During the second half of the 20th century mythic French designer Pierre Paulin worked out experimental and innovative furniture and is today considered to be a true precursor of new styles of life (comprehensive monograph).
It was during the early 1960's, in the pop era, when Andy Warhol was exhibiting his controversial Pop Art, and Brigitte Bardot was redefining sexual freedom, that Pierre Paulin designed his non-conformist chairs, changing radically the look of our interiors. Innovative and yet steeped in his times, a joyful modernist, he stages the body, and covers his egg-shaped chairs with mushrooms, orange slices, flower petals, tongues, cough drops, sea shells, waves, half-open lips, and more. Sexy, playful, exuberant yet comfortable, his furniture is above all supple and lively. While focused on chair design, he has also used his skill in industrial design and created, through prestigious work places, a new relationship with interior architecture.
Anne-Marie Fèvre is a design journalist.
Élisabeth Vedrenne is an art critic and journalist specialized in design, contemporary art, and architecture.
Pierre Paulin (1927-2009) has had the privilege to be one of the only representative of French design abroad during the sixties and seventies. Paulin used a sleek, colorful and curved design. Beyond the material form lies a structural work: to design a tongue-shaped seat (The Tongue) requires thought and careful technique. Paulin has linked rigor and organic throughout his career, banning exaltation and exaggeration. He stands out from his peers and models for his radical modern spirit and his functionalism.
