Andrée Putman (1925-2013), was a French designer who was known for her Minimalist, avant-garde furniture & interior designs. Her grandfather, Edouard Aynard founded Maynard & Sons bank. Her grandmother, Edouard’s wife, was Rose de Montgolfier, a descendant of the hot-air balloon inventors’ family. Her father could speak seven languages. Her mother was a concert pianist. She first aspired to follow her mother and build a career in the world of music, studying piano at the Paris Conservatory and winning the school’s highest award at age 20. But she became frustrated with music and turned to journalism, beginning her new life in 1950 at Femina magazine. From 1952-1958 she was a design columnist for Elle; and from 1960-1964 interiors editor at L’Oeil. All this while she was teaching herself interior design and styled the Prisunic department stores in Paris during the period 1958-1967. In the late 1950s, Andrée Aynard married Jacques Putman, art critic, collector and publisher. Together they moved in a world that was design aware and populated by the avant-garde, by painters and other artists. There were setbacks, including divorce, before she founded her own interior design consultancy, Écart, in 1978. Écart reissued classic Modernist furnishings from 1930s designers such as Eileen Gray, Mariano Fortuny and Pierre Chareau. Andrée Putman also began designing boutiques for well-known fashion designers such as Thierry Mugler (Paris, 1978), Yves Saint Laurent (15 stores in the USA, 1980–1984), and Karl Lagerfeld (Paris, New York, Toronto, and Melbourne, Australia, 1980–85). Commissioned in 1984 to refurbish, on a tight budget, New York City’s Morgans Hotel, Andrée Putman shunned what she called the “vulgarity” of traditional luxury and opted instead for a streamlined yet opulent sense of comfort. She used her signature black-and-white checkerboard tiles throughout the hotel’s hallways and bathrooms, and she designed the lobby and guest room interiors in shades of gray. She subsequently received other important commissions, including interiors for the circular Wasserturm Hotel in Cologne, Germany (1990), which was converted from a water tower built in 1868, and for the Orchid Club House in Kōbe, Japan (1992). She also designed the interior of Air France’s Concorde jet (1993). Andrée Putman has received numerous prizes, among them the Interior Design Hall of Fame Award (New York, 1987) and the Grand Prix National de la Création Industrielle (Paris, 1995). Her later work has included sets for Peter Greenaway’s 1996 film The Pillow Book. She continues to create original designs in home furnishings, such as lighting, tableware, and fabrics, opening a new company under her own name in 1997.
www.studioputman.com
