Creators

Painter, decorator, creator of furniture and carpets.

Trained at the École des Arts Décoratifs (School of Decorative Arts) in Paris, he entered the Henin jewellery house as a designer then learnt the techniques of weaving and tapestry at Coudyser. He exhibited his first creations at the 1919 trade show of the Société́ des Artistes Décorateurs. In 1920, he created objects and furniture items for the Primavera du Printemps workshop. He worked with the company Décoration Intérieure Moderne (DIM) for the creation and publication of printed canvases. With effect from 1923, he worked regularly with Robert Mallet-Stevens and Pierre Chareau for whom he drew several carpet and furniture templates, produced, exhibited and sold by La Boutique. His preferred materials were metal (lacqueured or nickel-plated metal tubing) and wood, particularly waxed oak. In 1924, he designed two posters with Djo Bourgeois for Marcel L’Herbier’s film L’Inhumaine.

At the 1925 Exhibition, he and the sculptors Jan and Joël Martel whose sister he had married, presented the fountain of the commissariat of tourism and the model of the Monument à Claude Debussy which would be installed in 1932 in the Bois de Boulogne. A founder member of the UAM in 1929, at the group’s first exhibition he presented a series de furniture items: bench seat, armchair, stools, small tables and some carpets produced by Pierre Chareau’s La Boutique as well as some metal planters produced by Les Fleurs de Nice. He also created a whole series of chairs made from metal tubing and cotton thread intended to furnish the waiting room of the surgery at the Maison de Verre. With effect from 1935, he was appointed director of the École de dessin in Auxerre, his home city. In 1937, for the International Exhibition of Arts and Technology in Modern Life in Paris, he painted the ceiling of the Pavillon de la Solidarité́. With effect from this date, he devoted himself exclusively to teaching and painting. In 1953 he produced several mural paintings to decorate the new church of Oradour sur Glane. He participated in the fiftieth anniversary of the 1925 exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs.

He died in 1982 in Blacy.