Late in his career, Henri Samuel — a French decorator known for the usually classical and always elegant interiors he created for the Rothschilds and Vanderbilts — became interested in contemporary art, the results of which are now on display at the Demisch Danant gallery in New York. Samuel, who died in 1996 at the age of 92, began commissioning furniture and objects in the late 1960s from artists like César, Guy de Rougemont and Philippe Hiquily, who used materials such as brass and smoked Plexiglas to create a blend of sculpture and furniture. Until then, he had flirted with the art world — he was close to Balthus, with whom he traded sofas for paintings — but never to such an extent. De Rougemont’s Nuage table, for instance, and Hiquily’s beaten brass chairs, had the shocking effect of real modernism. The interior designer Jacques Grange worked for Samuel early on, and describes an office atmosphere that was very formal and structured. “That was the place where I really learned what quality is,” he says.
“Paris Match,” Nov. 7–Jan. 31, demischdanant.com
