ICON: André arbus
“I come from an old family of cabinetmakers. From father to son for a very long time. In other words, I was born in a cabinetmaking workshop”.
Many remember him as an architect, sculptor and icon of interior design, but André Arbus was, above all, a French cabinetmaker who elevated his trade to the category of art.
Wood and bronze were his weapons.
In 1925, a young André Arbus presented a dressing table that attracted attention at the World's Fair in Paris. He did not follow the architectural premises of Le Corbusier, nor did he believe in his obsession with nudity, but he did not share the Art Deco creed either., “that cubism of chance”, he said. At 22 years old, he was proud of his third way, that of the French tradition, that of pristine finishes and noble materials. “I don't like the plastic dryness or the lack of sensitivity of the rationalists”, he assured. His grandfather, Leon Arbus, had founded a cabinetmaker's shop in Toulouse at the end of the 19th century, into which André had, almost literally, been born. His father, Antoine, introduced him to the secrets of furniture, and he would remember the smell of varnish and the secrets of the skilled carpenters in the family workshop all his life.
When at the age of 18 he began to study Fine Arts at the University, he broadened his vision of things and set himself a goal: "To elevate this profession, to make it great. "For him, a piece of furniture bears no surnames. “It's like a painting, like literature or music; it does not belong to any fashion. It has to last; it must find an eternal beauty.” He set aside materials like glass or metal to focus on wood and defend the artisan, the handmade. "The cabinetmaker's work has the admirable imperfection of what is human." he recounted.
Bedroom at the 1937 Exhibition of the Société des Artistes Décorateurs in Paris. © Wright/1stdibs/André Arbus/DR.
Moving to Paris
In the 1930s he moved to Paris with his wife and their sole daughter, Madeleine, where he opened a studio and gallery. The 40s were those of his consecration, the time in which he devised his most coveted pieces. He admired the clean, neoclassical lines, but he didn't skimp on embellishments, details cast in bronze or small sculptures. In that decade he also launched himself to decorate official interiors (the Ministry of Agriculture and the French Embassy in Washington) with his bombastic and elegant style, and he dared with commissioned architecture.
“It’s like a painting, like literature or music; it does not belong to any fashion. It has to last; it must find an eternal beauty.”
He designed houses for workers in Laudun during the German occupation, and later rebuilt the Planier lighthouse in Marseille, destroyed by the war. From the late 1950s until his death in 1969, however, he became what he always desired to be, a plain sculptor. His elongated figures, similar to those of Giacometti, whom he idolized, were his last creative legacy.
Sketch of a particulier hotel in Paris (1952).
© Wright/1stdibs/André Arbus/DR.
The Main Points
The takeoff: His first piece of furniture, a wood and leather dressing table, was painted by his friend Marc Saint-Saëns.
Consecration: In 1926 he took over the creative direction of his family's studio in Toulouse, and in 1935 he opened his own gallery in Paris.
Obsessions: He loved Venetian glass and admired the architecture and designs of Louis Süe and Pierre Chareau.
The lord of ornaments: “Ornament awakens in humble people the desire for poetry, wonder and luxury. Nudity snobbery is for those who have money," Arbus said.
