Serrurier-Bovy, from a collection ll
Transcription
Serrurier-Bovy, from a collection ll
MAY 24, 2016 - 6PM Serrurier-Bovy, from a collection ll Rare ensemble of the Art Nouveau maestro VIEWING May 19, 2016 from 10 am to 7 pm May 20, 2016 from 10 am to 7 pm May 21, 2016 from 11 am to 7 pm May 23, 2016 from 10 am to 7 pm May 24, 2016 from 10 am to 12 am PIASA 118 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré 75008 Paris - France PRESS & COMMUNICATION Cécile Demtchenko Woringer T +33 1 53 34 12 95 - M +33 6 22 16 85 96 [email protected] Press release On Tuesday 24 May 2016 PIASA will stage the second sale of a collection devoted to Gustave Serrurier-Bovy (1858-1910) - the most creative Belgian designer of his generation. The exceptional ensemble, including works of historic importance and museum quality, was assembled over thirty years ago by an Art Nouveau devotee, and reflects the creative intelligence of SerrurierBovy and his undeniable influence on 20th century furniture. The first sale, offering new insight on the Art Nouveau maestro, enjoyed great success at Piasa in May 2015. Art Nouveau - Towards Modernity Gustave Serrurier-Bovy was an architect , designer and industrialist who became one of Belgium’s leading exponents of Art Nouveau and a precursor of the modern Design movement. His concern for industrial aesthetics made him a stylistic trendsetter. Serrurier was the son of a woodwork entrepreneur, and combined his school studies in Liège with lessons at the local Ecole des Beaux-Arts. On a trip to London he fell in love with the new approach to lifestyle inspired by William Morris and his disiples. Back in Belgium he decided to devote himself to interior design and in 1884, after marrying Maria Bovy, founded the firm Serrurier-Bovy in Liège. Its initial activity involved importing furniture and decorative elements from Britain and Japan. Serrurier adopted a new sales approach by fitting out his shops in Belgium and France to resemble rooms in a private home. He became convinced of the need to link architecture with the decorative arts, and soon moved on to Design. L’Aube, the masterful villa he built comfort allied to robust construction. 2 « Serrurier was not confined to a single style, however novel, but constantly renewed his approach and his vision of things’. » (Jacques-Grégoire Watelet) Furniture & Architecture : An All-Embracing Concept From 1903-05 Serrurier worked with the architect René Dulong to enlarge and refurnish the Château de la Cheyrelle in Auvergne, built in the late 1850s. The result was the world’s ‘only complete example of Gustave Serrurier-Bovy’s innovative principles’ (to quote the Monuments Historiques - France’s national heritage agency). The first-floor bedrooms were furnished with Serrurier’s landmark Silex suite, originally designed for a competition to furnish low-cost dwellings in Cointe (a district of Liège) as part of the city’s 1905 Exposition Universelle, and embodying the most innovative aspect of his work, overladen with pioneering minimalism. By inventing mobilier à joints (a system based on assembling individual units), he helped make quality furniture available to the public at large, using cheaper woods (like poplar or pine) enhanced with stencil patterning, exploding the barriers of an art destined for certain social classes. Serrurier demonstrated that his Silex furniture, with its coloured screws (left visible), could enliven both bourgeois and workingclass interiors. Another of Gustave Serrurier-Bovy’s most original ensembles was designed for the Villa Ortiz Basualdo in Mar de Plata (Argentina), built for Don Luis de Ortiz Basualdo by architect Louis Dubois in 1909. A painted version of the Silex series was chosen to furnish the villa; the chair-backs, and metal-ringed bases adorned with screws, differed from the originals. This superb and highly original series was produced in very limited numbers. Along with a Silex wardrobe (est. €15,000-20,000) two seats from the series will be offered at PIASA (est. €4,000-6,000 a piece). The original spirit is still present, but here upholstered in green – the colour of what the PreRaphaelite poet Algernon Charles Swinburne called ‘glad grass.’ 3 Serrurier-Bovy also produced such innovative furniture as his revolutionary Gamma revolving bookcase, which he patented in 1904. A mahogany, brass and glass Gamma bookcase, with four doors opened by the same key, is one of the highlights of the sale (est. 12,000-18,000), along with an oak and brass Moulin wall-clock – a work of amazing ingenuity and pioneering technical perfection (est. €15,000-18,000). ‘He always shows the need to respond correctly to a way of life – and with artistic skill. His passionate search for modern furniture produced works of value at every step, based on personality and on a sense of a new type of beauty adapted to the contemporary era.’ (Jacques-Grégoire Watelet) 4 Gustave Serrurier-Bovy (1858-1910) Silex Chaise Bois peint vert et métal Date de création : 1906 H 92 x L 40 x P 40 cm 4 000 / 6 000 € 5 Gustave Serrurier- Bovy (1858-1910) Silex Armoire Bois blanc peint, fer et miroir Date de création : vers 1910 H 205 x L 100 x P 51 cm 15 000 / 20 000 € 6 Gustave Serrurier-Bovy (1858-1910) Buffet Acajou, laiton et miroir Date de création : 1901 H 146 x L 182 x P 53 cm 4 000 / 6 000 € 7 Gustave Serrurier- Bovy (1858-1910) Papillon Paire de fauteuils Chêne et cannage Date de création : 1895 H 102 x L 60 x P 50 cm 4 000 / 6 000 € 8 Gustave Serrurier- Bovy (1858-1910) Buffet Acajou, peinture sur bois et laiton Date de création : 1906 H 206,5 x L 180,5 x P 54 cm 10 000 / 15 000 € 9 Gustave Serrurier- Bovy (1858-1910) Silex Coiffeuse Peuplier et fer Date de création : 1904 H 144 x L 86 x P 52 cm 4 000 / 6 000 € 10 Gustave Serrurier-Bovy (1858-1910) Moulin Pendule Chêne, laiton, fer peint, verre bleu et rouge Date de création : 1905 H 69 x L 30 x P 27 cm 15 000 / 18 000 € 11 Gustave Serrurier-Bovy (1858-1910) Gamma Bibliothèque Acajou, laiton et verre Date de création :1904 H 114,5 x L 62 x P 62 cm 12 000 / 18 000 € 12 Gustave Serrurier-Bovy (1858-1910) Campagne Dressoir Chêne vernissé et fer Date de création : 1902 H 130 × L 119 ×P 57 cm 4 000 / 6 000 € 13 Gustave Serrurier-Bovy (1858-1910) Casier à musique Padouk et laiton Date de création : 1904 H 91 × L 35 × P 32 cm 8 000 / 12 000 € 14 Design department Éléonore Floret Goulven Le Morvan François Epin Johanna Colombatti Alix de Saint-Hilaire www.piasa.fr 15