Jean Luce and the Revival of the French Table

At barely 30 years old, Jean Luce was the only designer specializing in tableware to have a personal space at the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris in 1925.
His long career, which began in 1911 at the Galliera Museum exhibition and ended in 1962, spanned numerous movements of the 20^th century, from the very first emergence of Art Deco to post-war functionalism. First admired in the 1920s for the quality and originality of his floral and then geometric decorations and ornaments, from the 1930s he established himself with his work on the renewal of the forms of table services. Pierre Chareau, Charlotte Perriand, Rob Mallet-Stevens and Djo Bourgeois did not hesitate to feature his models on their stands or in their interiors. Responding to orders from prestigious clients, such as the Maharajah of Indore or Paul Cavrois, Jean Luce personalized some of his services. Other pieces were aimed at a wider audience, which he reached both in France, thanks to points of sale such as the Steph Simon gallery and the Magasins Pilotes, and in the United States, where he established himself in 1927. Always on the lookout for technical and industrial innovations, after the Second World War he collaborated with brands like Duralex, which allowed him to continue his reflection on functionalism. Richly illustrated, in particular with the Jean Luce collection deposited at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris as well as unpublished archives from different manufacturers, this work restores an initial biography of Jean Luce, but also the work of his contemporaries such as Marcel Goupy, Suzanne Lalique and Francis Jourdain, and of publishing houses such as Rouard, le Grand Dépôt and DIM.

A doctor in art history, Sung Moon Cho is a researcher in contemporary decorative arts, specializing in 20^th-century ceramics and glass and the history of tableware.

Text in French only