Louis Majorelle

From Freepedia

Louis Majorelle (1859 – 1926) was a decorator and furniture designer who manufactured his own designs. He was one of the outstanding designers of furniture in Art nouveau style. Born in Toul he finished his initial studies in Nancy before moving to Paris in 1877 for two years of further study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. On the death of his father, Auguste Majorelle (1825-1879), he cut short his studies and returned to Nancy to oversee the family's manufactories of faience and furniture. In the 1880s the firm turned out pastiches of Louis XV styles, but the influence of the glassmaker Emile Gallé inspired Majorelle to take his production in new directions. From the 1890s, Majorelle's furniture, embellished with inlays, took their inspiration from nature: stems of plants, waterlily leaves, tendrils, dragonflies. Soon he added a metalworking atelier to the workshops, to produce drawerpulls and mounts in keeping with the fluid lines of his woodwork. With the Daum Frères glassworks of Nancy, he helped make the city one of the European centers of Art Nouveau.

In the Exposition Universelle at Paris, 1900, where the Art Nouveau style triumphed, Majorelle's designs drew him an international clientele. His latest designs show the stiffened geometry of Art Deco.