Ruhlmann, Master of Art Deco

Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann was one of the greatest and most prolific art deco interior and furniture designers. Active long before the famous Exposition des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels in Paris in 1925 (from which the name art deco derives), Ruhlmann was a tastemaker and a style setter working and associating with the best artists in the worlds of fashion, architecture and the decorative arts, and catering to an international clientele of diplomats, wealthy businessmen and aristocrat’s. His hundreds of detailed, accurate and beautiful sketches – many here reproduced – are examples of his designs for lamps, wall coverings, cigar boxes, unusually shaped beds and divans, and whole interiors – including an entire pavilion designed for the 1925 exposition. Florence Camard teaches in the Centre for the Study of the Art Object in Paris. HCDJ