EUROPEAN MODERNITY(IES)
1895-1935
Edition II
From September 20th to November 10th
ALLEMAGNE
GERMANY
DEUTSCHLAND
A member of the artists' colony of the Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt, Patriz Huber designed this rare armchair in 1901 for the house-studio of the painter Paul Bürck, on the occasion of the International Architecture Exhibition and of which only two exemplars were made. It is clearly a piece imagined for relaxation. The silk velvet, simple but precious, underlines the exceptional architecture of this seat with all its details: the legs, the interesting arc developed from the rear legs and supporting the armrests which widen towards the front and have an almost organic shape. Huber died suddenly at the age of 24, at the very beginning of a budding career. He had everything to be one of the great artists of the 20th century, as avant-garde were his ideas and his vision of the decorative arts.
PATRIZ HUBER
(1878-1902)
avant-garde designer
BELGIQUE
BELGIUM
BELGIË
ALBAN & ALFRED CHAMBON
(1847-1928 & 1884-1973)
designers from father to son
French decorator and architect established in Belgium, Alban Chambon designed important monuments in the Belgian capital, as well as on its coastline. At the head of a company founded in 1868 in Brussels, he worked together with numerous architects before later collaborating with his own sons. Among them was Alfred Chambon, who developed a passion for architecture and modern-style furniture. Together, father and son created important sets of decorations, from which this chandelier with neo-classical motifs comes. Note that a similar, incomplete suspension is curated at the CIVA in Brussels.
FRANCE
EUGÈNE GAILLARD
(1862-1933)
Art Nouveau master
French architect and designer, Eugène Gaillard collaborated with Georges de Feure (1868-1943) and Édouard Colonna (1862-1948) for the creation of the interiors and furniture of the famous Pavillon of Art Nouveau Bing, during the International Exhibition of 1900. These artists, under the direction of Bing, carried out an aesthetic program claiming to be "the old French tradition" imbued with a "living spirit of modernity". Gaillard was responsible for three rooms in the pavilion, notably the dining room, in which a sideboard identical to this one was displayed, although the bronze drawer pulls vary.
PAYS-BAS
THE NETHERLANDS
NEDERLAND
LUCAS CHRISTIAAN DUMONT
(1865-1935)
dutch modernism
Architect and chief urban planner of the city of Haarlem (Netherlands) from 1902 to 1930, Lucas Christiaan Dumont was one of the most eminent representatives, along with Hendrik Petrus Berlage in Amsterdam and Willem Marinus Dudok in Hilversum, of modern architecture in the Netherlands. The only example known to date, this armchair is a historic piece from the Dutch avant-garde Nieuwe Bouwen & De Stijl, essential sources of Bauhaus and modernist architecture of the 1930s. A very similar model in oak and brown leather, furnished the Wethouderskamer (literally Chamber of Law Keepers or Chamber of Aldermen) of the Haarlem Town Hall, the modernization and design of which were successfully entrusted to Dumont around 1925.
