Lot 112 email save

JEAN ROYERE, 1902-1981 Pair of small "Œuf" chairs

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JEAN ROYERE, 1902-1981

Pair of small "Œuf" chairs, 1951 Oak, fabric (2).  Each: 24 ½ in. (62.2 cm.) high

Literature: Catherine and Stephane de Beyrie and Jacques Ouaiss, Jean Royere, New York, 2000, illustrated p. 59

The ovum is the seat of human life and the largest cell in the body. Jean Royere flipped the egg and sat the body in it. He first exhibited his small 'Oeuf' chairs at the 1954 Salon des Arts Menagers in Paris, although they had incubated since 1951. Two halves faced each other across his 'Foyer d'aujourd'hui'. He placed a low 'Puddle' table between them like a spilt yolk. In Jean Royere (Galerie de Beyrie, 2000), Michael Boyd wrote: "There is a serious sculptural content imbued—but there is a playful, even humorous side, too." Simply put, Royere cracked a good joke. 'Polar Bears', 'Elephants', 'Bananas'—he enlivened his furniture with surrealist good humor. But Boyd is right, Royere modeled in the round. His 'Sculpture Furniture' (1955), overstuffed forms raised on turned oak legs, hatched from his 'Oeufs'. Of all the Gallic roosters, Royere fluffed his feathers highest. His elaborate upholstery and exaggerated lines best reflected the buoyant mood of the postwar years. In the mid-1950s, attendance at the Salon des Arts Menagers routinely surpassed a million. It's hard to imagine Pierre Paulin, Verner Panton, and the rest of the flock weren't aware of his cupped seats—especially Arne Jacobsen whose own 'Egg' chair (the present Lot 116) followed in 1958.

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