CW Roelle

I am incredibly impressed by these highly detailed wire drawings, by Providence-based artist CW Roelle. See much more on Roelle's Flickr site, right here.

(Via designboom)

if I had a million dollars

I would buy...{the night light edition}

One of Happy Owl's glass sloth night lights.

This White Rabbit Night Light from My Sweet Muffin.

The Acme World Dog Kute Light, from Smoochie Baby.

An I Love You Night Light, available at ReForm School.

And a J Schatz Star Egg Nightlight.

if I had a million dollars

I would buy...{the tabletop edition: coasters}

Bookhou's charcoal die cut wool coasters.

Tooled leather coasters by Commune Design. Available at General Store.

Wolfum's squaresville coaster set. Available at Rare Device.

A brass coaster from Mjölk.

And wooden flower coasters, available at Neëst.

if I had a million dollars

I would buy...{the furniture edition: magazine racks}

onefortythree's hairpin magazine rack.

The Heavy Rabbit, from Bongo Design.

Quattria's MARC coffee table/magazine rack.

The Float Magazine Rack, from j-me. Available at The Future Perfect.

And Objectify Homewear's stack magazine rack.

blackfield

What looks like a sheet of botanical wallpaper is actually Blackfield (2008), an installation by London-based artist Zadok Ben David.

And while the concept of black steel flowers and plants blooming out of a floor of sand is pretty remarkable looking in itself, just wait until you see the other half of this installation.

That's right, the black field burst into full, vibrant color just waiting on the other side.

(Via The Jealous Curator)

Emily Wettstein - planter table

Speaking of my lack of a kitchen table, I simple adore this gorgeous planter table, by Brooklyn designer Emily Wettstein. Maybe it's because wood and steel are one of my favorite combinations of materials, or maybe it just satisfies my city-girl cravings for nature, but there's definitely a lot to love here.

(Via sub-studio design blog and Design Milk)

Designer of the Month: Isamu Noguchi

Eliot Elisofon, Japanese American sculptor Isamu Noguchi in his workshop, 1946. Courtesy of LIFE Magazine.

I am excited to let you all know that April's Designer of the Month is the sculptor and designer Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988), who you can see in the above image, in his studio. Noguchi was born in Los Angeles to the American writer Leonie Gilmour and the Japanese poet Yonejiro (Yone) Noguchi.[1] His childhood was spent primarily in Japan, but his mom sent him back to the US, to a school in Indiana, when he was 13, and continued his schooling as a pre-med student at Columbia University in New York.[2] It was during his college years at Columbia that Noguchi was encouraged to take art classes, enrolling in an evening sculpture class with Onorio Ruotolo at the Leonardo Da Vinci Art School, where he achieved immediate success with his figurative sculpture.[3] As Noguchi explains about the Da Vinci Art School and his first foray into sculpture:

The director, Onorio Ruotolo, spotted me and asked, 'Wouldn't you like to study here?' I said I wasn't interested in sculpture. Finally I copied a plaster foot, whereupon I was offered a scholarship. I began attending evening school but then announced that I couldn't go on because I had a job and also went to college. Ruotolo suggested that I should work for him and give up the restaurant job, and he would pay me the equivalent. How could I resist? I became a sculptor, even against my will.[4]

But Noguchi's life really changed during his first real encounter with abstract sculpture, at an exhibition of Constantin Brancusi's work; with his aspirations set, Noguchi successfully applied for a Guggenheim Fellowship to study sculpture in Paris, promptly establishing himself as Brancusi's assistant.[5] It was through Brancusi that Noguchi would learn wood and stone carving, skills that he would utilize in some of his most well-known work.[6]

Isamu Noguchi, Chess Table, 1947. Ebonized plywood, cast aluminum, plastic insets. Courtesy of The Noguchi Museum.

While he was a frequent traveller, Noguchi spent most of his time in New York, and if you're ever in the area, I highly recommend stopping by The Noguchi Museum in Long Island City, Queens. Located in an old factory building, Noguchi created the museum in 1985 as a way to house a comprehensive collection of his work and archives, and it's a wonderful place to spend an afternoon.

Isamu Noguchi, Heaven (Tengoku) Sogetsu Interior Garden, Japan, 1977. Balsa wood model. Courtesy of The Noguchi Museum.

