Decorators of the 1940s

Today we are rediscovering the 1940s. Exhibitions and publications honor André Arbus, Paul Dupré-Lafon, Jules Leleu, Jean Pascaud, Marc du Plantier, Jacques Quinet, Jean Royère and Louis Süe. The time has therefore come to draw up an overview of the decorative arts from an era which included a host of decorators, furniture and lighting designers, ironworkers and ceramists. Difficult to define precisely, like many other styles, the style of the 1940s asserted itself with the Paris International Exhibition in 1937 and the Salon of Decorative Artists of 1939, ending in the 1950s. Even from the mid-1930s, we note an evolution towards more lyricism, the return to eccentric forms, to ornament, to beautiful craftsmanship, to the styles of the past. The extremely diverse aesthetic trends, art deco, modernism, neoclassicism and baroque, analyzed here by Bruno Foucart, and the contrasting careers of decorators traced by Jean-Louis Gaillemin make it possible to define the ambitions of a style which fascinates many contemporary creators.