Gustave Serrurier-Bovy A Protagonist Rediscovered

Gustave Serrurier-Bovy
A Protagonist Rediscovered
by Anty Pansera
“This cultivated man had conserved the essential qualities of the worker
from Liège: his intelligence and technical skill, as well as his amiability,
punctiliousness and honesty.”
This is what Madame Maus wrote to her husband after seeing the
Cabinet de travail exhibited by Gustave Serrurier-Bovy at the first Salon
de la Libre Esthétique, organized in Brussels in 1894 by the critic and
cultural promoter Octave Maus. The Libre Esthétique had been set up by
Maus in order to carry on with the experience of the group Les XX, which
had lasted ten years, from 1884 to 1894.
Up until that moment Serrurier had been almost unknown outside the circles of Liège, an industrial and hardworking city but one that was seemingly untouched by the great upheavals in art and thought that were shaking the whole of Europe, and the countries of Great Britain, France and
Belgium in particular.
And yet Serrurier, though he came from Liège, was well acquainted with
these developments: he followed with genuine enthusiasm the “revolution” of Ruskin, Morris and the exponents of the Arts and Crafts, Violletle-Duc’s ideas about architecture and the social humanism of Camille
Lemonnier and Paul Destrée, “apostle” of the spiritual and cultural
redemption of the Belgian working class.
1902
Before assuming a leading role in the intellectual and artistic circles of
Brussels, and then Paris, Serrurier had studied and traveled, experimenting in the field, in theory and in practice, ever since the time when, as
a student at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Liège, in 1879, he had
given a lecture to his classmates on the architecture of the nineteenth century in which he had made explicit reference to the at once rational and
romantic vision of Viollet-le-Duc, as well as to the fundamentals of an
architecture that had to renew and modernize itself, lest it succumb to the
inglorious fate of pastiche and soulless imitation.
His Life, His Work, His Oblivion
A child prodigy, then, born in 1858 and a contemporary of Victor Horta
(1861) and Henry van de Velde (1863), the two tutelary geniuses of
Belgian and European Modernism.
His father was a minor building contractor, while his mother came from
a family of joiners, carpenters and cabinetmakers. In 1874, in order to
be able to help out in his father’s business, but primarily out of an irresistible calling, Gustave enrolled in the course of architecture at the
Académie des Beaux-Arts.
From as early as 1876 he was drawing up projects for detached houses
and public works on behalf of his father, but above all he ran the gift shop
acquired by the family in 1866 from Joseph Bovy, the father of his wifeto-be Maria, who had died in 1867. A vast space in which all sorts of
things were on sale, from mirrors to chandeliers, from boxes to folding
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screens and toilet articles and from vases to paper and cases: a traditional catalogue of wares, in the pompous and eclectic style of the time,
which Gustave set out to purify and renew and which by 1884 had
assumed a frankly “modern” and refined character. In that year in fact,
he went to London, where he acquired the right to sell the products of
Arthur Lasenby Liberty in Liège, and to Glasgow, to see firsthand the
work and achievements of Mackintosh and his followers. On his return,
on May 27th, he married Maria Bovy, head of the sales department at
his friend Armand Rassenfosse’s glass store, and with her set up the firm
Serrurier-Bovy. Located in rue de l’Université, it exhibited and sold furniture, giftware and in particular a variety of objects imported from Japan
– Japonisme was then at its height in Europe – and from London.
Little by little, inevitably, architecture yielded ground to his commercial
commitments and, above all, to his personal involvement in the design
and manufacture of furniture. Little has survived of these early creations,
which drew their inspiration from the Walloon craft tradition as well as
the Neo-Gothic of Viollet-le-Duc, but they must have been remarkable if
in 1893 Henry van de Velde went to Liège just to see his work, and
wrote to his fiancée, Mara Sèthe: “... Serrurier was the first designer of
furniture to have come under the influence of the followers of Morris
[...]. The architects Hankar, Victor Horta and myself have followed in
his footsteps [...].”
Evidently he spoke of him to Octave Maus, who invited Serrurier to participate in the prestigious first Salon de la Libre Esthétique, where his
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Cabinet de travail or study received highly favorable reviews in the
press. Maus himself described it as the “manifesto of a new vision of
modern furnishing.”
