Getting Plastered
Plaster in Interiors
“As a white material, plaster is superbly well-suited to bringing a figure to life using light and shade ... the plaster casts reproduced [Alberto Giacometti’s] work in a much more differentiated and lively way than many of the bronzes could” —Ernst Scheidegger
A consistent thread running through the work of almost all twentieth century designers was an innate love of materials. It was a century where advances in fabrication and construction methods meant designers could push the boundaries of what had previously been achievable. In the first half of the century members of the Union des Artistes Modernes (“UAM”) (initially made up of around 20 dissidents of the Société des Artistes-Décorateurs and led by architect Robert Mallet-Stevens (1886-1945)) championed new technologies, proclaiming: “We must rise up against everything that looks rich, against whatever is well made, and against anything inherited from grandmother ... impose will where habit is not invoked ... overcome the habit of the eyes.” It’s activity peaked at the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris (also known as The Exposition Universelle) for which Charlotte Perriand created a space-age star-shaped pavilion for the Ministry of Agriculture, Francis Jourdain (1876-1958) displayed his rationalist interior for A Workers Home and Jean Prouvé (1901-1984) introduced one of the first chairs ever constructed in Plexiglas. Yet, arguably, not one of them had a greater fascination for materials than Jean-Michel Frank (1895-1941) — a designer who never belonged to any artistic movement — for whom materials were a means, not an end. Though his work was less avant-garde than that for e.g. of Mathieu Matégot (1910–2001) or Le Corbusier (1887–1965), rooted in the tradition of fine French cabinetry, he selected materials — from straw marquetry to mica, terracotta, shagreen, obsidian and parchment — like paints in a palette, each contributing to an overall decorative scheme; stripping his radical-yet-sophisticated interiors of everything but the essential and independent of historical references and styles. Frank, like his contemporaries at the UAM, rejected any hierarchy of material and just like Bauhausler Josef Albers (1888-1976), he insisted anything could be interesting if it was used properly. To that end, Frank applied traditional materials in novel ways, for example covering walls in straw marquetry and upholstering with canvas. However it was Frank’s collaboration with contemporary painters and sculptors that set him apart from other designers of the period, and in particular, his collaboration with sculptor Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966).
Works by Stephen Antonson at his Brooklyn studio
“Suspension L005” chandelier, plaster (2017) designed by Philippe Anthonioz
Frank first came across Giacometti’s work at the 1929 Salon de Tuileries exposition held at the Palais de Bois. During the course of the designers short-lived professional career (on a trip to New York in 1941, plagued by depression, Frank threw himself from an apartment building and ended his life) Giacometti designed for him over seventy objects, including seventeen lamps, eleven floor lamps, thirteen vases, ten wall lights as well as numerous other accessories and objet d’art. Giacometti assigned equal importance to his decorative works and sculptures, explaining in a 1962 interview with André Parinaud: “For my livelihood, I accepted to make anonymous utilitarian objects for a decorator at that time, Jean-Michel Frank ... it was mostly not well-seen. It was considered a kind of decline. I nevertheless tried to make the best possible vases, for example, and I realized I was developing a vase exactly as I would a sculpture and that there was no difference between what I called a sculpture and what was an object, a vase!” Despite any derision from the art-world Giacometti’s plaster works were particularly well received (the couturier Elsa Schiaparelli (1890-1973) for e.g. kept two of his graphic, textural, candleholders on the desk of her Paris atelier) and are equally as desirable today. For many sculptors plaster is merely an intermediary material used in the lost wax process; but much like Frank, Giacometti treated plaster as a noble material, valuing it for its malleability and sense of fragility. Indeed even following his collaboration with Frank, Giacometti continued to produce decorative objects, but only for very close friends such as the editor Tériade. As a result such pieces are comparatively rare and much sought after by collectors; indeed a spectacular ceiling light created for Tériade’s Paris apartment sold for just over £2,000,000 at Phillips in 2017. Those familiar with the higher echelons of contemporary design will be used to seeing Giacometti’s plaster works resplendent in the interiors of designers such as Jacques Grange (b. 1944), Peter Marino (b. 1949) and Stephen Sills (as well as numerous fakes — or rather, “in the style of” — used in those interiors lacking such seemingly limitless budgets), and as a result of their cult status, in recent years we’ve seen something of a renaissance in the use of plaster in interiors.
