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Matthew Rachman Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition featuring pieces by the pioneering French modernist designer and architect Charlotte Perriand (1903-1999). The opening will take place on Saturday, April 14 from 6 - 9pm. The show will run April 14 - May 27.
In the 1990s, two architects met in Berlin. They believed in high quality, relaxed timeless design for everyone, active lifestyles infused with solid connections to nature and thoughtful settings for human interactions. Marrying in 2004, they decided to start collect furniture reflective of these principles. The work of Charlotte Perriand exemplified their interests.
The young family became consumed with the adventure of researching Perriand. This adventure would lead them to Marseille, Grenoble and lastly Savoie where they discovered Les Arcs, a ski resort made up of four villages, constructed at different levels. The first three levels (the numbers correspond to various altitude levels) Arc 1600, Arc 1800, Arc 2000 were built and designed by Perriand between 1968 - 1985.
At the heart of the Les Arcs project, there were three determining notions: (1) respect for the beauty of the natural landscape, (2) the preservation of the existing mountain chalet structures, and (3) utilization of materials local to the area. With this in mind, Perriand then applied her high-modern aesthetic to the creation of these ski lodges. The rooms were minimally furnished to encourage guests to spend most of their time outside; the buildings opened up to the light and surrounding natural beauty of the mountains. Les Arcs quickly became the new standard for the Alpine skiing environment.
Perriand in the Mountains is a showcase of a carefully crafted collection facilitated out of pure fervor and passion. It is a vignette into a different time and age, giving one a rare opportunity to step into a spectacular episode of French modernism where the sensual meets the rational, the industrial with the natural on the eve of Les Arcs’ 50th anniversary.
DECASO, online home to the world’s finest antiques and decorative arts dealers, is proud to join the Matthew Rachman Gallery in celebrating the inimitable Charlotte Perriand.
Artist:
Charlotte Perriand (1903-1999) was one of the most innovative furniture and interior designers of the twentieth century. Her career spanned five eras of furniture design. Leaving a mark in Art Deco, machine-age modernism, the rustic 1930s and 40s, populist modern furniture of the 50s and 60s as well as the prefabricated bathroom and kitchen units popular in the 70s, Perriand’s versatility allowed her to maintain an influential status and cemented her as a pioneering figure in modernism.
The woman behind Le Corbusier’s furniture designs, Perriand initially applied to his atelier in October 1927. She was famously rejected with the reply, “We don’t embroider cushions here.” A month later after seeing her work at the Salon d’Automne, the famed architect offered her a position. In collaboration with Jean Jeanneret at Le Corbusier’s studio, she developed a series of tubular steel chairs. These chairs have since become emblematic of the machine age. She would leave Le Corbusier’s atelier in 1937, but return to collaborate with him on projects like the Brutalist beauty Unité d'habitation (1946-1949) or the residential Maison du Bresil at the Cité Universitaire Complex in Paris (1959).
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