Hélène Henry. The fabrics of modernity.
Editions Gourcuff Gradenigo| N° d'inventaire | 24078 |
| Format | 22 x 29 |
| Détails | 144 p., approximately 200 illustrations, publisher's hardcover. |
| Publication | Montreuil, 2021 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 9782353403424 |
Born in 1891, passionate about painting and music, Hélène Henry had never received any specific training when she arrived in Paris at the age of 25. She began by buying a small hand loom, setting up a workshop and creating scarves that she sold to couturiers such as Worth and Nicole Groult. She taught herself how to use her loom and in 1923, she showed trials to Francis Jourdain, whose pottery inspired her. He exhibited her creations in his shop and introduced her to Pierre Chareau and the circle of their "modern" friends (Paul Poiret, Pierre Legrain, Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann). The same year, she moved into a larger workshop. H. Henry drew and painted: bands, stripes, checkerboards, geometric patterns or subtle gradations of a single shade. She experimented with new techniques to juxtapose or contrast materials or weaving stitches, inventing new ones. Through the play of reliefs and masses, her creations appear to be made in three dimensions. She was the first in France to use artificial fibers, rayon or viscose-fibrane, which she crossed with cotton and wool threads. In 1925, she participated in the French embassy of the pavilion of the Society of Decorative Artists (SAD), which launched the Arts Deco style at the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris, where her fabrics were exhibited in P. Chareau's office-library and in the rest room. She left the SAD in 1929 to participate in the founding of the Union of Modern Artists (UAM), alongside Mallet-Stevens, Herbst, Jourdain, Templier, Charlotte Perriand, Sonia Delaunay and Eileen Gray, among others. She received commissions for Mallet Stevens' Villa Noailles in Hyères (1924); the palace of the Maharajah of Indore (1930); the Palace of the League of Nations in Geneva; the ocean liner Normandie; the International Exhibition of Arts and Technology in Paris in 1937. After the war, she participated, with her former friends from the UAM, in the exhibitions of the "Useful Forms" section of the Salon des Arts Ménagers where she displayed her tartan patterns, her bands and her rigorous constructions. But her creations, made by hand, exclusively for a specific client, no longer found buyers: her remarkable unique pieces could not compete with the industrial fabrics arriving on the European market. However, she supervised the weaving of her models until her death in 1965. 20 years later, her talent was rediscovered thanks to specialized gallery owners and exhibitions such as Les Années UAM, at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, late 1988-early 1989, or Pierre Chareau, at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, (1993-1994).
Bilingual French/English work.
Born in 1891, passionate about painting and music, Hélène Henry had never received any specific training when she arrived in Paris at the age of 25. She began by buying a small hand loom, setting up a workshop and creating scarves that she sold to couturiers such as Worth and Nicole Groult. She taught herself how to use her loom and in 1923, she showed trials to Francis Jourdain, whose pottery inspired her. He exhibited her creations in his shop and introduced her to Pierre Chareau and the circle of their "modern" friends (Paul Poiret, Pierre Legrain, Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann). The same year, she moved into a larger workshop. H. Henry drew and painted: bands, stripes, checkerboards, geometric patterns or subtle gradations of a single shade. She experimented with new techniques to juxtapose or contrast materials or weaving stitches, inventing new ones. Through the play of reliefs and masses, her creations appear to be made in three dimensions. She was the first in France to use artificial fibers, rayon or viscose-fibrane, which she crossed with cotton and wool threads. In 1925, she participated in the French embassy of the pavilion of the Society of Decorative Artists (SAD), which launched the Arts Deco style at the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris, where her fabrics were exhibited in P. Chareau's office-library and in the rest room. She left the SAD in 1929 to participate in the founding of the Union of Modern Artists (UAM), alongside Mallet-Stevens, Herbst, Jourdain, Templier, Charlotte Perriand, Sonia Delaunay and Eileen Gray, among others. She received commissions for Mallet Stevens' Villa Noailles in Hyères (1924); the palace of the Maharajah of Indore (1930); the Palace of the League of Nations in Geneva; the ocean liner Normandie; the International Exhibition of Arts and Technology in Paris in 1937. After the war, she participated, with her former friends from the UAM, in the exhibitions of the "Useful Forms" section of the Salon des Arts Ménagers where she displayed her tartan patterns, her bands and her rigorous constructions. But her creations, made by hand, exclusively for a specific client, no longer found buyers: her remarkable unique pieces could not compete with the industrial fabrics arriving on the European market. However, she supervised the weaving of her models until her death in 1965. 20 years later, her talent was rediscovered thanks to specialized gallery owners and exhibitions such as Les Années UAM, at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, late 1988-early 1989, or Pierre Chareau, at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, (1993-1994).
Bilingual French/English work.