Mid-century Obsession
The rise and rise of mid-century MODERN
“Everything changes so quickly, and what is state of the art one moment won’t be the next. Adaptation has to be ongoing — we have to know and accept this. These are transient times.” — Charlotte Perriand
For much of the twentieth century the world saw constant and unrelenting innovation in design; from Jean-Michel Frank simplifying and streamlining classic eighteenth century French shapes in the 1920’s and 30’s, to Pierre Chareau (1883-1950) and Eileen Gray (1878-1976) taking Art Deco into the machine age, Jean Royère’s post-war whimsical creations, the austerity of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969), Walter Gropius (1883-1969) and the “International Style”, which was subsequently hijacked by the cynical and self-interested Philip Johnson (1906-2005), drained of its substance and humanity, regurgitated as the yawn-inducing banality of post-modernism (with all of its tedious inside jokes, quotations and put-ons), which coincided with the advent of 1980’s yuppie culture, the ipso facto corporate takeover of the art and design world, Richard Rogers (b. 1933), Norman Foster (b. 1935) et al, Daniel Libeskind (b. 1946), Zaha Hadid (1950-2016) and then nothing. There were of course numerous influential and important figures in-between, too many for a roll call, but they include the likes of Charlotte Perriand (1903-1999), Charles (1907–1978) and Ray Eames (1912–1988) (whose DSW chair (1950) might be the most faked pieces of furniture in modern history) and Andrée Putman (1925-2013), an antidote to the gold plated swan taps and faux-Versailles cliches of Trump Tower excess. It’s helpful to think about the history of art and design as a series of pillars and ribbons; there are the greats who did something entirely new, thereby changing the very course of art history, Picasso (1881-1973), Le Corbusier (1887-1965), Andy Warhol (1928-1987) etc, who are the pillars, and then, there are all those other artists and designers, the ribbons, that hang between them, who, whilst possibly producing interesting and sought after work, are essentially another take on, or interpretation of, a “pillar”, and not entirely original and/or ground-breaking. Some art historians even argue that since the 1960s or 70s there has been a continual long ribbon, and that there has essentially been nothing new, with a capital “N”, in the purest sense of the word.
“Easy” armchair (c. 1955) by Pierre Jeanneret, image c/o Galerie Patrick Seguin
Cabinet (1958) by Charlotte Perriand, image c/o Galerie Patrick Seguin
The twentieth century modernists took away all the boundaries, they increasingly believed that it was possible to change people through design and after that period of rampant innovation and experimentation, it’s now more and more difficult to produce anything truly original. At the onset of the Art Deco period the likes of Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann (1879-1933) and Jean Dunand (1877-1942), followed, in its later stages, by Frank, in the basest terms, took the shapes of traditional French cabinetry, and, influenced by the bold geometric forms of Cubism and the Vienna Secession, simplified and combined them with unexpected materials, for e.g. eggshell, galuchat, mica and straw marquetry, resulting in an entirely new aesthetic. Then, with technological advances from the 1940s, machine manufacture, the capability for mass production, the use of steel and arrival of entirely new materials and process, like fiberglass and stack lamination, designers had an entirely new set of toys to play with; and as a result we saw an explosion of styles and shapes that were previously an impossibility (numerous pieces of furniture designed by Perriand, Pierre Jeanneret (1896-1967) and Corbu in the 1920s weren’t even possible en masse until advancements in manufacturing during the 1960’s and 70s, when they were finally put into production). “They are everything designer’s would like to do now but can’t,” says filmmaker Amanda Eliasch about her prized Le Corbusier and Arne Jacobsen furniture. “What do you do following on from these amazing pieces of furniture?” Indeed as a designer in 2021 it’s harder than ever to think up new forms (that are marketable), as most of what’s sellable has already been done before (of course a good many new pieces “inspired” by their predecessors are taken as new due to the relative obscurity of some twentieth century makers). Wendell Castle, the unofficial “father of the art furniture movement”, continued producing innovative and unusual pieces, straddling both categories of serviceable furniture and fine art, right up until his death in 2018; but they were hardly fit for mass consumption — their size, scale, complexity and eye watering prices made them art pieces for the few and not a practical option for the many (not that they were ever intended as commercial in the B&B Italia/Molteni&C sense). Indeed the majority of the most interesting and original contemporary furniture — from Eric Schmitt (b. 1959), Vincenzo De Cotiis (b. 1958), Philippe Anthonioz (b. 1953) et al — is well outside the reach of all but the 0.1%.