Noguchi is one of those artists whose work you look at in amazement because you just can't believe that one guy managed to do so much during his lifetime. While he's primarily known as a sculptor, Noguchi also designed furniture, fountains, playgrounds, gardens, public monuments, memorials, and theater sets, and all of those designs are what we're going to be focusing on for these next four weeks. That's right folks, instead of our customary 4 weeks worth of discussion, we're taking advantage of the 5 Fridays in April to look at as much of Noguchi's work as possible. We'll focus on his sculpture, furniture and interior design next week, week 3 will be a look at his gardens and playgrounds, we'll jump on over to monuments and memorials in week 4, and finish up with his drawings and designs for dance and theater sets in week 5. Phew! It's going to be a lot, but it should be a fun time. So start getting excited, and I'll see you all next week.

Isamu Noguchi, Jack in the Box, 1984. hot-dipped galvanized steel. Courtesy of The Noguchi Museum.

[1] The Noguchi Museum online, "Chronology," http://www.noguchi.org/chrono.html (accessed March 30, 2010).

[2] Isamu Noguchi, A Sculptor's World, "A Sculptor's World," (New York: Harper & Row Publishers Inc., 2004), 13, 15.

[3] Ibid., 15.

[4] Ibid., 15.

[5] The Noguchi Museum online, "Paris and Brancusi," http://www.noguchi.org/paris_and_brancusi.html (accessed March 30, 2010).

[6] Ibid.

Designer of the Month: Jean Dunand

Week 4: getting technical - dinanderie and coquille d'oeuf

I'm one of those people who likes to know how things are made. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that I just really love making things myself, but I find the technical aspects about how an object is constructed to be fascinating. So when writing this week's Designer of the Month post, I wasn't sure if anyone other than me would actually be interested in some of the technical aspects of Dunand's work, but I finally decided to write about dinanderie and coquille d'oeuf anyway, because I figure that if I find it interesting, there has to be other people out there who do too. And for those of you who are already bored to tears, well, tough luck this week kiddos, but there will be a new designer to read about next week.

Jean Dunand, Dinanderie Vase, ca.1920. Courtesy of Christie's.

Jean Dunand was a master at the technique of dinanderie, the process of crafting an object, in this case, a vase, out of a single sheet of metal, with almost all of Dunand’s vases being shaped in this way.[1] This process takes its name from the town of Dinant near Liège in Belgium, where this craft gained popularity in the Middle Ages.[2] The process of dinanderie is a long and complicated one, and begins with a single circular metal sheet, which is then hammered into the desired shape, with the metal being heated and hammered over and over again during the shaping process.[3] The craftsman must begin hammering at the center of the piece, beating the metal in a regular spiral form, then shaping the object from the inside while the piece rests on a iron support.[4] Because this process of hammering causes the metal to gradually lose its malleability, making it brittle, in order to avoid fracturing the piece while working on it, the craftsman must anneal the metal by heating it to a cherry-red color after the initial shaping has been completed.[5] During this time, between thirty and forty reheatings are required to help restore the metal’s malleability, with the piece continuing to be worked throughout.[6] While the process of dinanderie has been around since the Middle Ages, Dunand modernized it by decorating the surfaces of his vases with lacquer, working with the lacquer on metal as opposed to wood, which was the material on which lacquer was traditionally applied.[7]

Jean Dunand, 1918. Courtesy of Paris Originals.

There he is, the man himself, working away in his studio. Now, one major problem with the natural resin lacquer that Dunand used in his work was working with the color white. While the colors for lacquer are created using vegetable dyes, it is impossible to create the color white using such dyes.[8] Dunand solved this problem through the process of coquille d’oeuf, an ancient technique that he revived, which consists of using tiny pieces of eggshell within the lacquer to create variations on this color.[9] Because the color of an eggshell’s interior and exterior differ slightly, Dunand was able to create a wide range of effects by applying the eggshell pieces in alternating patterns between use of the inside and outside of the shell.[10] As Mechthild Baumeister discusses in an essay about Dunand and this process:

Dunand’s eggshell lacquer became so popular that he maintained a chicken coop in the courtyard of his workshop to guarantee a steady supply of eggs. In order to create different shadings and color contrasts, Dunand also incorporated into his lacquer crushed eggshells of ducks, partridges, and exotic birds.[11]

I love this image of Dunand keeping a veritable menagerie of birds in order to achieve just the right shade of white for a particular piece that he was working on. The idea of different parts of the eggshell and different types of eggs producing different variations on the color white can be seen in the vase below, with noticeable differences in the white hues, particularly between the white used for the lines versus dots, as well as for the different color white used in the vertical versus horizontal lines. This piece also serves as an excellent example of the many uses of coquille d’eouf, with the look of solid lines as well as a mottled and dotted look being achieved through this process.

