Exposition des Arts décoratifs et industriels modernes. Primavera. Atelier d’art des Grands Magasins du Printemps fondé en 1912.
(Paris, Primavera, 1925).
Square 12mo, publisher’s colour pictorial self-wrappers, staple. (8) pp., including covers, 4 colour drawings, and 4 b/w illustrations showing interiors by Marcel Guillemard and Louis Sognot. Complete.
First and only edition.
Desirable brochure promoting the know-how of the famed Atelier Primavera attached to the French department store Le Printemps. Primavera was responsible for the decoration of the pavilion of Le Printemps at the 1925 Paris Exposition. The interesting text gives a short history of the workshop and its aims.
Le Printemps was the first of the French department stores to open an original creative design studio in 1912, thanks to two passionate supporters of the introduction of modernity into the decorative arts, Pierre Laguionie, the young store manager, and René Guilleré and his wife, Charlotte. Charlotte was a furniture designer, and René was a lawyer and one of the founders of the Société des Artistes Décorateurs. They sourced artists from all over France to discover new talents. They commissioned established designers to create various objects, from furniture and bronze to ceramics, to make beauty accessible to all. The studio rapidly developed after the First World War. Guilleré was the initiator of the celebrated 1925 Paris Exposition.
Faint traces of use, but generally a very good copy.
