In 1968, the French artist embarked on a cross-disciplinary project aiming to connect contemporary art and design. A “meeting of art and object” that would last seven years.
François Arnal, who passed away a little less than fifteen years ago, was a singular figure—something of a free spirit in the French artistic landscape of the second half of the 20th century. A painter, he began exploring, upon his arrival in Paris in 1947, an abstract art based on gesture, traces of which can still be seen in the oil-on-canvas painting Mutating Atmosphere, The Mutants 407, created in 1961 and presented in the sale (est. €3,000–€4,000). His meeting and relationship with actress Micheline Presle, whose apartment he completely decorated in the mid-1960s, led him to explore another form of creation: design.
Lot 59
He then expressed the desire to bring together two worlds that had until then been considered antagonistic: art and objects. This venture—whose manifesto was written by the renowned critic Pierre Restany in 1968—was called Atelier A. The concept was to bring together contemporary artists around the creation of furniture and lighting. More than 50 creators, most of them his friends, took part. Among the most well-known were Arman, César, Annette Messager, and Bernar Venet. The artist Alain Jacquet produced one example of one of the group’s most iconic pieces: a screen-printed metal coffee table (Pointillisme, MMM edition, €3,000–€4,000).
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François Arnal remained the most prolific contributor to Atelier A. Between 1968 and 1975, he developed around forty models, including this blackened wood table lamp (est. €500–€700), produced in an edition of 500 pieces. The commercial failure of Atelier A cost the artist dearly—financially, as he invested his inheritance (the family vineyards and château), but also in terms of reputation. Many people came to see him merely as a “decorator.” He returned to painting in 1975 and never left it again. Ironically, it is thanks to this iconoclastic project that François Arnal is now known worldwide.
Lot 98