Jean Dunand, Coquille d'oeuf Vase, ca.1925.[12]

The particular vase above and the eggshell decoration used in it is discussed in an article written by Gabriel Henriot in 1926, in Mobilier et Décoration (p. 40): “There are no particles of acid or incrustations of fine silver on this solid, bulging vase. To decorate it, the artist has resorted to a totally original and new process; he has used eggshell and lacquer.”[13] While this process of coquille d’oeuf is not, in fact, a new one, this process does lend itself particularly well to Dunand’s work, with the variations in the color white produced particularly bold and striking when used on the traditional black lacquer background. The technique of coquille d’oeuf helps to gives the piece a sense of the modern with its striking look, making this process once again available to the public through the style of Art Deco.

[1] Anthony Delorenzo, Jean Dunand (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1985), 1.

[2] Felix Marcilhac, Jean Dunand: His Life and Works (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1991), 164.

[3] Anthony Delorenzo, Jean Dunand (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1985), 2.

[4] Felix Marcilhac, Jean Dunand: His Life and Works (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1991), 165.

[5] Ibid., 165.

[6] Katherine Morrison McClinton, “Jean Dunand, Art Deco Craftsman,” Apollo 116, no. 247 (September 1982): 177.

[7] Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Lacquer: An International History and Illustrated Survey (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1984), 15.

[8] Felix Marcilhac, Jean Dunand: His Life and Works (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1991), 172.

[9] Anthony Delorenzo, Jean Dunand (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1985), 1.

[10] Ibid., 37.

[11] Mechthild Baumeister, “Jean Duand –A French Art Déco Artist Working With Asian Lacquer,” in Postprints of the Wooden Artifacts Group (Miami: Wooden Artifacts Group, American Institute for Conservation, 2002), 9.

[12] Ibid., 61.

[13] Ibid., 61.

beautiful bound books

Bound by Jean Gunner, Tulips and Tulipomania, 1982. Moroccan leather.

Bound by KT Miura, The Song of Solomon, 1987. Silver foil and Moroccan leather.

Binder unknown, Cowper's Poetical Works, 1874. Goat skin and red maple wood.

Binder unknown, The New Testament, 1710. Silver metal on black leather.

Binder unknown, notebook, 1775. Embroidered silk.

Some lovely bound books to brighten up your Friday. From the holdings of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (Royal National Library of the Netherlands).

(Via BibliOdyssey)

Designer of the Month: Jean Dunand

Week 3: lacquer and artistic influences

In working with lacquer, Jean Dunand chose a highly toxic material. The process of lacquering is a dangerous one because natural lacquer, when in a form that can be manipulated, emits noxious fumes that are difficult to tolerate, and the overexposure to these fumes can cause the side effects of nauseousness and a severe skin rash.[1] Natural lacquer is a resin extracted from two trees that grow most notably in Japan and China, with the Japanese name urushi indicating the tree as well as the sap that is the basis of both lacquer and the finished product itself.[2] Because the color of the lacquer is created with vegetable dyes, the color palate available is fairly limited, and it is often through a combination of utilizing dyes and allowing for the process of oxidation to occur that colors such as an inky black are produced.[3] The lacquer has to be added onto the object in very thin layers, with each layer being left to harden for a few days - with this process only occurring in a hot and humid environment - and each layer has to be ground and polished before the next layer can be added.[4] In all, 20 or more layers of lacquer are needed to achieve a desired result.[5] Below is an example of a set-up for lacquering and the thirty-five stages in the making of a lacquer sake cup. This picture, beginning at the top left with the light-brown wooden cup, continuing from left to right on each row, and ending at the bottom right with the finished cup, shows an example of the lacquering process.[6] As was mentioned before, after each stage, the lacquer would have to be given a chance to harden, with the piece then being polished before moving on to the next step, and this illustration shows just low long and complicated a process is necessary for even such a small object as a cup.

