If there are any doubts “less is more” is still a desirable maxim, our June 6th Modern Sale should cast them away. In addition to contemporary art, the sale offers a wide range of modernist decorative arts pieces that span the breadth of the twentieth century and beyond, their design unified by a belief in the pared-down, minimal aesthetic that began in the Bauhaus in the 1920s. Prominently featured, along with both well and lesser known works by Florence Knoll (b. 1917), the Eames’, Eero Saarinen and later period Raymond Loewry, are ten pieces by the French designer Christian Liaigre (b. 1945), who – at the turn of this century – put his own stamp on the minimalist forms of those iconic mid-century figures for a line of home furniture and lighting that he created for interior designer Holly Hunt.
The line Liaigre created for Hunt held to the innovative, unadorned proportions and natural and industrial materials that were innovatively paired by the above-mentioned Americans (who were in turn inspired by the machine-made aesthetic forged by Bauhaus architects Marcel Breuer and Mies van der Rohe in the 1920s). He took this style and added his own signature heft, comfort and elegance, while keeping his esteemed predecessors’ clean, form- follow-function lines. The tables, seating, lighting and bedding he designed in the first decade of the 2000s followed the minimal mid-century influence of the best work from the 1940s, 50s and 60s and carried it into the 21st – a time when people were widely rediscovering the appeal of the forward-thinking creators of previous decades, whose precepts were forged at first in Europe, and then broadened for an expanding middle class of Americans in the post-war period.
Liaigre’s work for Holly Hunt is no longer being produced, but is now finding a new generation of devotees who are looking for something that share the functional aesthetic of the still popular mid-20th century look, but have a playful, luxurious, and user-friendly twist all its own.
Compare a long bench by Liaigre on offer in our June 6th sale to Florence Knoll designs of the same ilk. Both use a simply geometric combination of straight line supporting legs made of metal, such as brushed steel and softly upholstered seating made of fine upholstery. Liaigre, like Knoll, limits the bench to two materials, but expands the metal supports, topping it off with copious seating in a warmly colored leather. Its larger dimensions offset the office-like feel of much of Knoll’s creations for an invitingly comfortable feel especially suited to the home.
“Twenty-five years ago, interiors were very fussy. But luxe today is space, air, and light.”
— Christian Liaigre (as quoted in Elle Decor, April 2012)