Yves Saint Laurent Pierre Bergé - Christie's

68
Jean-Michel Frank
The luxury of elimination
Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé were the first
to rediscover the talent of Jean-Michel Frank. The
decorator’s achievements had been so
comprehensively overlooked that it was very
difficult, 40 years ago, to establish any detailed
sense of his achievements. From the early 70s,
Saint Laurent and Bergé became pioneers in
collecting his deceptively simple furniture with its
surfaces of straw, ivory, galuchat or mica. If their
interest in Frank was a reflection of the brilliance
of their intuition and eye, it was also the very
logical consequence of their culture. For Frank’s
world was that to which these collectors became
heirs – the world of Jean Cocteau and of Christian
Bérard and also of Marcel Proust. Theirs was
precisely that high fashion world in which Frank
had made his mark as a decorator. And it is surely
not possible to trace these connections without in
turn making reference to Vicomte Charles and
Vicomtesse Marie-Laure de Noailles, great
collectors, patrons and hosts, for whose Paris
home Frank had created characteristically
understated but wonderful interiors. In the
footsteps of Saint Laurent and Bergé, many others
were soon eager to at last celebrate Frank as one of
the great talents in the decorative arts of the 20th
century. Ownership of his creations became a
recognised measure of all that was quintessentially
refined in Parisian taste.
Photographic portrait of Jean-Michel Frank
opposite page: Period installation of designs by Jean-Michel Frank
– Pierre-Emmanuel Martin-Vivier
Author of Jean-Michel Frank –
l’étrange luxe du rien, Rizzoli, 2008