator Benoist F. Drut of Maison Gerard on timeless eclecticism and a brand new passion By Laren Stover • 11/17/16 12:26pm
Art Deco used to be what made Benoist F. Drut tick. “It’s easy to work with a dead artist, they don’t talk back and they’re not prima donnas,” Drut told the Observer from his county home in Sullivan County. Drut’s shop, Maison Gerard, has been the trade’s go-to for fine French Art Deco furniture, lighting and objets d’art for the past 43 years. Drut started working there as partner in 1999. But his two shops at 43 and 53 East 10th Street, like his house upstate, are now what he calls “A happy melting pot of cultures, epochs and countries.” “With a living artist I need to connect with them, it’s full trust or nothing,” he said. “I can’t work with successful artists if they are a nightmare.” Drut entered a modern wonderland when he became enamored of a looking glass by French designer Hervé van der Straeten, a round mirror surrounded by a poetic cluster of bronze branches worthy of a Victorian fairy painting. Van der Straeten, who formerly made jewelry, was the first contemporary designer Maison Gerard presented.