Thirty-five stages in the making of a lacquer sake cup [7]

Because the process of lacquering is such a difficult one, this material was highly valued not only for its look, but also because of the time and effort it took in creating each piece, with a unique and beautiful effect achieved as a result. As one writer from Harper’s Bazar says about the use of lacquer in 1920, “it was new, distinctly novel…oh so very, very expensive.”[8] As Dunand himself wrote about the lacquer process and his love for it:

…there exists labors of pure patience, such as lacquer, which I love so much!…Twenty coats are needed, no forty, as the job has to be repeated on the other side to keep the wood from warping: otherwise it would crack, for you wouldn’t believe how easily the lacquer can twist…Actually not forty but as many as a hundred preparations are required since after each varnishing you have to polish and before each varnishing there have to be twenty seasonings, each lasting four days while drying…[9]

Doesn't Dunand sound enthusiastic about his work? It's no wonder that he achieved the level of fame that he did. Dunand was a master craftsman who truly loved the work he did, and the use of lacquer in his artwork changed Dunand’s life. Having begun his career as an almost entirely solitary artisan, Dunand soon rose to the head of a number of workshops.[10]

Vase based on Egyptian motifs [11]

Much of Dunand’s work embodies ideas of the time about exoticism, not only through the revival of lacquerwork, but also with the motifs that he chooses to use in his artwork. During the Art Deco period, the term exotic was commonly used in a variety of different ways, most frequently describing tribal artifacts, but also making reference to modern culture influenced by ancient or eastern art.[12] To call something exotic was rarely seen during this time as a negative or derogatory term; exoticism “suggested an exciting, sensual and decorative vision that carried into a global future,” with part of the vogue for exoticism due to easier tourism and cheaper travel. [13] Additionally, archeological studies, including the discovery of King Tutankhamen's tomb, also played a large role in the incorporation of exotic motifs.[14]

Vase with fish motif [15]

Another example of exotic influences used by Jean Dunand and other artists of the Art Deco period was that of Asian art, and most notably, the art of Japan. Since trade between Europe and Asia was established in the sixteenth century, Asian art had provided an inspiration to European artists, with this influence being particularly strong during the Art Deco period.[16] When, in the second half of the nineteenth century, Europe opened Japan to foreign trade and diplomacy, Japan became the main influence of new artistic styles.[17] Can you imagine what an exciting time this must have been? As the example of the vase above shows, Dunand made much use of Japanese motifs in his art, not only through his use of lacquer, but also in the motifs he applied to his vases. As Anthony Delorenzo writes about this particular design in his book about Dunand: “No other decorative motif exemplifies better the dual influences of East and West on Dunand than his designs for goldfish…He retained the Japanese naturalistic design of the fish, and applied it with a selection of European modernistic linear and abstract patterns in the most colourful of lacquers.”[18] Dunand uses these fish, which are a common form often found in Japanese art, on many of his objects and vases, making the motif entirely his own.


[1] Anthony Delorenzo, Jean Dunand (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1985), 3.

[2] Mechthild Baumeister, “Jean Duand –A French Art Déco Artist Working With Asian
Lacquer,” in Postprints of the Wooden Artifacts Group (Miami: Wooden Artifacts Group, American Institute for Conservation, 2002), 3.

[3] Katherine Morrison McClinton, “Jean Dunand, Art Deco Craftsman,” Apollo 116, no. 247 (September 1982): 178.

[4] Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Lacquer: An International History and Illustrated Survey (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1984), 15.

[5] Ibid., 15.

[6] Ibid., 15.

[7] Ibid., 15.

[8] Anna Jackson, “Inspiration from the East”, in Art Deco: 1910-1939, ed. Charlotte Benton, Jim Benton and Ghislaine Wood (London: V&A Publications, 2003), 77.

[9] Anthony Delorenzo, Jean Dunand (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1985), 4.

[10] Yvonne Brunhammer, Jean Dunand, Jean Goulden (Paris: Galerie du Luxembourg, 1973), 41.

[11] Anthony Delorenzo, Jean Dunand (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1985), 131.

[12] Ghislaine Wood, “The Exotic,” in Art Deco: 1919-1939, ed. Charlotte Benton, Jim Benton and Ghislaine Wood (London: V&A Publications, 2003), 125.

[13] Christopher Frayling, “Egyptomania,” in Art Deco: 1910-1939, ed. Charlotte Benton, Jim Benton and Ghislaine Wood (London: V&A Publications, 2003), 41.