“Toutankhamon” table lamp, plaster (1933) designed by Alberto and Diego Giacometti for Jean-Michel Frank
“Akira” chandelier, plaster (2012) by Alexandre Logé for Alexandre Biaggi
At the peak we have artists like Philippe Anthonioz (b. 1953) and Stephen Antonson (b. 1966) whose lighting and functional furnishings in chalky-white plaster are frequently seen exhibited at PAD, with a roster of discerning private clients and designers including the likes of Daniel Romualdez, Robert Couturier (b. 1955) and Michael S. Smith (b. 1963). If there are comparisons to Giacometti, for Anthonioz they’re perhaps closer to home as early on in his career, in 1983, the artist spent two years working under Alberto’s brother, the master sculptor Diego Giacometti (1902-1985) — then 80 and suffering from arthritis — to create furniture and fixtures for the Musée Picasso in the historic Hôtel Salé, Paris; indeed it was Anthonioz who did most of the fabrication. Whilst the older artist’s influence can be seen in Anthonioz’s work, their aesthetics diverge radically. Diego was obsessed with figuration and the natural world, whereas Anthonioz has always been driven by abstraction; “People always speak of me in the same breath as Diego, but I think of Carlo Scarpa, David Smith or even the Bauhaus.”
Brooklyn based artist and designer Antonson has something of a mixed background — a classically trained sculptor and painter he dabbled in metal, glass and photography before settling on his current métier: sculpting furniture and lighting from plaster. “I walked into this world and found it attractive on so many levels,” he explains. “Interest in plaster has ebbed and flowed over time. Serge Roche, Giacometti, John Dickinson – waves of people would pick up the material and redefine what is possible.” Antonson’s Giacometti-inspired light-fixtures — the sort of thing the novelist and art collector Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) might have hung in her Paris salon — are what clients are currently clamouring for; whether his larger chandeliers (from $10,000), such as an enormous 4m model with eighteen lights, made for a sprawling Hamptons estate, or the geometric Morandi sconces ($4,200) and table lamps (from $3,500).
At the same time Giacometti was creating his angular, modernist works, Roche (the son of a well-connected painter and art dealer) was shaping plaster into palm tree–esque torchieres, the epitome of Hollywood Regency (or what came to be known in France as Panache style — an unusual mix of baroque extravagance and rough naiveté), that were fought over by an exceedingly select clientele, including Coco Chanel (1883-1971), Aly Khan (1911-1960) and Elsie de Wolfe (1965-1950), for whom Roche’s lion-footed stools were a particular favourite. Then in the 1960s designer John Dickinson used plaster to create hooved and footed plaster furnishings that came to emblematize San Francisco’s California cool (some years ago David Sutherland began reissuing the designer’s furniture in his showrooms across the US). Such diversity of work is now being reimagined by contemporary designers for an interiors sector that values plaster’s subtle textural qualities, sculptural adaptability and resilience.
Indeed interior designer and antiques dealer Rose Uniacke (b. 1962) turned to Oriel Harwood when creating a showcase at last year’s London Design Festival; an artist who’s audacious, unashamedly ostentatious creations — not quite furniture or ornamentation — hark back to the eightieth century when designers such as Matthias Lock and Thomas Chippendale (1718–1779) were creating naturalistic and complex designs. As well as her collaboration with Harwood, Uniacke also produces her own range of minimal cone-shaped plaster pendant lights and Roche-esque shell sconces. Italian born London-based artist and designer Viola Lanari is another name in vogue; with her hand-worked Giacometti inspired plaster table lamps popular with private clients and interior decorators alike, including Beata Heuman (b. 1983), Rita Konig (b. 1974) and Hollie Bowden. More art than design her recent naïve, abstracted and one-of-a-kind furniture pieces — including consoles and side tables — are on display at Jermaine Gallacher’s South London showroom. Similarly avant-garde, Chilean industrial designer Abel Cárcamo creates unique, biomorphic functional sculptures — such as the Mutare stool, whose luminous, organic surfaces are reminiscent of the works of artist Henry Moore (1898-1986). Whereas Paris-based Alexandre Logé (b. 1977) takes a more whimsical approach, with his plaster chandeliers channelling Dadaist Jean Arp’s (1886-1966) smoothly rounded, biomorphic sculptures, with their cones, irregular shapes and Dr. Seussian scale shifts.
Plaster has of course been widely used as a decorative medium since antiquity and so it should come no surprise that it has, once again, found favour with contemporary designers. Its tactile, textured appearance chimes with a desire for sensorial art-filled spaces — something perhaps now more relevant than ever as a panacea to the Covid-19 crisis. “The possibilities with plaster are almost limitless,” says Antonson, who has been commissioned to create entire rooms from the material, including an entryway for designer David Mann that includes walls, shelving, a mirror and even a ceiling covered in seashells. For those of us with less space (and a more limited budget) candlesticks or a single table lamp in chalky-white, matte plaster can add depth and character to a room. Whilst it may be a humble material, it lets you see the hand of the artisan and it’s a medium, truly, with infinite possibilities in the world of interior decoration. To some extent it exists between the worlds of art and design and, in the right hands, can be transformed into sculptural poetry — Anthonioz’s work might even be seen as the living link to brothers Alberto and Diego Giacometti.