FASHIONING THE MODERN FRENCH INTERIOR: POCHOIR PORTFOLIOS IN THE 1920S
NOVEMBER 16, 2007-MAY 11, 2008
Following the First World War, the French sought to assert their status as the leader of taste in interior design and decoration. Government-sponsored craft organizations and professional design associations recognized the importance of promoting French style, craft, and luxury goods at home and abroad to stimulate the economy. Fashioning the Modern French Interior examines limited-edition design portfolios, produced with the novel yet traditional hand-stenciling process known as pochoir to appeal to wealthy design connoisseurs, enthusiasts, and professionals. The labor-intensive pochoir process transformed design drawings and documentary photographs into meticulously crafted, expensive fine-art prints that helped raise the status of interior designers to be equal with that of visual artists. A collaborative effort among leading designers, editors, and critics, these high-style portfolios reveal an underlying tension at a pivotal moment in design history—when an allegiance to the past glories of traditional French styles diverged with the desire to forge a new look for the modern age.
For further information, please visit the following site, which was created as an interactive companion to the exhibition. http://www.pochoir.wolfsonian.org
Please visit The
Wolfsonian’s virtual library display of a selection of fashion
publications and erotic literature utilizing the pochoir
technique.
http://www.librarydisplays.wolfsonian.org/Pochoir/Pochoir.htm
First image featured:
Plate 14, Bureau-Bibliothèque (Office-Library) Designed by
Jean-Charles Moreux (French, 1889–1956)
Pochoir by Jean Saudé (French, active 1890–1930s)
Répertoire du goût moderne: no. 2 (Compendium of Modern Taste), 1929
Published by Albert Lévy, Paris
Credit: The Wolfsonian–Florida International University, Miami Beach,
Florida, Purchase, Acquisitions Fund; XC2006.09.9
Second image featured:
Plate 12, Boudoir-Bibliothèque (Boudoir-Library), 1918
Designed by Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann (French, 1879–1933)
From “Harmonies”: Intérieurs de Ruhlmann (Harmonies: Ruhlmann Interiors) by Jean Badovici, 1924
Published by Albert Morancé, Paris
The Wolfsonian–Florida International University, Miami Beach,
Florida, The Mitchell Wolfson, Jr. Collection; TD1990.40.52.1