[14] Ibid., 41.

[15] Anthony Delorenzo, Jean Dunand (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1985), 134.

[16] Anna Jackson, “Inspiration from the East”, in Art Deco: 1910-1939, ed. Charlotte Benton, Jim Benton and Ghislaine Wood (London: V&A Publications, 2003), 67.

[17] Ibid., 67.

[18] Anthony Delorenzo, Jean Dunand (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1985), 18.

Designer of the Month: Jean Dunand

Week 2: career beginnings

Jean Dunand, A Lacquered Martelé Pewter Vase, ca. 1929. Courtesy of Christie's.

For an object is language, a link between the creator and the user. Useful, made for pleasure, it is unique archetype –to the extent that it represents an entire class of objects at a given time. The works of Jean Dunand illustrate quite well the case of an artist going beyond himself: fundamentally modest, the artisan was mainly concerned with doing his work well, for his own pleasure and for the pleasure of other.[1]

Before we get into Jean Dunand's background and how he came to work with lacquer, I want to first clear up some things about Art Deco. The term itself comes from the name of the 1925 World's Fair in France, the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, where this new style was referred to as "art moderne" or "style modern".[2] Many of Dunand’s early vases, before the use of lacquer in his pieces, were made more in line with the Art Nouveau style of stylized fruits, vegetables and plants, with Dunand gradually moving towards the Art Deco style with geometrical and cubist shapes, incorporating many of the different motifs of the time, and with a particular emphasis on the use of the exotic.[3] Phew! Now that I've managed to get that off my chest, let's move on.

Jean Dunand, vase, ca. 1925-1930. Brass, nickel and lacquer. Courtesy of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum collections.

Jean Dunand’s decision to pursue a career in the decorative arts came after having already trained for many years as both a sculptor and metalworker, but since he saw the decorative arts as a more lucrative career path than that of just a sculptor, Dunand put all of his energies into decorative metalwork.[4] 1912, however, would be the year in which Dunand’s career was changed forever, when he met the Japanese lacquer artist Seizo Sugawara, contacting Sugawara about lacquering techniques after his discovery of how little was actually known in Paris at the time about this art.[5] Sugawara was similarly interested in learning metalworking techniques from Dunand, and an exchange of workshop secrets was arranged.[6] As a result, Dunand received 13 lessons from Sugawara over a period of only 2 months, with notes and sample boards from these lessons documented by Dunand in his notebook, and with records being taken on everything from how to prepare lacquer, the tools and necessary materials, working procedures, and various decorative techniques and their Japanese names.[7] As Mechthild Baumeister writes in an article about Jean Dunand and lacquer:

Considering that Dunand’s lacquer oeuvre is based on a two month course in Japanese lacquer technique, his ingenuity in this field is remarkable. Dunand was an artist extremely receptive to new ideas and who was, about all, an outstanding, multi-talented craftsman, constantly looking for new inspiration, driven by his own high technical and aesthetic standards…Dunand combined a modern sensibility with a foreign material, thereby making Oriental lacquer highly fashionable in the Art Déco period.[8]

As this quote so eloquently expresses, by utilizing lacquer within his artwork, Jean Dunand was able to take an ancient process and apply it in a way that was highly modern and visually interesting, and his metalworked vases serve as excellent examples of this.

Jean Dunand and Séraphin Soudbinin, Pianissimo Screen, 1925-26. Lacquered wood, eggshell, mother-of-pearl. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Through his career, Dunand created many different types of art, including furniture and other decorative objects, all of which incorporated the lacquer for which he received the greatest amount of fame. In the later part of his career, Dunand became more interested in the technical and craftsmanship aspects of applying lacquer, with much of his later work consisting of collaborations with other artists, who would design a piece, with Dunand then executing either the pictorial sketches in lacquer or decorating the surfaces of sculpture and furniture sent to his workshop.[9] However, of all the pieces created by Dunand, I think it’s his vases, made in the period directly after having learned the secrets of lacquer and before his major collaborations with other artists began, which are a combination of the metalwork that he was already famous for and the lacquerwork which he became famous for, that truly define Dunand as one of the great Art Deco artists. Dunand’s very early vases utilized color through the addition of patinas to the vases, with an acid base for warm tones such as brown and green, with pounded metals such as gold, silver and nickel added into carved cavities.[10] After learning the secrets of lacquer from Sugawara, Dunand was innovative in his use of lacquer on his vases, often combining multiple techniques on one vase, such as the use of patinas, metals, and decorative lacquer. While his earliest vases use lacquer only as a protective coating, as his interest and skill grew, Dunand saw the potential to use lacquer as a “pictorial substance” in his art, from which he began to experiment with designs of his own composition, utilizing the many different lacquer techniques he had learned and perfected.[11]


[1] Yvonne Brunhammer, Jean Dunand, Jean Goulden (Paris: Galerie du Luxembourg, 1973), 30-31.

