Pierre Chareau “Modern Architecture and Design”

The Jewish Museum

This event has ended.

The Jewish Museum will present the first U.S. exhibition focused on French designer and architect Pierre Chareau (1883–1950) from November 4, 2016 through March 26, 2017. Showcasing rare furniture, lighting fixtures, and interiors, as well as designs for the extraordinary Maison de Verre, the Glass House completed in Paris in 1932, Pierre Chareau: Modern Architecture and Design brings together over 180 rarely-seen works from major public and private collections in Europe and the United States.

Pierre Chareau rose from modest beginnings in Bordeaux to become one of the most sought-after designers in France. Creating custom furniture and interiors for a distinguished clientele that included leading figures of the French-Jewish intelligentsia, Chareau balanced the opulence of traditional French decorative arts with interior designs that were elegant, functional, and in sync with the requirements of modern life. His innovative furniture, veneered in rare woods with occasional touches of exotic materials, had clean profiles and movable parts that appealed to the sensibilities of the progressive bourgeoisie.

Pierre Chareau: Modern Architecture and Design proposes a fresh look at the internationally recognized designer and examines his work in the Parisian cultural context between the wars to highlight his circle of influential patrons, engagement with the period’s foremost artists, and designs for the film industry. Chareau and his wife were keenly interested in contemporary art, and the exhibition reunites several pieces from their collection of paintings, sculptures, and drawings by significant artists such as Piet Mondrian, Amedeo Modigliani, Max Ernst, Jacques Lipchitz, and Robert Motherwell.

The exhibition also explores the enduring consequences of Chareau’s flight from Nazi persecution, the dispersal of many of the works he designed during and after World War II, and his attempts to rebuild his career while in exile in New York during the 1940s, including the house he designed for Robert Motherwell in 1947 in East Hampton, Long Island.

Pierre Chareau: Modern Architecture and Design is organized by the Jewish Museum and Esther da Costa Meyer, Professor, History of Modern Architecture, Princeton University, in collaboration with The Centre Pompidou.
The special exhibition design is by Diller Scofidio + Renfro.