LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES

New York-based architect and art dealer Lee Mindel and Paris-based antique dealer Jacques Lacoste have known and held each other in esteem for some time. Their professional and personal relationship is based on a shared interest for the decorative arts as well as their boundless curiosity. This relationship is taking a new turn, in the form of a joint show entitled “Les Enfants Terribles ”.

While the title refers to the novel published by Jean Cocteau in 1929, which was adapted to the screen by Jean Cocteau and Jean-Pierre Melville in 1950, it also qualifies the two men who joined forces to achieve this project. Indeed both are great professionals known for their sensitive and open-minded approach, as much as for the love of beauty on which their attraction for outstanding designs is based.

However the “holy terrors” designated in the title are first and foremost the designers brought together in this show. Whether architects, decorators or artists, their groundbreaking instinct have inflected the course of 20th- century decorative arts between the second half of the 1920s and the end of the 1950s.

The highlights of the show include pieces by Pierre CHAREAU, Eileen GRAY, Paul DUPRÉ LAFON, Jean LUCE, Jean ROYÈRE, Jean PROUVÉ, Charlotte PERRIAND, LE CORBUSIER, Serge MOUILLE, Max INGRAND, Georges JOUVE, Alexandre NOLL, Mathieu MATÉGOT and Denise GATARD, in addition to sculptures by Antoine PONCET.