(1892-1969)
Hardly any representative of the Art Deco school was as committed to functionalism, clarity and economy of lines as Louis Sognot and his colleague Charlotte Alix (born 1897). Her furniture, along with the work of architects Moser, Guillemard and Madame Sougez, was sold by the Primavera furnishing studio, which was affiliated with the Paris department store Au Printemps. Sognot exhibited regularly at the Autumn Salon throughout the 1920s and 1930s. His furniture for the Maharaja of Indore was on display at the Salon in 1931 and represented the understated amiability that was typical of Sognot’s work. He designed like a logician and led like a poet – wrote a critic about Sognot.
A series of table lamps designed by Sognot and Charlotte Alix made of round and square metal glass rods in chrome-plated metal frames was of rational beauty. The light bulbs were placed behind the glass rods in such a way that they created fascinating light reflections. Other inventions of the two in this area were, for example, a screw-on lamp for a gaming table, a rotating mirror in a nickel-plated frame with a built-in light spotlight (exhibited in the Autumn Salon in 1929), or a toilet mirror in which several spotlights were installed in a ring in such a way that they were reflected in the mirror the person viewing it could be fully illuminated.
Source: Alastair Duncan, Lampen Lüster Leuchter, Jugendstil Art Déco, Prestel-Verlag, München 1979, p. 185-186
Picture: Alastair Duncan, Lampen Lüster Leuchter, Jugendstil Art Déco, Prestel-Verlag, München 1979, Picture 132