The following year he exhibited, again at the Libre Esthétique, a
Chambre d’artisan or craftsman’s bedroom in a style that he himself
defined as “artisan,” and therefore of more sober and almost rustic lines.
For the occasion he printed a descriptive brochure in which he set out
the aesthetic, moral and social principles that underpinned the work.
In May of that year he promoted an important cultural initiative in Liège,
a festival of music, drama, art and applied art called L’Oeuvre Artistique.
The events staged included an exhibition of painting, sculpture and the
minor arts, with large numbers of exhibits sent from Glasgow and Paris
(among those present was Hector Guimard) and a production of Ibsen’s
play The Master Builder, performed by the Théâtre de l’Oeuvre of Paris
and directed by Lugné-Poe. And Ibsen was to be, along with Wagner,
one of Serrurier’s great intellectual passions.
The success of the festival opened doors for Serrurier in Brussels, where
he worked for two important clients, the public notary Bauwens and the
minister Braun. In 1896 he exhibited at La Libre Esthétique again
(Ensemble de cheminée), was invited to participate in the salon of the
Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris (where he presented a
Cabinet de travail) and showed a bookcase at the Arts and Crafts
Exhibition in London. Now famous, he opened a store in Brussels, at
rue de la Blanchisserie 21.
The year 1897 saw one of Serrurier’s major undertakings: the design of
1904
the Hall of Importations at the Colonial Exposition of Brussels-Tervuren
(the other halls were designed by van de Velde, Hobé and Hankar). This
was staged to publicize the materials and products of the Congo, at that
time still the “personal property” of Leopold II but already an extremely
important economic resource for Belgium. It was on this occasion that
Serrurier got to know and began to use the prized hardwoods of Africa,
especially mahogany and the red Congolese wood known as padauk.
The following years were filled with feverish activity and rich in artistic
and economic fulfilments.
In 1898 he designed and furnished the hall of the Hotel Chatham in
Paris. In 1899 he opened a large factory on rue Hemricourt in Liège,
which was eventually to employ over a hundred people, including technicians, workers and skilled craftsmen. Finally, with his friend the architect René Dulong, he founded the large exhibition space called L’Art
dans l’Habitation, again in Paris, which offered furnishing and decoration solutions for all kinds of settings and uses. He showed a complete
dining-room suite at the salon of the Société des Artistes Français and the
magazine Art et Décoration devoted an entire issue to his work (with
beautiful photographs and drawings). For the Universal Exhibition in
Paris in 1900, he and Dulong were commissioned by Chez Maxim’s to
design and furnish the Pavillon Bleu, a luxury restaurant at the foot of the
Eiffel Tower.
The new century saw him active on many fronts, from the cultural, with
the Avant-Garde club that he founded and headed in Liège, to the professional. In particular, he designed the entire furnishing of the castle of
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1904
La Roche en Serval near Compiègne for the Verstraete family (and
Verstraete was to become his partner in 1903). This was in 1901, the
year in which he and Dulong visited the exhibition of the artists’ colony
of Darmstadt, an unusual community of painters, sculptors and architects
living in a village on the Mathildenhöhe in house-studios designed by
Olbrich and Behrens.
It may have been this encounter that sparked off the new phase in
Serrurier’s creativity, in which he adopted a more sober, linear and
architectural style. For, as Roger Guerrand wrote in 1965, after
Darmstadt “the New was no longer the Jugendstil, whose funeral was
held here [...]. The experience of Darmstadt [...] had shown that, by
making different experiments in total freedom, artists had arrived at a
new ideal characterized by rigor and form [...].”
In 1901 he also submitted to the municipality of Ougrée, in the environs
of Liège, the plans for the house that he intended to build in the hills of
Cointe: Villa l’Aube. He moved there with the family in 1902, but work
on the house was not completed until 1903, the year in which he set up
the Société Serrurier et Cie with Dulong, Verstraete and others. In the
same year he renovated and completely refurbished the castle of La
Cheyrelle in Auvergne, owned by Dulong’s brother-in-law. It is the only
example of his work as an interior decorator and designer to have survived intact: among other things, he fitted out a dining room with Silex
furniture, whose structure and technological solutions foreshadowed the
possibilities of mass production.
