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Louis Majorelle
French, 1859 - 1926
French cabinetmaker. His father, Auguste Majorelle (d 1879), was a cabinetmaker and potter who specialized in reproduction 18th-century furniture and ceramics. Majorelle trained as a painter and studied under Jean-François Millet at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris (1877–9). Following his father’s death in 1879 he abandoned painting and returned to Nancy to run the family business in partnership (until 1889) with his brother, Jules. They continued to produce furniture in Louis XV and Louis XVI revival styles but soon abandoned the production of ceramics.
Around 1894 Majorelle, under the influence of the Nancy glass- and cabinetmaker Emile Gallé, began to develop a more personal, Art Nouveau style and by 1897 he seems to have abandoned the revival styles altogether. The years between 1898 and 1908 were his most successful, and by 1910 he had retail stores in Nancy, as well as in Paris, Lyon and Lille. Along with furniture, a range of objects including lighting, metalwork and fabrics were produced in Majorelle’s workshops. His reputation as the pre-eminent French cabinetmaker of the time was established at the Exposition Universelle of 1900 in Paris, where he exhibited an ‘Orchid’ bedroom suite, whose decoration, in the form of inlay and gilt-bronze mounts, is based on an orchid theme. Majorelle relied extensively on naturalistic ornament; however, his use of it was always more abstract than Gallé’s. From 1901 Majorelle was a member of the Alliance Provinciale des Industries d’Art (later called the Ecole de Nancy). In 1904, at the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts exhibition in Paris, Majorelle exhibited a dining-room aux tomates. His furniture in this period, in its sumptuousness, its use of lavish gilt-bronze mounts and its high-quality craftsmanship, rivals the best 18th-century French furniture. Between 1906 and 1908, probably due to the changing economic situation in France, Majorelle decided to mechanize his workshop. This, for the most part, marks the end of his more lavish production.
As a result of World War I, in 1914 Majorelle was forced to move to Paris where he worked as an interior decorator. In 1916 his factory in Nancy was destroyed by bombing, and in 1918 he returned to begin the task of rebuilding. By this time he had abandoned Art Nouveau, and his furniture of this period, much more restrained and rectilinear and less original than his earlier work, reflects the Art Deco style. Although a member of the jury, Majorelle exhibited a library hors concours at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes of 1925, in Paris. Alfred Lévy, who had worked as a designer for Majorelle for some years, took over the artistic direction of the firm on Majorelle’s death.
Donna Corbin. "Majorelle, Louis." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T053320 (accessed March 6, 2012).
Person TypeIndividual
French, 1864 - 1901
