Andre Arbus and Gilbert Poillerat Small Table

About the Item

French Forties Art Deco petite drinks/coffee/cocktail table designed by Andre Arbus and executed by Gilbert Poillerat, circa 1945 in patinated iron with gilt details. This small gem uses the exuberant styling of the immediate post-World War II movement. Measures: 20” long x 12” wide x 16” high. Andre Arbus (1903-1969) French Art Deco Architect and Designer, ANDRE ARBUS, WAS born in Toulouse, France. A third-generation cabinetmaker, Arbus became active in the Salons of the Societe des Artistes Decorateurs and the Salon d’Automne in Paris in 1925 at the young age of 22. His work included commissions for the 1922 oceanliner Bretagne, the 1927 La Provence and Ile-de-France as well as the 1961 France. He often used rare and exotic materials in his refined designs. These were elegant and pure and often gave the appearance of fragility – as in his neo-classical presentation at the Paris International Exposition of 1937. He compared the joints in his furniture to the joints of the human hand. His commissions also included private townhouses as well as Le Mobilier National for which designed a desk for U.S. Ambassador W. H. Harriman, and the post World War II Medici Room of the Chateau de Rambouillet. Gilbert Poillerat (1902-1988) French ironworker/designer Gilbert Poillerat is one of a handful of the most renowned metalworkers of the 20th Century. He studied engraving at the Ecole Boulle in Paris. And from 1921 until 1927 he worked for the world-famous Edgar Brandt in the rue Marat in Paris as a designer and creator of wrought-iron furniture and furnishings. In 1927 he joined the carpentry and metal construction workshop of Baudet, Donon et Roussel, in charge of its new wrought iron section. He designed and produced grillework, tables, chairs, consoles, screens, lighting and firedogs. His work was exhibited for the first time at the 1928 Salon d’Automne. Working in a variety of media from jewelry to clothing, Poillerat’s metalwork was rendered in characteristic curvaceous calligraphic forms. He designed a bronze door for the 1935 oceanliner, Normandie. His commissions included work for the Bibliotheque Nationale and the Palais de Chaillot. In 1946 he became a professor at the Ecole Nationale des Arts Decoratifs and set up his own workshop. Abandoning furniture and furnishings he turned to monumental wrought iron work, filling a number of commissions including public and governmental buildings and the Palais de l’Elysee (the French White House). In 1957 he designed the façade ironwork of the new synagogue in Strasbourg. He often worked with another prominent French designer, Jacques Adnet.

Creator:
Gilbert Poillerat (Metalworker),André Arbus (Designer)
Dimensions:
Height: 16 in (40.64 cm)Width: 20 in (50.8 cm)Depth: 12 in (30.48 cm)
Style:
Art Deco (Of the Period)
Materials and Techniques:
Iron,Gilt
Place of Origin:
France
Period:
1940-1949
Date of Manufacture:
circa 1945
Condition:
Refinished.
Seller Location:
Philadelphia, PA
Reference Number:
Seller: #15191stDibs: LU843725420482

Shop All André Arbus

André Arbus

French architect, sculptor and designer André Arbus was destined to become one of the 20th century’s finest furniture makers. According to him, the craft was in his blood. “I come from an old family of cabinetmakers,” he once said. “From father to son for a very long time. In other words, I was born in a cabinet-making workshop.”

Born in Toulouse in 1903, Arbus spent his childhood working in his father’s business which sold reproductions of 18th century French furniture. He later studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Toulouse under sculptor Henry Parayre.

After graduating, Arbus returned to work with his father as the business’s artistic director. When his father retired, Arbus transformed the company from selling furniture reproductions to one that produced his own formidable designs, including cocktail tables, sofa tables and floor lamps that merged neoclassicism with Art Deco and featured alluring modernist characteristics.

In 1925, Arbus exhibited at several shows, including the Salon des Artistes Décorateurs, Exposition des Arts Décoratifs, Salon d’Automne, the Gallery L’Epoque and won a medal at the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts, which brought the Art Deco style to the global stage.

Arbus moved to Paris in 1932, won the prestigious Premier Prix Blumenthal in 1934 and opened his own gallery in 1935. His sconces, chandeliers and dining room tables attracted a steady clientele of some of Paris’s wealthiest. Arbus exhibited at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York and, throughout the 1940s, received numerous notable commissions. The French government gave many of his pieces as gifts to visiting foreign heads of state. He furnished several luxury ocean liners, collaborated with Maison Veronese on a line of lighting fixtures and was tasked to build a jewel cabinet for Princess Elizabeth.

In 1946, Arbus participated in the refurbishment of the Élysée Palace and the Château de Rambouillet with fellow French architects and designers Louis Süe and Jean-Charles Moreux.

Materials

Rosewood

An Art Deco designed wrought Iron forged round Coffee Table by the Designer (Gilbert Poillerat ) with a gold painted finish and an Italian (black n Gold ) marble top . Outside diame...

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