Vermeer grey, dynasty blue, wheat green… The adjectives of colors are as endless as the very existence of humanity on Earth. The furniture by the renowned Jean Prouvé (France 1901-1984), considered one of the great design references of the mid-20th century, is relaunched bathed in a suggestive palette of eight colors defined with precision and care.
The chosen gray refers to the background of the famous painting The Milkmaid, painted in the 17th century by the Dutchman Johannes Vermeer, of whom Prouvé was a great admirer. The green recreates the young wheat at that precise moment before it turns straw and is cut. Dynasty blue evokes the cobalt oxide in the blue and white porcelain of the Ming dynasty.
The recently presented collection that incorporates this color range comes from the furniture firm Vitra in collaboration with Catherine Prouvé, the designer’s youngest daughter, currently in charge of the Prouvé Archive. It covers half a dozen designs, including seats, tables, lamps and shelves. An exquisite coloration that highlights the peculiar legs in the shape of an airplane wing for the seats and table, hallmark of the house of Prouvé, and its industrial-style structures.
In Jean Prouvé’s furniture, constructive ingenuity, derived from his training as a blacksmith before becoming a designer, meets the sensitivity for color that his father, an artist painter, transmitted to him. The aura of a design is also infused by colors. So Prouvé believed. The current relaunch includes shades that were already on the color chart of Ateliers Jean Prouvé, the company he founded and from which he produced his own furniture until 1954. A chromatic that he applied to different architectural projects and to the steel elements of his furniture. .
This new injection of color by Vitra comes in the context of overcoming a late 20th century presided over by chromophobia, where everything was gray and ochre. And a progression of the XXI determined that we delve into the fascinating influence of colors. With infinite nuances that connote the interiors where we live and that are contributing to reinvigorate the furniture collections of great designers of the 20th century and their most iconic pieces.
Vitra’s relationship with Jean Prouvé dates back to the 1980s, when Rolf Fehlbaum –now President Emeritus of the renowned Swiss firm– acquired a vintage piece by the author at auction. But, since his passion for collecting was added to that of a furniture producer, at the beginning of the new century and in collaboration with Catherine Prouvé, the company began to reissue his furniture.
Along with the rest of the colours: Japanese red, deep black, Marcoule blue and dove white, is the brut metal tone. It is an exception where the color of the steel coated with a transparent protective finish has been used. And it wants to be the honest expression of the material, exposing welds and connection points. It is an uncolored color that evokes the more industrial facet of Jean Prouvé, and his pioneering developments in the production of serial furniture and in an architecture of prefabricated metal components, with an eye on an industrialized building market.
La Maison Prouvé, which can be visited today, and where the images of the new colored furniture collection have been taken, was built by him in 1954 for his family, in Nancy, with the aim of showing all his ideas in a domestic context.
