Hector Guimard
https://www-4.collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/18383205/
Hector Guimard: How Paris Got Its Curves invites a new understanding of France’s most famous art nouveau architect, Hector Guimard (1867–1942). Guimard is perhaps best known for his designs for the Paris Métro and private residences like Castel Béranger. These ornate designs—based in the repeated use of organically curved, undulating lines—anchored his efforts to create an eponymous brand he called le style Guimard. Lesser known are his more pared-down designs for several standardized housing projects from the 1920s, attesting to his socialist and pacificist leanings. Though seemingly opposite in appearance, these later projects were always critical components of the Guimard style. Providing urban and historical context for the full range of Hector Guimard’s design work, this exhibition reexamines le style Guimard through the lens of his design processes and marketing strategies.
At the turn of the twentieth century during the art nouveau period, major European ceramic firms took advantage of iridescent glazes to maximize their expressions of an organic style. At the Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory in France, Guimard’s use of a new glaze that included crystal particles brought great dimension to his vase that depicts the growth of a floral form from its roots to its blooms.
Best known for his designs for the Paris Metro in 1900, Guimard was a prominent innovator of the art nouveau style, epitomized in this grille for an apartment-house balcony. Sinuous, organic lines generate aesthetic continuity between the balconies and the interiors, which were also designed by Guimard.
