Charlotte Perriand Wins

By the 20th century, major institutional obstacles began to disappear, allowing women to formally train in art, architecture and design. Women enrolled in these schools in droves. At the same time that Modernism was developing, it was also becoming marginalized. As critics and scholars began to define Modernism, the work of women designers was left off the pages.

Women created great original works of quality design, and in significant amounts. They acquired professional skills which they exhibited in public venues, and began to relentlessly pursue active careers. They created a diverse range of style and ground-breaking designs, and many of their names still in the 21st century are obscured by the shadows of men.

In February, a Paris court issued a decision in favor of the daughter of Charlotte Perriand. Perriand wasn't given proper authorship of three of her designs; instead, the works were attributed to her sometime male collaborator Jean Prouvé. Pernette Martin-Barsac, Perriand's daughter, fought against the Sonnabend Gallery for misattribution and won. She had been fighting this for a decade (or more) even when the Pompidou Center hosted a retrospective of Perriand's work in 2005. When these three designs went to auction, Prouvé was credited as the designer.

Perriand dealt with this during her lifetime. In the 1950s the Tunisia bookshelves was launched on the market under the label of "Jean Prouvé Studios."

Tunisian Bookshelf, pic from MoMa

Information gets regurgitated over and over, with assumption and bias. Lately we have come to care more about the look of a design over who designed it and how it fits in. We have a unique opportunity to study the range of activity and information about women designers.

Perriand's floor plan for a student room in the dormitory building, Maison de la Tunisie,
at the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris

Why aren't we doing this?

Student Room, Maison de la Tunisie, 1952
Perriand was put in charge of a group that was to design and furnish 40 student rooms. 

Both images above from Mary McLeod's (editor) Charlotte Perriand: An Art of Living, 2003.

Acclaim to the Women's Clubs

In 1859, Constance Fauntleroy Runcie (1836-1911) founded the first women's social club east of the Mississippi in New Harmony, Indiana. She called it The Minerva Society.

She moved to the city of St. Joseph, Missouri in 1871 with her Episcopal minister husband James Runcie. A lot of things were happening around this time in St. Joe. The railroad reached the town in 1859 where it served as a supplier and distribution point to the entire western half of the country. St. Joe is known for a lot of things -- John Patee opened his luxurious four-story brick hotel just a year earlier where Oscar Wilde later stayed, the Pony Express in 1860 and 61, Sanborn Fire Insurance Map Company established in 1867, and the death of Jesse James in 1882.

The Patee House

In 1894, Mrs. Runcie founded the Runcie club -- the oldest existing women's club today. She wanted to further cultural development and provide an intellectual outlet for the good women of St. Joseph. The club is still very much active today. In 1995, I curated an exhibition of the art purchased, compiled and carefully collected by members of the club over the years. Seventeen years later (boy, that hurts) I was given the opportunity to deliver a lecture to the members of the club where I asked:

Can the decrease of interest and value of domestic objects

be linked to a deeper and more profound change

in how we regard the role of the housewife today?

There are still a number of far-sighted women who over a century later realize that education and civic involvement are essential elements in building a stable community. Although women have made great advancements in the professional world since that time, we still can learn a thing or two from Women's Clubs of the nineteenth century: we still need to open opportunities for women and develop support systems for each other.

St. Joe today

(images from Missouri Western University's digital archives and stjoemo.com)

Women in Design:: Azadeh Shladovsky

I love seeing the success of well-trained designers. My fellow alumni, (UCLA’s architecture and interior design program), Azadeh Shladovsky has been building a practice for seven years.

A great design talent and founder of her own multidisciplinary firm, she premiered her collection of nature-inspired furniture at Jean de Merry.

She marries wood, metal and fur in a non-formulaic manner.

Petit Chene Side Table

love the rough-hewn oak blocks juxtaposed with the sleek, cold steel...

Diva Stool


She uses the principles of proportion, scale, balance and color -- something, i feel, a lot of furniture forms are lacking today.

Torre Stool

 
A tension of contrasts: soft v. hard, lustrous v. matte, sinuous v. linear
 

Infinity+++ Bench

 Beautiful, powerful visual expressions.


All images from Azadeh Shladovsky