Paul Poiret's Two Editions de Luxe

Great grandson of the famous writer Victor Hugo, the painter Jean Hugo (1894-1984) was in the thick of the Paris art scene between the wars. A member of the avant garde, he was a friend of Picasso, Cocteau and Colette and was associated with the Neo Romantics. His small gouaches on paper were avidly collected by Dr. Albert Barnes, and can be seen today in the Barnes Collection in Philadelphia. Hugo's most desirable work -- landscapes, interior scenes, set designs -- date from the mid 1920s to the late 1930s. This whimsical painting, signed and dated 1927, is set in a curtained, classical interior furnished with Victorian lighting fixtures...

Remie Lohse was born in Puerto Rico, studied painting in Denmark, and settled in New York in 1928, where he became a professional photographer. In the 1930s he was a freelancer who specialized in advertising and magazine features, and shot covers for Vogue. If he often focused on the high life, seen in this couple stepping out on the town, he also shot humble subjects. He was more interested in his art than a particular milieu, and many of his photographs are little masterpieces. His contemporary Gilbert Seldes, the noted Vanity Fair media critic and “public intellectual” (not to mention father of actress Marian Seldes), featured Lohse in his 1934 book 'This is New York, The First Modern Photographic Book of New York.' In 1939 Lohse came out with his own book titled 'The Miniature Camera in Professional Hands.' Our photograph was one of three shot by Lohse for a 1934 Vogue article titled “High Spots and Low Music." If the photograph (image size 4 1/4" x 6") show a couple making the nocturnal rounds of Manhattan restaurants, bars, and jazz clubs, the story itself also covers the daytime meeting places of the ladies who lunch. The twist is that Lohse’s model was the author herself, Elena Mumm Thornton, and her husband James Worth...

This Boiceau desk bears his stamp, and was entirely veneered in amboyna, an exotic burlwood named for Ambon, the Indonesian island where it was harvested. The naturally squiggling patterning of the veneer provides an overall surface decoration. The top alone has no fewer than 60 small book-matched squares of it – ten across and six deep – creating a kaleidoscopic effect in subtle monochrome. Applied decoration is minimal. It consists of two inlaid pairs of griffins in boxwood and purplewood facing off across braziers on both the front and the back of the desk, and blind-tooled Greek keys trimming white-leather-topped shelves that slide out to either side. These decorations introduce no color, and, in lying flush with the surface, leave the sleek form undisturbed. Boiceau even eliminated drawer pulls, necessitating a lock and key for each drawer. Born in Lausanne in 1881, Boiceau descended from French Huguenots who had settled in Switzerland. Prominent as bankers, lawyers, businessmen, and diplomats, the Boiceaus were a cosmopolitan family. Ernest studied painting in Munich, and then painting and architecture in Paris at the École des Beaux-Arts. In 1900 he embarked on a ten-year European sojourn, painting landscapes and portraits along the way. In 1910 he resettled in Paris, became interested in textiles, and established an embroidery workshop that catered to the stage and haute couture. Among his clients were the Folies Bergères, the Comédie-Française, and the Paris Opéra, and the fashion houses of Worth and Molyneux. He also made embroidered table linens, wall hangings, and upholstery fabrics. In a 1913, at an embroidery exhibition in Paris at the Musée Galliera, he presented a boudoir in collaboration with curtains, upholstery fabrics, and a tapestry, embroidered in modern abstract designs. In 1925 he launched a couture line, and branched out to design finely crafted objects and furniture made in rare woods, like ebony and Tasmanian oak...

This ravishing Art Nouveau silver plated centrepiece is decorated with butterflies, flowers, and budding tendrils, and retains the original applied patina and cobalt-blue-glass liner...

Portfolio of Art Deco and early modernist Paris shops and boutiques, showing both interiors and exteriors, edited by Roger Poulain and published by Vincent Freal et Cie (Paris) in 1929. 72 (of 72) loose plates plus checklist enclosed in graphically striking printed paper-covered boards with ribbon ties. Includes projects by Eugene Printz, Claude Levy...

Condition: Fair Comments: This book is in fairly good condition for its age. The cover and spine show light wear, while the pages exhibit some foxing and a slight yellowing typical o...

This attractive and beautifully-bound volume fits in the period's vogue for exploration of African exoticism, with decorative borders on each page inspired by native African designs....

Design-For-Today, a short lived modernist avant-garde magazine, 1933 to 1935, UK. A rare and hard to come by complete bound set. Articles, images, designs by British architects and designers, as well as emigres ones . Gerald Summers, Wells Coates, Marcel Breuer, Alvar and Aino Aalto, Walter Gropius, László Moholy-Nagy, Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Ben Nicholson, Betty Joel, Serge Chermayeff, Keith Murray, Charles Boyton, Ronald Grierson...