The following year the store in Paris was transferred to the prestigious
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Boulevard Haussmann, with a new outfitting that reflected the change in
Serrurier’s style, now remote from the exuberant lyricism of art nouveau.
The company opened a branch in The Hague as well and took part in
the Salon de l’Automobile of Paris, showing three prototypes of bedroom
suites for hotels of different classes.
At the 1905 International and Universal Exhibition in Liège, which set the
seal on the city’s industrial and financial success and entailed major
works of urbanization and expansion, Serrurier played an important role:
a member of various juries, he also had works on show and was above
all the inspiration behind the competition for the design and furnishing of
workers’ housing to be built in the new rue Montefiore promoted by the
Savings Bank. He submitted a project himself, for which he utilized Silex
furniture, in birch and maple and with bolts left visible, that could be
assembled and dismantled. A complete set of furnishings of moderate
cost, hygienic and easy to maintain, which also comprised drapes,
upholstery and stamped decorations.
In 1907 he accepted an order from a young and wealthy Argentine for
the complete furnishing of a grandiose villa recently built at the seaside
resort of Mar del Plata. Luis Ortiz Basualdo had seen Serrurier’s furniture
at the store in Paris and wanted to meet him. Dulong sent him to see
Serrurier in Liège, at the Villa de l’Aube. Dazzled, Luis Ortiz Basualdo
asked him to make identical furnishings for his villa in Argentina... They
would be similar, however, but not identical, since it was not Serrurier’s
habit to repeat his creations slavishly. And he was to fill one of the bed-
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rooms at Villa Ortiz Basualdo with green-stained Silex furniture that is still
of astonishing rationality and modernity.
But 1907 also brought a bitter blow: the winding-up of the company as a
result of the sudden pullout of Verstraete and then the other stockholders.
Serrurier was left by himself, with heavy debts to the banks and having
to meet the expenses of the transfer of the factory from rue Hemricourt to
rue de la Joie. In spite of these difficulties, he revived the Serrurier-Bovy
trademark, opened a branch in Nice and managed to meet the deadlines for the furniture of the villa in Argentina, which was completed in
1909. By this time the economic situation had almost stabilized and
Serrurier and his family took a pleasure trip on the Italian lakes. The first
and only vacation of his life...
In 1910 he presented a small stand at the Universal Exhibition in Brussels
and made plans to build a vacation home at Spa, on a site that he had
recently acquired: sign of a renewed faith in his own future and in that
of his business.
But a sudden and unexpected fate lay in store: on November 19, he suffered a devastating stroke at his office, and died three days later without
regaining consciousness.
The company died with him, after a sad struggle to survive that lasted
until 1918. And with it the name and memory of the man and his work
vanished almost at once, caught up in the general disrepute into which
the whole of art nouveau and its exponents quickly fell.
It took the critical reevaluation of the sixties to restore the well-deserved
1904
reputation of the movement and the thirty-year-long study of JacquesGrégoire Watelet to bring back the name and works of Gustave
Serrurier to their rightful place in art and history.
The Spirit of the Time
Gustave Serrurier was born and worked in the heart of what had been a
genuine industrial, social and artistic revolution, in the Europe made up of
new nation states and dominated by a new class, the triumphant bourgeoisie. A middle class which manufactured everything and for everyone
with the help of machines, traded everywhere, taking advantages of the
new markets opened up by colonialism (and its related exploitation), but
which also believed in development and equality of opportunity. Different
needs, worldly aspirations and vain cultural ambitions, but also curiosity
about the new, about ideas of progress and solidarity that might in some
way mitigate the adverse effects of a capitalism that in Victorian Great
Britain as well as in Prussian Germany and the France of the Second
Empire had created situations of intolerable poverty, shameful exploitation
and the marginalization of vast strata of the population. It suffices to read
Dickens, Hugo, Lemonnier and, obviously, the Communist Manifesto of
Marx and Engels...
