Gazette Drouot - C apencheres

THE MAGAZINE DESIGN
Casting light on the situation
Pierre Guariche? "He's the inventor of
modern lighting," says Pascal Cuisinier
enthusiastically. This gallery owner knows
his subject inside out: over seven years,
he tracked down every piece designed by
Guariche between 1950 and 1959, all produced by his
friend Pierre Disderot. The son of a metals and
electrical locks specialist, Guariche studied at the
École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs.
He graduated in 1949 at 23, and began a highly
promising career. One of his teachers, Marcel Gascoin,
took him on and immediately pushed him to participate
in events like the Ideal Home Exhibition and the
Interior Designer Show. A pioneer in mass-produced
modern furniture, Gascoin had an incontestable
influence on his colleague, who in 1950 designed the
Prefacto range for Charles Bernard: furniture with
multiple combinations made of metallic tubes, distributed
by the Galerie Mai. In 1951, now working independently,
Guariche designed seating for Steiner and
Airborne. But he did not forget his early love, electricity.
While he was still working with Gascoin, he
designed some lights with Michel Mortier, which
were advertised in the catalogue of their mentor's
company. These were produced by Pierre Disderot,
who in 1948 opened a production factory in Cachan.
As lighting was one of the great adventures of the
20th century, artistic avant-gardists were very drawn
to the medium. Success was established by the
hundred and sixteen coloured light bulbs of Lászlo
Moholy-Nagy's Space Light Modular Machine, a work
conceived in 1922 but finalised in 1930. In 1949, at
the Galleria del Naviglio in Milan, Lucio Fontana
presented Ambiente spaziale a luce nera (The spatial
118 GAZETTE DROUOT INTERNATIONAL I N° 19
environment in black light), which made experimental
use of neons and the light of wood. Artists were interested
in industrial lighting's ability to model space. In
the decorative arts, Gino Sarfatti launched his revolution
and established himself as the reference in Italy,
mingling new materials with other more traditional
ones, glorifying the light bulb and imposing the visibility
of the electric cable in an obvious and elegant
way. In France, lamps were also much in vogue. From
1928, the review Lux, founded by Joseph Wetzel,
reported the studies and innovations carried out in
this field, while interior design magazines provided a
stream of advice on lighting for the modern home.
Launched in 1935, the liner Le Normandie was itself a
genuine electrical factory beneath its Art Deco splendour…
Direct and indirect
Guariche continued along this path, ensuring that
no light sources were ever visible. In this he
differed from Sarfatti and another Frenchman,
designer/producer Serge Mouille, whose approach
was more sculptural. Re-examining the codes of the
speciality from every angle, Guariche integrated the
most recent techniques into his work, where form
revealed function. He invented a range of products
meeting precise requirements: lighting a work area, a
dining room table, a drawing room, a corridor or
more specifically an armchair or a sofa area. Some
models even responded to several constraints.
Designed in 1951, the G23 lamp provided pleasant
lighting for a drawing room thanks to a reflector
directed towards the ceiling, while another branch