T his season, Sotheby’s is honored to entrust the curation of its Important Design auction to the iconic Betty Catroux.
With nearly 200 lots, the auction will begin with the sale of the Bernard Laurent collection, featuring masterpieces of Art Nouveau and Art Deco by Louis Majorelle, Jean Dunand, Paul Dupré-Lafon, Jean-Michel Frank, Pablo Picasso, and rare group of sculptures by Rembrandt Bugatti. A special tribute will be paid to François-Xavier and Claude Lalanne with more than twenty remarkable works, some of which are unpublished, including the legendary Bar aux Autruches (1967) from their collection.
The auction will offer a rich panorama of 20th and 21st-century design, from Art Deco with Paul Iribe, Jacques Émile Ruhlmann, and Armand Albert Rateau. Post-war design will be represented by Diego Giacometti, Jean Royère, Charlotte Perriand, and Jean Prouvé, ending with contemporary signatures such as Andre Dubreuil, Ron Arad, and the Campana brothers. Finally, a refined selection from a European private collection will highlight creations by Maria Pergay, Mattia Bonetti, Paul Evans, and Franck Evenou.
Banner: © Betty Catroux par David Sims / Trunk Archive @ Courtesy Saint Laurent, with thanks to Saint Laurent for graciously granting permission to include the portrait of Betty Catroux
Sotheby’s is delighted to invite the iconic muse and style figure Betty Catroux—longtime muse of Yves Saint Laurent—to curate our Important Design sale, featuring creations by the most celebrated 20th-century and contemporary designers.
The famous questionnaire most notably answered by chronicler of the human condition, Marcel Proust, in the late 19th century, has come to serve as a fascinating insight in to the minds of cultural figures throughout history. Betty Catroux, guest curator of the Important Design sale in Paris, shared her answers to the famous questions.
My favorite virtue: Loyalty
The quality I prefer in a man: Ambiguity
The quality I prefer in a woman: Courage
What I most value in my friends: Exclusivity
My main default: Indifference
My favorite occupation: Dancing, drinking
My dream of happiness: Freedom
What would be my greatest misfortune: Illness
What I would like to be: Me at my best
The country I would like to live: Paris, France
My favorite color: Black
My favorite flower: Thistle
My favorite bird: ?
My favorite poets: Arthur Rimbaud
My heroes in fiction: None
My heroines in fiction: None
My favorite composers: Miles Davis, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Frédéric Chopin
My favorite painters: Pablo Picasso, Francis Bacon, Mark Rothko
My heroes in real life: My two children, my chosen family
My heroines in history: None
What I hate most of all: The norm
The gift of nature that I would like to have: An artistic gift
How I would like to die: Asleep under anesthesia
Current state of mind : Passionate
Faults that I find most forgiving: Stupidity
My motto: Timelessness is an art
My favorite designers: Hedi Slimane
In 2017, as Sotheby’s prepared to offer an example of Bar aux Autruches from the collection of interior designer Jacques Grange, we reached out to Claude Lalanne, the wife of its late maker, François-Xavier Lalanne, for cataloging information. She enthusiastically invited us to the home they had shared in Ury, a house and workshop with Île-de-France village charm. Upon our arrival, she suggested we enjoy lunch first. Claude was an excellent cook, and the wines were always exceptional. That late summer day, she welcomed us with fine food and a view of the garden where she nurtured flowers and plants to become works of art.
By Florent Jeanniard
Chairman, Co-Worldwide Head of 20th Century Design
Bernard Laurent's collection features major works from Art Nouveau to Art Deco such as Louis Majorelle's guéridon aux nénuphars, two other examples on display in the Musée de l'Ecole de Nancy and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, a carpet by Picasso for Myrbor, rare creations from the 1930s by Jean Puiforcat, and four remarkable bronzes by Rembrandt Bugatti.
Originally from Nancy, Bernard Laurent and his wife Francine developed a passion for Art Nouveau at an early age. In the 1960s, while studying at the Nancy School of Fine Arts, they drew constant inspiration from the nearby École de Nancy museum. Alongside their circle of art dealer friends, they began to scour the market for forgotten treasures, rediscovering the treasures of Art Nouveau and Art Deco – movements that only a handful of pioneering art dealers were beginning to bring back into the spotlight.
In the late 1970s, Bernard Laurent opened his shop in the Louvre des Antiquaires in Paris, then regarded as one of the foremost international hubs for collectors and art lovers.
Beyond their professional activities, Bernard and Francine Laurent have always surrounded themselves with the pieces they hold most dear. In their French Riviera villa, they have curated a personal collection of their finest discoveries – many acquired in the late 1970s and cherished ever since. After decades spent in the quiet intimacy of private life, these fine works of art are now being brought back into light.
The Important Design sale offers a panorama of major pieces by Ron Arad, Jeroen Verhoeven, André Dubreuil, Tom Dixon, Charles Treveylian, Philippe Starck and Ingrid Donat. Each designer explores the possibilities offered by metal, through craft skills and the most advanced industrial processes.
From undulating steel mesh, folded and welded sheet metal and hand-welded steel rods to engraved patinated bronze, cast aluminium and riveted steel, each piece reflects a desire to go beyond function and reinvent furniture as a work of art in its own right. From Ron Arad's Looploop chair to Verhoeven's Lectori Salutem desk, the sale showcase 40 years of revolutionary design.
On April 28, 1925, the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts opened in Paris, between the Champ-de-Mars and the Champs-Élysées. For six months, visitors from around the world explored pavilions showcasing the latest innovations in interior architecture and furniture design. The exhibition quickly became a symbol of Art Deco, marked by modern artists moving away from the floral curves of Art Nouveau to embrace more angular lines and stylized motifs. Drawing inspiration from the Vienna Secessionists' emphasis on simplicity and rigor, French modernism was especially evident in the Hôtel du collectionneur, designed by Pierre Patout and decorated by Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann, and in the Pavilion of a French Embassy, created by the Société des artistes décorateurs. The display of fine wood furniture by Ruhlmann, Chareau, and Groult, along with tapestries by Lurçat, lacquer works by Dunand, sculptures by Bourdelle, and paintings by Dupas, harmoniously combined to create cohesive showcases of uniform shapes. As painter Charles Dufresne said, "Art 1900 was the art of fantasy, while 1925 is the art of reason."