These social contradictions induced the more enlightened exponents of
European culture and the arts to envisage a liberation from poverty and
ignorance not so much through armed and ruinous revolution as through
an assiduous work of cultural “evangelization” that found expression in
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art (as with van Gogh’s work among the miners of the Borinage) and in
the objects and surroundings of daily life, as well as in the promotion of
education and civil rights.
It was from this – from this artistic rather than social utopia – that much
of the modern movement drew its inspiration and creativity, whatever the
form and declination it assumed in different countries.
Hence the progressive disappearance of eclectic and historicist pomposities and the growing interest of architects and interior designers not
just in improving the living conditions of the working class, but also in a
total renewal of the domestic scene in general.
Alongside this, or rather in counterpoint to it, emerged a spiritualistic,
decadent and esoteric current that was also to influence numerous
artists, musicians and writers: among them, Maeterlinck, Delville and
Khnopff in Belgium, Debussy, Puvis de Chavannes, Moreau, Gallé and
Lalique in France, Wilde and Burne-Jones in Great Britain, Gaudí in
Spagna, Klimt in Austria...
However what really stands out today is the work, planned and realized,
of the great architects who turned themselves into total designers: from
Horta to van de Velde, from Olbrich to Hoffmann and Behrens, from
Guimard to Majorelle, from Mackintosh to Mackmurdo. And among
these names we should include that of Serrurier.
The Ideas and Morality of Design
In 1895, in the brochure that accompanied his Chambre d’artisan exhibited at the second Salon de la Libre Esthétique, Serrurier wrote that he
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had designed it for “[...] that category of workers that I define artisans,
in the absence of a more exact term, and to whom I would like to
demonstrate that art is not at the service of wealth alone [...] it is necessary for the masses to participate in artistic life [...]. We must believe in
the future and work for it [...].”
A conviction that he reasserted in 1896 in the response sent to Henry
Nocq for an inquiry into the new tendencies in art: “[...] I believe that the
mission of the artist is greater and his aims higher; his role is to stimulate
people’s intelligence, to help to elevate their thought [...] it is not for a
society that is disappearing that we should be working and employing all
our creative faculties, but for a new world whose coming we can now
sense and for which we can prepare the premises of a truly young and
strong art [...]. For me there is no doubt that, starting out from a logical and true method it will be possible to formulate a truly new and original ‘aesthetic idea’ [...]. But I am also absolutely certain that this Art will
only be able to flower in a new moral and philosophical order. A new
Art, should I say an honest Art, is not compatible with the false and
affected life we lead [...].”
Serrurier believed firmly, as he wrote in 1902, “in the dawn of a new
era” that would set the architect free from old and false doctrines, showing him the right path. A path that ought to lead to an art for the people
and of the people, in line with Morris’s thinking. It was the mission of the
architect, the artist and the designer to educate the masses in the
Beautiful and the Useful, starting with the home, where they spent so
much of their lives.
1900
Even the house in the country deserved this pedagogic commitment, since,
as he wrote in 1903, “We consider it highly desirable to make it possible for the majority of users (with limited incomes) to furnish and decorate
a country residence in a tasteful and comfortable manner without being
obliged to spend exaggerated sums. In addition to meeting the need for
an aesthetic education, a result that is much to be desired will be
achieved: the elimination of the dreadful material and artistic junk that for
too long has been invading our houses and that is a particular blight on
the country house.”
In 1905, at the International and Universal Exhibition in Liège, the rules
of the competition for the workers’ housing on rue Montefiore might
have been drawn up by Serrurier himself: “In a working-class family,
everything should be arranged in such a way that its utilization is practical and simple and rational [...]. Everything that can gather dust and
requires meticulous cleaning should be banished [...]. Economy stems
above all from choice of materials, simplicity of installation and logical
forms of construction. The aesthetic character of the working-class home
should find its source and its expression solely in the congruity of the
object with needs, in the study of the form from the viewpoint of manufacture and use and in the taste that should harmonize the various elements of the house.”
The democrats of the time responded with great enthusiasm. Especially
Serrurier’s friend and inspirer Jules Destrée, who wrote in Le Peuple of
Brussels: “I challenge the fiercest detractor of what we have to call, for
lack of a more precise term, the modern style, to spend five minutes
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inside the working-class home at Cointe without being overcome by an
impression of freshness, health, joy and energy [...]. Someone has
observed: Too beautiful, many worthy bourgeois would feel right at
home in this house [...]. But we are convinced that the working class is
just as capable as any other of appreciating the restful charm and educative influence of this decor.”
