Through 380 photographs and 70 pieces of furniture, the Petit Palais presents the work of Charlotte Perriand (1903-1999) through the illumination of photography, although she is primarily known and celebrated for her creations of home furnishings and living spaces. As the subtitle of the exhibition indicates, the curators wished to show the primordial role of photography as a source of creation for the other disciplines, but equally how Charlotte Perriand succeeded in being an innovator in photography. Thus, just like the 1930’s avant-garde artists, she uses photomontage to express her political engagement.

The grand gallery of the Petit Palais dedicated to 19th century painting has been taken over by the monumental photomontages from 1936-37, showing its engagement for the Popular Front. “La grande misère de Paris” (The grand misery of Paris), a giant 13 meter long photomontage exposed in the Salon of Arts Ménagers of 1936, denounced already at that time the great misery of housing in Paris. Meanwhile, large panels made by Fernand Léger for the Salon de l’Agriculture at the World Exposition of 1937 glorified, in their own way, the agricultural politics of the Popular Front.

The exhibition also brings to light her passion for art brut. Found objects, pieces of scrap iron, come to the heart of her photographic preoccupations from 1933. With Pierre Jeanneret, she fills bags with her treasures while she walks around in forests or on the beaches: pierced pieces of wood, broomsticks of rolled bristles, parts of shoes ennobled by the sea. Everything photographed as though works of art, before 1937, when some of these prints would become integrated in the surface of coffee tables or as elements of decoration.

Towards the end of the exhibition, we find two other sources of inspiration of Charlotte Perriand, closer to nature: mountains, trees and ground. In the first, we discover her predilection for a simple lifestyle close to nature that will lead her to create sanctuaries (Bivouac in 1936 and Tonneau in 1938). The last is an ode to the ground that is equally one of the sources of inspiration in particular with trees in which she sees perfect forms. The multiplicity of Charlotte Perriand’s modes of expression make of her, before her time, a very contemporary artist that invests in all fields of creation by using some to influence and enrich others. And it is thanks to all of this that we are able to rediscover the importance of her photographic work.

Bernard Perrine
Bernard.Perrine1@orange.fr

Charlotte Perriand
From photography to design
until September 18th, 2011
Petit Palais

Musée des Beaux Arts de la ville de Paris
Avenue Winston Churchill
75008 Paris