Jean Dunand – French Art Deco Master


Jean Dunand was the preeminent interior designer during France’s Art Deco period. The Swiss-born artist turned craftsman trained under Jean Dampt and began producing his own work in Paris from 1896. Although he enjoyed international fame during his working life and completed commissions for work in both Europe and America, he is one of the lesser known artists of the Art Deco period. This all changed in 1998, however, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York housed the small exhibition, ‘Jean Dunand: Master of Art Deco’ which has inspired a great deal more interest in this prolific artist.

Dunand’s early innovations were in metalware, based on the techniques he had learned from Dampt. In the early 1920s he worked and perfected ‘dinanderie’ – a technique for hammering objects out of a sheet of copper laid over a shaped mold. With this medium he produced a wide range of vases and sculptures. He later began to experiment with lacquerware, after studying under the Japanese craftsman, Seizo Sugawara. He adapted the Oriental technique for his own vases made with geometric lines and Modernist shapes and today his lacquer vases are some of the most collectible of all his work and fetch staggering prices. In December 2000 Christie’s sold a 1925 large lacquered metal vase for $171,000.

As well as ornaments, Dunand produced a range of furniture, often incorporating his love of lacquer. Individual pieces of Dunand furniture can also attract some high prices. At the same 2000 sale Christie’s sold a set of three nested lacquered wood and eggshell tables for $204,000. One of his most unusual works was the result of a commission from the American tycoon, Templeton Crocker. In 1928 Dunand was asked to decorate the breakfast room in Crocker’s San Francisco penthouse. Supervised by the world-renowned designer, Jean-Michel Frank, he covered the square room in black lacquered panels, polychromed in silver with Japanese goldfish and bubbles. This is considered by many to be the most important interior design project of the Art Deco period and central to any study of interior design in America. In 1999 the room was carefully removed from its original placement and sold in pieces for over $150,000.