[2] Karen McCready, Art Deco and Modernist Ceramics (London: Thames and Hudson Ltd., 1995), 131.

[3] Katherine Morrison McClinton. “Jean Dunand, Art Deco Craftsman.” Apollo 116, no. 247 (September 1982): 177.

[4] Mechthild Baumeister, “Jean Duand –A French Art Déco Artist Working With Asian
Lacquer,” in Postprints of the Wooden Artifacts Group (Miami: Wooden Artifacts Group, American Institute for Conservation, 2002), 3.

[5] Ibid., 3.

[6] Ibid., 4.

[7] Ibid., 4, 5.

[8] Ibid., 11.

[9] Ibid., 10.

[10] Anthony Delorenzo, Jean Dunand (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1985), 2.

[11] Felix Marcilhac, Jean Dunand: His Life and Works (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1991), 170.

Designer of the Month: Jean Dunand

For me, Jean Dunand (1877-1942) is French Art Deco. Yes, there were many artists during the period of 1910-1939, when Art Deco was the style, whose work can be considered icons of the movement, particularly those crazy Americans who really embraced it, but Dunand, who was born Jules John in Switzerland, but changed his name to Jean after becoming a French citizen in 1922, just happens to be my touchstone for Art Deco in France.[1] This might have something to do with the fact that, during my first year in grad school, I spent an inordinate amount of time doing an in-depth study of one of Dunand’s vases from the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum’s collections, or that I went on to become a research assistant for a class about the Art Deco movement and then got to see even more of Dunand’s work, but whatever the case may be, to me, Dunand is both French Deco and March’s Designer of the Month.

Jean Dunand, Vase, ca.1925. lacquered metal. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Wowza! Just look at that fabulous lacquered vase! Jean Dunand’s pieces combine his unique style of metalwork (and sometimes wood) with traditional lacquerware. In the 20th century, lacquering techniques, which had been almost entirely forgotten in the West since the eighteenth century, were brought back into use in Paris, largely thanks to the Japanese artist Seizo Sugawara.[2] Sugawara brought the secrets of lacquerwork to a new audience, and Jean Dunand, his student, became one of the more well-known artists to use lacquer in his artwork.[3] With artists incorporating this rediscovered technique into their artwork, lacquer became one of the most characteristic materials of the Art Deco period.[4] So for the month of March, I'll be taking you all on a little journey through the life and work of Jean Dunand. Next week, we'll talk about Dunand's background: how he got into both metalwork and lacquer. In week 3, we'll take an in-depth look into just what, exactly, lacquerware is, and the ways in which Dunand employed traditional lacquer techniques in his work, as well as some of his artistic influences. Finally, week 4 will focus on dinanderie, the process of crafting an object out of a single sheet of metal, and coquille d'oeuf, a method of using tiny pieces of eggshell in order to create white-colored lacquer, two techniques that Dunand was famous for. Doesn't that all seem like stuff you've always wanted to know about? Yeah, that's what I thought.

Jean Dunand, Four-Panel Poisson Screen, ca. 1925. Lacqured wood. Courtesy of the Virgina Museum of Fine Arts.

[1] Mechthild Baumeister, “Jean Duand –A French Art Déco Artist Working With Asian Lacquer,” in Postprints of the Wooden Artifacts Group (Miami: Wooden Artifacts Group, American Institute for Conservation, 2002), 1, 11.

[2] Anthony Delorenzo, Jean Dunand (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1985), 3.

[3] Melanie Kenton, ”The Twentieth Century”, in Lacquer: An International History and Illustrated Survey (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1984), 220.

[4] Anna Jackson, “Inspiration from the East”, in Art Deco: 1910-1939, ed. Benton, Charlotte, Jim Benton, and Ghislaine Wood (London: V&A Publications, 2003), 77.