Title: Jean- Michel Frank
Author: Léopold Diego Sanchez
Publisher: Éditions du Regard, 1997
Text in English and French by Léopold Diego Sanchez; 263 pages, black and white and color illustrations
This salient resource on the eminent designs of Jean-Michel Frank is the first complete account of his life, his foundational “unfurnishing” concept, and his furniture designs. Authored by Léopold Diego Sanchez, the writer responsible for renewed interest in Frank’s influence on contemporary designers and decorators. In his thoughts on Frank, Jean Cocteau is often quoted as having said, “Luxury is simplicity. There was nothing futile in his work.” This book provides a perspicacious textual account of Frank’s stark, yet sumptuous modernist tendencies and is bolstered by richly illustrated pages focusing primarily on the objects and pieces of furniture he is now best known for having designed. For anyone who is drawn to the aesthetic of romantic modernism, and the transition it offered between the ornamental spaces of the 19th and early 20th centuries and the streamlined, chic extended reign of mid-century style, this book is an excellent starting place for novices, or supplement for experienced historians and decorators.
