The Art Deco movement centered in early 20th-century Paris sought to bridge the transition from academic art and craftsmanship to modern art and industrial production. Regarded by some as one of its founders, Pierre-Emile Legrain (1889-1929) worked at a time of great ferment in art, as well as in society. Legrain's curiosity and receptiveness to these changes led him to adapt forms, materials and techniques from other cultures.
Legrain created two distinct bodies of work: an assemblage of approximately 1,200 bookbinding designs and a much smaller production of furniture made for couturiers in the French fashion trade. Both artistic endeavors shared fine craftsmanship, masterful use of rare and expensive materials, unusual combinations of textures and surfaces, and spare, geometrical forms. Nearly all of his creations were one-of-a-kind.
Legrain became known for his interpretations of African ceremonial and prestige objects. During the era of French colonial trade, various Parisian museums and dealers collected objects from West Africa. Indeed, two of Legrain's most loyal clients, Jacques Doucet and Jeanne Tachard, decorated their homes with African artifacts, along with works by modern artists such as Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Doucet and Tachard commissioned Legrain to create furniture to complement their African sculpture.
Unlike Picasso's fascination with the expressive power of original African works, Legrain's goal was to adapt African forms to make them accessible to French taste. So successful was he that critics suggested "he wrote poetry in forms and materials." Organizers included Legrain's African-inspired furniture in the Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes held during June 1925 at the Grand Palais in Paris, a show that was the culmination of the Art Deco movement.
Legrain's furniture designs used a variety of materials, all of them rare and expensive--ebony, ivory, gilt, sharkskin, leather and horn. Although an artist in his own right, Legrain collaborated with craftsmen of exceptional talent and reputation. Reportedly, one of these craftsmen protested that Legrain's combination of materials on a stool had never been done before, to which Legrain responded that he "certainly hoped not."
As this exhibition demonstrates, Legrain's work reflects African forms directly, at a time when most modern artists drew inspiration from African art's spontaneity and only alluded to its actual forms.