This was Serrurier’s ideal, sincere utopia. In reality, his work and his creations were to be confined almost exclusively to the homes of public figures, wealthy members of the middle class, cultured intellectuals and
refined musicians. They were to be complete interior decorations made
to measure for different uses and different users, and thus very far from
the mass production and mechanization that alone could guarantee high
volume and affordable prices.
The Development of His Style
Prior to 1894 Serrurier’s style is still eclectic and historicist, with a preference for the Neo-Gothic.
Later this gives way to what he himself defined as an “artisan style,” with
furniture usually made out of oak in which a certain Gothic reminiscence
is mixed with the traditional character of the rustic furniture of the Liège
area. Sideboards, dressers and bench-bookcases are solidly built out of
frames and panels; an oblique, straight – or sometimes arched – crosspiece braces the uprights of wardrobes; the crosspieces of the underframe of tables are broken by curves and indentations that make them
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lighter. Some pieces of furniture are crowned by a transverse curved element linked to the rest of the object by vertical boards grouped in threes;
on one side this curved crosspiece rests on the structure of the wardrobe,
on the other on an upright whose upper pointed end has an almost NeoGothic profile. The backs of chairs are treated in two different ways. in
one case it is fixed to a frame by means of bolts that are left visible; in
the other it is the frame itself that serves as a back, creating a support
for the back of the sitter between the uprights.
At first the feet of tables and chairs are made of turned wood, but they
soon assume a square shape and are then transformed into elements
with curves and accentuated profiles.
The metal parts, the knobs and handles, are treated in an unusual way.
Curving in opposite directions, they are reminiscent of the frames of illuminated manuscripts: their gleaming surfaces and sinuous outlines stand
out on the slender forms of the wooden uprights.
In 1895, with the furniture for the Brussels home of the public notary
Bauwens, Serrurier’s style begins to take on a more opulent and lyrical
character. Yet it is a wonderfully controlled lyricism using precious hardwoods (almost always mahogany) that extend from wardrobes and
dressers in giddy and impeccable curves. It is the foretaste of a conception that is to be found in Serrurier’s work throughout the early phase
of the art nouveau: continuity of line. Metal is also used extensively, especially ormolu in the panels encrusted with floral motifs, applications and
knobs of tables, wardrobes and chests of drawers.
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1902
From 1901, after his visit to the artists’ colony in Darmstadt, we see a
progressive simplification and purification of the lines, with an ever
greater attention to the functionality and suitability of furniture.
The new manner makes its first appearance in Serrurier’s own home,
L’Aube: from photographs taken at the time and from what has survived
the alterations and dispersals, we can discern a terse and orderly refinement, a sobriety of construction that renounces any kind of lyricism. In
keeping, moreover, with the architectural structure, also designed by
Serrurier, which shuns decorative exhibitionism or excessive avantgardism. A fine house in the English style with two stories and an attic,
surrounded by greenery and flowers: “steeped in nature” as Watelet
puts it. Living nature in the plants of the veranda, a genuine indoor garden with a pool and plays of water, in the outdoor garden, designed
by Serrurier himself, who chose and arranged the flowers and plants,
and in the large aviary stocked with various species of songbird. A frequent guest at his friend’s house, Jules Destrée described it as follows:
“ Serrurier has drawn up its plans and supervised its construction; he
has designed its decor and furniture down to the smallest details, with
a delicate taste and an astonishing practicality, and he has called it ‘the
dawn,’ signifying both his legitimate pride in starting something that
had not been done before, and his modesty in believing that it was just
a beginning, a vague and hesitant prelude to the brilliant day that
would come...”
The evolution of Serrurier’s style is fully evident in the furnishings of the
castle of La Cheyrelle in Auvergne. Here we find an entrance hall with
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tables and armchairs of audacious cubic form, with straight uprights and
plaited bottoms; in the main entrance, a tall light fitting mounted on a
structure made up of flat plates of iron painted greenish blue is set above
the flight of the monumental staircase. The staircase leads down to the
basement, which forms a single large volume. The single-span ceiling is
supported by a wooden framework whose uprights terminate in broken
arches. The room is divided into different spaces by drapes hanging
from the framework: antechamber, small drawing room, library corner
and large dining room.
