Jean Prouvé

Private Collection, Rouen, France
Sotheby's Paris, March 28, 2019, lot 149
Private Collection, Paris
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Galeries Jousse-Seguin, Enrico Navarra, Jean Prouvé, Paris, 1998, pp. 132 and 133
Peter Sulzer, Jean Prouvé, Oeuvre complète, Volume 1: 1917-1933, Basel, 1999, pp. 204, 208 and 209
Galerie Patrick Seguin, Jean Prouvé, Volume 2, Paris, 2007, pp. 274-277 
Catherine Dumont d'Ayot and Bruno Reichlin, eds., Jean Prouvé: The Poetics of the Technical Object, exh. cat., Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein 2007, p. 311 and 316 (for a period photograph of the model)
Galerie Patrick Seguin, Jean Prouvé, Paris, 2017, pp. 104-107 and 110-111

In 1930, architect Jean Bourgon led the design of a new university campus for the city of Nancy in northeastern France, for which he utilized local artists, designers and craftsmen. Jean Prouvé was enlisted to design the interior furnishings for 50 of the 360 rooms. Prouvé designed a suite of furniture utilizing bent metal and wood planks. Each room had a bed, table desk and chair, wall-mounted shelf and an armchair.

The furniture marked a turning point in the career of Prouvé. Known as Cité, the furniture was robust and simple. He focused on utility and functionality, creating furniture that was durable and easy to clean. The present chair originates from the university and showcases Prouvé’s inventiveness in furniture design. The frame is rigid and light with leather straps traversing an inset area of the metal armrest. The leather spans horizontally to form a flexible armrest, adjustable like a belt on the underside of the chair. The seat and backrest present as one piece, upholstered in a solid fabric, also with adjustable tension. From this time forward, Prouvé would focus on the use of bent metals and industrial processes in the creation of furniture and architecture. The chair is an early example of Prouvé’s industrial modernism and predates the opening of Ateliers Jean Prouvé, the manufacturing facility that allowed the designer to experiment with and produce his ingenious designs at a larger scale. This chair is iconic and was a favorite of the designer; he kept multiple examples in his own living room.