Francis Jourdain, Armchair in teinted pitch-pine and ropes, Art Deco period

Francis Jourdain, in the style of.

Armchair in teinted pitch-pine and rope standing on front straight legs continuing on the ground to reach two back inclined legs. Arms with rope manchettes. Inclined flat back and seat covered with ropes. Engraved geometrical decor on arms and back.

Work realized during the Art Deco period, in the 1930’s.

Dimensions : H 78 x W 57 x D 75 cm.

Reference : LS3957351

Francis Jourdain (1876-1958) was a French designer born in Paris whose father was an architect. Young, he studied painting and exhibited his artworks for the first time in 1897. His paintings were then exhibited at Druet, to the Salon des Artistes Indépendants and to the Salon d’Automne. To diversify his art, he studied sculpture, engraving and went through the renewal of decorative arts specific to the beginning of the 20th century.
In 1902, he exhibited to the Salon d’Automne simple geometrical furniture in opposition to the Art Nouveau langage and became a modernist designer. His modern furniture orders were multiplied and he opened his Ateliers Modernes in 1912, and then an exhibition room in 1919.
He wanted to convert the habitat according to the new living conditions by searching to build a space where gaps and full equally count. Thus, his interiors and his furniture are simple and simplicity was sometimes extreme. From 1916, he turned to the industrial furniture manufacture, to make it accessible to everyone. Democratic in his way to think the furniture, he created in mass affordable, utilitarian and non-decorative furniture.
His doctrine was to purify the space to furnish it only with strictly necessary elements. He wanted to establish between them a fair proportion, a balance and without lacks and voids. In his first years he used wood, natural or painted, such as walnut, oak, zingana and maple. From 1925 he used steel, aluminum, lacquer and wrought iron. His functionalist furniture, aimed to a precise use, was simple and very geometrical by their rigorous assembly of plates, bars and crossbars.
In 1925, during the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs de Paris, the break was created between traditional and avant-garde creator inside the Société des Artistes Décorateurs (SAD) itself, which Jourdain is a member. Four years later in 1929 the dissatisfied people of 1925, such as Jourdain alongside with René Herbst, Robert Mallet-Stevens or Charlotte Perriand etc., founded l’Union des Artistes Modernes (UAM), a group who wanted to abolish the conventional frontiers between disciplines and to integrate modernity and progress inside interiors and furniture creation.
Francis Jourdain made different projects of interior design and modern furniture creation, such as the smokehouse of the French Ambassy organized by the SAA during the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs de Paris in 1925, the director office and the reception room of the Collège de France in 1938, mansions, tea rooms, shops, restaurants, cinemas, etc. In 1937 during the l’Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques, he presented within the UMA pavilion a small room full of combine and interchangeable furniture, coming back to social preoccupations which were always dear to him.
Indeed, Francis Jourdain was politically active and member since 1932 to the Association of revolutionary artists and writers. He was chased for his ideas by the Gestapo during the war and hid himself to write his memoirs. He withdrew from the interior decoration world in 1939 and joined the French Communist Party in 1944. The following year, he co-founded the Secours Populaire français (French People’s Aid) and became its first president in 1948. After the war, he dedicated himself to art critics and to the writing of articles and publications about art news and also artists themselves. He died in 1958.