The staircase also leads to the living room with its immense open fireplace, inviting you to sit down and enjoy its warmth.
The whole décor of the dining-room recalls the villa at Cointe in spirit.
Solidly gathered around the family table, fitted with extensions, the oak
furniture has a simple decoration of metal plates painted a gray-green
color. The bedrooms are furnished with Silex furniture in birch wood
assembled with bolts that are left visible and decorated with punches,
created contemporaneously with the design for the furnishing of a working-class house that was shown at the Liège Exhibition in 1905.
The last example and final testimony to the development of Serrurier’s
style is provided by the furnishings for Villa Ortiz Basualdo at Mar del
Plata.
An extraordinary set of furniture and decorations, which remained anonymous for decades until it was attributed to its creator by Jacques-Grégoire
Watelet in 1986, after the acquisition of the villa by the municipality.
Here, on the other side of the ocean, we find Serrurier’s purest “style”
again in the architectural conception of the interiors, in the discreet magnificence of the furnishings and in the use of Silex furniture in the “green
room”: furniture that to people unfamiliar with Serrurier’s work looked like
a product of the twenties or even later.
His Craft
Whatever the style he adopted, “artisan,” art nouveau or “modernist,” it
is possible to discern a superb craftsmanship behind the work.
Generations of cabinetmakers in his family or his region had lived in symbiosis with wood, to which they gave form while respecting and enhancing its qualities.
Serrurier’s craftsmanship stemmed from primary structures: the tree and its
wood, which had to undergo the right length of seasoning before encountering the saw and the chisel. All his furniture, brought out of cellars or
attics after decades, is still extraordinary sound and in working order: the
drawers slide on their runners, the doors of the wardrobes fit together perfectly and it takes very little to restore them to their original splendor. An
heir to and improver on the ancient skills of the master joiners of his homeland, he often used the technique known as “surface carving,” in which
the flat parts of the piece of furniture are underlined with a very slight
relief, repeating the curves or patterns of movement of the projecting
parts like an echo. Moreover, in order to make sure that the grain and
consistency of the wood remained visible, Serrurier never used glossy
varnishes, which would have obscured the texture of the material, but
relied instead on the costly and difficult process of wax polishing, the
only one capable of bringing out all the qualities of the wood, be it oak,
birch, poplar or mahogany.
The Materials and the Objects
As well as furniture, Serrurier was a master in the creation of objects out
of the most varied materials – iron, copper, tin, enamel, cloth, stone and
glass – which he used to complete and embellish his interior decorations.
In an issue of Art et Décoration published in 1902, R.D. (René Dulong)
illustrated his article Le métal dans le mobilier et la décoration exclusively with objects by Serrurier: from the knobs of drawers and doors to
applications on furniture, with their alternating curves, of various forms
and materials (iron, brass, red copper). But Serrurier also designed gas
fires made of repoussé copper panels that fitted into fireplaces, clocks
and light fittings of every form and function, from chandeliers and floor
lamps to transportable and wall-mounted lamps and bedside and table
lights. And then there were glass vases of every shape and size: white
or rainbow-colored, mounted in iron or copper, round or cylindrical.
Upholstery for chairs, armchairs and couches played a particular part in
the work of Serrurier and followed the evolution in his style. At the outset
he used printed velvet from Liberty, then appliqués of felt or sateen, at first
cut in volutes and then in increasingly geometric shapes. Heavy fabrics
gave way to light trimmings of linen and cotton held together by braid.
The most common motifs were chestnut leaves and roses, or stylized
flowers in bright tints.
Museum:
Paris: Musée d’Orsay
New York: Metropolitan Museum
Bruxelles: Musées Royaux d’art et d’histoire
Liège: Musée des arts décoratifs et du verre
Gand: Museum voor Sierkunst
Beauvais: Musée départemental de l’Oise
Argentina: Villa Ortiz Basualdo
Photos: Enrico Minasso from Acqui Terme