Rotund vs. Craftsmanship

Chairs by Pierre Chareau

Inspired by the Richardson Wright quotes, I decided to track down more images of the furnishings and decoration on display at the 1925 Paris Exposition. (*I've seen the event referred to as both and Exhibition and an Exposition. Which one is correct?!)

Anyway, many of the architects and designers cited as being involved include: the already mentioned Ruhlmann, Andre Groult (pink and gray boudoir), Jean Dunand (smoking room), Pierre Chareau (library) [sounds like a game of Clue, doesn't it?!] as well as Francis Jourdain, Robert Mallet-Stevens, Maurice Dufrene, Paul Follot, Renee Lalique, and Edgar Brandt.

Happily enough, lots of beautifully photographed images of their work can be found at Architonic in their Design Collector database section. The following images of seating all come from that fantastic website. As best as I can tell, the furniture is all fromapproximately 1925, and was in the exposition or is quite similar to pieces in the exposition. However, the majority of the item descriptions are in French, most of which I've long since forgotten. So, any French-speaking Deco buffs please chime in with translations!

Jean Dunand wood and painted metal chair

Ruhlmann's Hydravion chairs in leather, very similar to the chairs pictured the the Lord and Taylor room.

Pierre Chareau chair, in velvet with petit point embroidery of woman's torso with floral and shell motifs.

If I were going to have a throne this would be IT!

Black and White images of the Pavilions and furnished interiors can be found at this site.

More furniture eye candy can be found at The Graham Gallery.

If you like any of this, please check out the Art Deco links to the right of the page, including David's Art Deco Buildings site.

Art Deco Origins: 1925 Paris Exhibition

Lalique Fountain

It's intriguing to look back from an 80+ year distance to hear people's reactions to the modernist movement of the 1920s. Even sophisticated American tastemakers had misgivings about the lines and proportions of the new designs of the time.

After a visit to the 1925 Paris Exhibition, Richardson Wright, editor of House and Garden magazine writes of the 'modern tendencies' in art, architecture, and design :

"There were enough architectural vagaries in to make this American delegate wonder if the show were the product of madmen, or simply the tricks and pranks of highly sophisticated architects who wanted to create the most serious and sustained exhibition of bad taste the world had ever seen. Or were they really striving for a hitherto unpronounced interpretation of living Nature."

(Quotes from this book.)

I have to say, my first thought when reading the quote above was, 'huh, what a stuffy man!'
Until I did a web search and found some of these images of the actual buildings created for the exhibit. Then...he was harsh, but I could understand his point of view a bit more. All architectural images and many more from this website. Click on pictures for larger image.






Apparently, the Melnikov pavilion by the USSR was put out in the far reaches of the exhibition land:


But I still think the pavilion for colonial French Africa is the wildest of the bunch:



Wright went on to focus on the furniture and decoration of the exhibit, saying that they were more pertinent to the interests of the magazine. The accompanying images in the 1925 article are not all from the exhibit itself. (Some are from a New York apartment, and some are from French exhibitors.) He had some mixed reactions to the modernist furniture in Paris at the show:

"The first thing that strikes the observer are the lines of the furniture. The pieces look elephantine and out of proportion. So a great many of them are. They appear to have been made for people who are very much overweight."

On the other hand, he had this to say:
"...much of the craftsmanship is superb, for good craftsmanship is a form of tradition that has not yet been abandoned on the Continent. Rare and unusual woods are used and used effectively."
"The chairs are, in the main, comfortable; but the lines of the furniture, however stimulating as novelties cannot be said the delight the eye for a long time. They are too heavy, too ponderous, too serious looking."

Room decoration attributed to Lord and Taylor

Wright also contrasts the wall colors, wallpaper, and textiles to the furniture style:
"The designs are modernist in the extreme. And whereas the furniture designs are mainly rotund, the fabric designs are often angular. They are lively and amusing and full of laughter."

Ruhlmann interior
(Actually designed later, but indicative of his style and use of color.)

More information on the 1925 Paris Exhibition can be found here, and here,and more photos here.

Art Deco Origins

We have a fantastic library of design books at work, which is, not surprisingly, focused on gardens and architecture. Hidden on the shelves with some of the other architecture books I found this gem, and I've been fascinated with it ever since.


The book includes articles from House and Garden magazine as well as the mostly black and white photographs that accompanied the articles. In the section on the 1920's there's a great article written by the then-editor of House and Garden magazine, Richardson Wright, about his mixed reactions to the 1925 Exhibition des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris. The intent of the exhibition was to showcase French design and designers as leaders in the design world; it was mostly a state-sponsored marketing campaign on a giant level. The exhibition is now pinpointed as a sort of starting point for the modernist design movement; the Art Deco label was applied many years later, in the 1960's.

Detail above and cabinet by Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann,
noted cabinet designer,
who participated in the 1925 Paris exhibition.


Ruhlmann's Hotel du Collectioneur, from the 1925 Paris Exhibition.