It will be previewed at Milan at Sotheby's Palazzo Broggi – from 15 to 19 April – a selection of furnishing objects from the Design auction in Paris (May 21, 2015) and an overview of Fontana's works from the Milan auction on May 20 and 21 "unusual", chosen with particularly suggestive criteria.
The center of the Paris auction is the designer Jean Royère.
In 1934 Jean Royère (1902-1981) achieved success thanks to the design of the new interiors of the Brasserie Carlton, on the Champs Elysées in Paris. Years of intense production and artistic research followed in which he put into practice the teachings learned in the cabinet-making workshops of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine in Paris. His deep bond with the natural element allowed him to develop a compact, robust, but at the same time fluid and delicate style: his works, so profoundly intimate and harmonious, express comfort and a sense of protection. Among his clients, Royère also worked for King Farouk, King Hussein of Jordan and the Shah of Persia, who entrusted him with the design of the interiors of his many palaces.
The originality of his style places Jean Royère in the pantheon of avant-garde designers of the 50s.
Among the recent monographs dedicated to him, we point out the one held at the Sonnabend Gallery in New York (2008).
Ileana Sonnabend and Leo Castelli, in the course of their farsighted activity, had a constant eye of attention to the Milanese post-war artistic production, recently focused by the exhibition "Ileana Sonnabend: an Italian portrait" (2011), at the Guggenheim in Venice.
The Milan exhibition “From Jean Royerè to Lucio Fontana” will be an opportunity to reflect on the artistic experiences gained in the XNUMXs and XNUMXs and on the exchange of ideas between European avant-garde artists and designers.
Royère's creative path proposes an evocative zoological itinerary, an example of the designer's love for organic forms: among these, on display in Milan, the "theatrical" Eléphanteau armchair, dated 1947, valued at €40.000-60.000 and the pair of from 1949-50 Ours polaire, estimated at €120.000-150.000.
The pair of Souffleur armchairs (val. €60-30.000), whose lines suggest a completely new volume, dates back to the production of the 50.000s.
Furthermore, in this preview in Milan, it will be possible to appreciate another important example of French design, the revolutionary desk chair designed in 1928: Transat (val. € 7.000-9.000) designed by Robert-Mallet Stevens, an innovative Parisian designer who 1929 he founded the Union des Artistes Modernes (UAM), an antagonistic movement to the decorative Art Nouveau.
Florent Jeanniard, Head of the Paris department of Sotheby's Design, comments: “This year Paris is pleased to be in Milan on the occasion of the Salone del Mobile, an unavoidable appointment for design and interior decoration collectors. The days of April 15th to 19th therefore appeared to be unmissable opportunities to present the Paris Design auction on May 21st. It is therefore a preview for Italy”.
Raphaelle Blanga, Head of the Modern & Contemporary Art department of Sotheby's Italy, adds: “ We are happy to present on this occasion of dialogue with French production design (dating from 1949 to the 60s) a suggestive overview of works by Lucio Fontana, chosen among the most “unusual” of his production from the 40s to the 60s”.
Among the works on display, in addition to the ceramics from the early 1960s, we point out three Concetti Spaziali made between 1964 and 1 in sophisticated colors such as fuchsia (fig. 1, page 1964, Concetto Spaziale, fuchsia, 500.000, val. € 700.0000-1963 ), orange (Concetto Spaziale, Attese, 500.000, val. € 700.000-1961) and intense green (Concetto Spaziale, Attese, 600.000, val. € 800.000-XNUMX).
Also on display are 4 chairs from 1985 Apple Honey Chairs by Shiro Kuramata (val. € 8.000-12.000), Yellow Piece of Furniture– Mobile Giallo by Ettore Sottass from 1988 (val. € 8.000-12.000), Piccolo Albero - Book Case by Andrea Branzi from 1991 (val. € 25.000-30.000) and among the more recent furnishings, a preview, Set of 4 stools dated 2006 and signed by Zaha Hadid (val. € 10.000-15.000).
