Charlotte Perriand - Design London Wednesday, April 23, 2008 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Galerie Down Town François Laffanour, Paris, France; Galerie Patrick Seguin, Paris, France; Collection Larry Gagosian, New York, USA

  • Literature

    Mary McLeod, ed., Charlotte Perriand: An Art of Living, New York, 2003, p. 220 for a similar example; Jacques Barsac, Charlotte Perriand-Un Art d'Habiter, Paris, 2005, p. 281 for a similar example

  • Catalogue Essay

    Throughout much of her career, Charlotte Perriand collaborated with Le Corbusier to create furniture which followed his theory of proportion and functionality. In the 1930s, Perriand found inspiration in Surrealist artists who experimented with "free-form" in their artistic creations. Perriand translated this practice into furniture design, creating her first free-form desk for an editor of the leftist paper Ce Soir.
     Although she was fascinated with metal work, Perriand began to design with wood in order to lower costs and increase availability to the public. Her travels in Japan further encouraged her to work with organic materials and to experiment with local crafts and traditions. With the translation from metal to wood, the forms appeared heavier but maintained the sense of space so important to modern design.

  • Artist Biography

    Charlotte Perriand

    French • 1903 - 1999

    Trailblazer Charlotte Perriand burst onto the French design scene in her early 20s, seemingly undeterred by obstacles in an era when even the progressive Bauhaus school of design barred women from architecture and furniture design courses. She studied under Maurice Dufrêne at the École de l'Union Centrale des art Décoratifs, entering into a competition at the 1925 Expo des Arts Décoratifs by age 22 and gaining critical acclaim for her exhibition at the Salon d'Automne in 1927.

    On the heels of this success, that same year she joined the Paris design studio of Le Corbusier and his cousin Pierre Jeanneret. For ten years the three collaborated on "equipment for living," such as the iconic tubular steel B306 Chaise Longue (1928). After World War II, Perriand joined forces with Jean Prouvé to create modernist furniture that combined the precise lines of Prouvé's bent steel with the soft, round edges and warmth of natural wood.

    View More Works

217

Important free-form desk

c. 1960
Pine.
72.5 x 173 x 80 cm. (28 1/2 x 68 x 31 1/2 in.)
Editioned by Steph Simon, France.

Estimate
£70,000 - 90,000 

Design

24 Apr 2008, 2pm
London