“Trapeze” desk (c. 1957) by Jean Royère, image c/o Galerie Patrick Seguin
“Cite bed No. 456” (1951) by Jean Prouvé, image c/o Galerie Patrick Seguin
Perhaps as a result, over the past decade, there has been a relentless and creeping obsession with everything and anything “mid-century” — an all-encompassing term, which, broadly speaking, means furniture from the 1930s to 1960s. The origins of this new-found appreciation of twentieth century design can be attributed to those great dealers like Jacques Lacoste, Alan Grizot, Patrick Seguin, Félix Marcilhac et al, who scoured the world for those pieces by design greats that had already, even by the late 1970s, fallen into relative unpopularity and obscurity. Nobody wanted it, and nobody valued it, until these pioneering gallerists shone a carefully curated spotlight on these modern masters. Indeed until the early 2000’s, when Eric Touchaleaume, Philippe Jousse, François Laffanour and Seguin started buying up a subset of furniture designed by Jeanneret in the 1950s and early 1960s for Chandigarh, the purpose-built capital of Punjab and Haryan, it was left piled up and rotting in the city’s streets. Now furniture from this modernist utopia is possibly the most in-demand and desirable of all mid-century status symbols (perhaps surpassing even early Prouvé), and it’s almost impossible to flip through the pages of any glossy interiors magazine without seeing pieces (allegedly, more below) by Jeanneret. “It’s so simple, so minimal, so strong,” architect Joseph Dirand told AD in reference to the Swiss architect’s cane seated chairs. “Put one in a room, and it becomes a sculpture.” Taking advantage of India’s export laws — which classified only objects over 100 years old as “antique” — chairs, tables, desks and even architectural elements (a manhole cover, designed by Jeanneret, imprinted with the map of Chandigarh, sold at Christie’s in 2007 for $21,600) started pouring into Europe; indeed the scale of loss of furniture and fittings from buildings including the high court and college of architecture has become so serious that the city’s authorities have ordered that no more be auctioned off.
Such is the desire for furniture from this fabled Indian capital that even mass-market high-street behemoth H&M has two pieces heavily inspired by the Swiss architect in its new homewares collection, and Anthropologie what looks to be an exact copy of the now iconic “V-leg” lounge chair. Yet, despite editorial saturation, with even the homes of the Kardashian/Jenner/West triumvirate bursting at the seams with Capitol Complex armchairs and Pigeon Hole desks, it’s an aesthetic that only seems increase in popularity and desirability, evolving from a cultural curiosity to collectors trophy and social-medial stalwart. With no foundation to police his trademark, provenance is often blurry and chairs fetching tens of thousands at auction might very well be fake; indeed numerous dealers and industry experts suggest counterfeits might make up much as 70% of the market. A quick online search reveals furniture purporting to be “Jeanneret” is being sold on numerous platforms; priced anywhere from £1,200 for an easy-chair, to £94,000 for a Committe Table. Such is the sophistication of many modern forgeries that even those with experience in the trade can sometimes be duped — galleries Jousse Entreprise, Patrick Seguin and Downtown-François Laffanour, paid a total of €220,000 for alleged Prouvé furniture from an auction at Artcurial in April 2008; their separate acquisitions of a table and two chairs all turned out to be fakes. In short, any prospective purchaser should err on the side of caution and its worth paying a premium to get the peace of mind that comes from dealing with an expert; buy in an established gallery that gives a guarantee of authenticity and agrees to take back the piece in case of problems. Essentially it’s like anything else, and it pays to do your homework; examine spots where a piece would normally incur the most damage, such as the bottoms of the legs, which get scuffed, and look for other marks, like those from mops and brooms. Chips and repairs are to be expected, and when it’s really really clean, too new, too uniform, you should start to question it.
Some people collect because they’re inherently drawn to the work of certain artists and designers, some have a passion for the historical and cultural significance of a piece and others — especially amongst the new generation of collectors — are interested in the sustainability of preserving the old in favour of something new. Of course the best pieces will always be just that and the popularity of certain mid-century makers is essentially as a result of their producing outstanding, functional design. Although there may not be any one twenty first century design style, or movement, if anything, it could be considered eclecticism in interiors — with people willing to mix styles, genres and periods more freely than ever before; we would think nothing for e.g. of pairing a Lalanne sheep with a Gerrit Rietveld (1888-1964) chair, which, in the 1950s, might have been considered somewhat outre. The growing popularity of mid-century design never seems never to lose momentum, with the same cast of characters — Prouvé, Gio Ponti (1891-1979), Perriand, Charles and Ray Eames, Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988), Hans Wegner (1914-2007), Sori Yanagi (1915-2011) and Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2012) et al — seen ad infinitum in every new interiors shoot, at every design fair and in every coffee table book. There are of course numerous pieces of twentieth century furniture from lesser known makers, or with no attribution, that are equally stylish, if not more so; form is form, a beautiful object speaks for itself and can be the work of an unknown or anonymous designer. Of course, as with fashion, for some the buzz is in the name and in knowing they own a particularly desirable piece — to buy from the heart often requires a greater degree of taste and character, and those emotional acquisitions can often be what make an interior, or a collection, sing. So prevalent now is the aesthetic that there are a number of contemporary makers and designers producing pieces that seem to be inspired by (whether that be deliberate or merely through a symbiotic absorption of the zeitgeist) the mid-century greats, and in particular, it would seem, the work of ever-in-vogue Charlotte Perriand; from Fred Rigby’s sinuous Pebble desk to Emmanuelle Simon’s Elly table and Jonathan bookcase. One certainty is that you can’t fight the market, and for the time being, at least, the popularity of twentieth century furniture is only on the up and up, with a cult-like following for certain designers that’s feeding into and influencing the worlds of art, architecture and design.