|
annotation
|
(Rare, summary in english by John Kirkpatrick. Metz & Co was an exceptional department store which brought together a rich clientele and an advanced artistic policy. Central figures in this publication are owner-director Joseph de Leeuw and his son Henk de Leeuw. They were responsible for commissioning Gerrit Rietveld to make his crate furniture and his canvas chair (and much else besides), Bart van der Leck to design tapestries and three-dimensional colour works, more than two hundred fabric designs from Sonia Delaunay and the greater part of Willem Penaat’s entire work. Aalto, Breuer, Le Corbusier, Kjaerholm and Ponti are just a few of the great names from the long list of designers by whom furniture, fabrics or tapestries were produced. This publication is by no means a parade of design classics. What it does deal with is the interaction between ideals and reality, the relationship between artist and client, synthesis of the avantgarde and commerce. Publication was timed to coincide with the special exhibition on Metz & Co. at Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum).
|
