Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann’s work has become synonymous with elegance, fine craftsmanship, and luxury. While the present coiffeuse exemplifies these traits, it also looks towards other modernist design trajectories of the late 1920s and 1930s. Ruhlmann, the preeminent designer from the French Art Deco period, reigned supreme at the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et IndustrielsModernes. Just outside of the exposition, Le Corbusier presented his Pavillon de l'Esprit Nouveau, the antithesis to Ruhlmann’s display. Though Le Corbusier’s tenet that a home was a “machine for living” would gain traction within international design discourses in the following years, it seemed anathema to Ruhlmann’s design perspective in 1925.
Just two years later, however, Ruhlmann presented works at the Salon des artistes décorateurs—including the present model coiffeuse—that foreshadowed the design trends of the 1930s and more closely aligned with Le Corbusier’s perspective. The present model straddles the boundaries between French Art Deco furniture and modernist furniture. Created in collaboration with leading French lacquer artist Jean Dunand, for this work Ruhlmann pared away much of the ornamentation that characterized his earlier works. The rounded edges of the dressing table conceal the cabinet’s joints to create a sleek and elegant appearance. There is a refreshing simplicity to the design that looks ahead to 1930s modernism.
Léon Werth, "Le XVIIe Salon des artistes dècorateurs," Art et Décoration, June 1927, p. 178 Florence Camard, Ruhlmann: Master of Art Deco, New York, 1984, pp. 60, 274 Félix Marcilhac, Jean Dunand: His Life and Works, New York, 1991, p. 260 Florence Camard, Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann, New York, 2011, illustrated p. 220
Catalogue Essay
The present model coiffeuse is recorded in the Ruhlmann Archives at the Musée des Années Trente, Boulogne Billancourt, Paris.