Pair of Armchairs, circa 1940

While little is known about audacious modernist designers Adrien Audoux and Frida Minnet, the French-Swiss husband-and-wife duo created playful and unique decorative objects, dining chairs, sconces and other furniture during the mid-20th century. Rejecting Art Deco lavishness and the concept that seating, tables and other furnishings should be made with luxurious and exotic materials, Minnet and Audoux adopted a rustic style in their work, integrating abaca hemp cord and other organic materials such as beech and bamboo in their provocative designs.

Audoux and Minnet were active in Côte d'Azur, France — they are believed to have established a workshop there in the late 1920s. The designers were members of the Union des Artistes Modernes, a collective of like-minded artists founded in 1929. The raison d'être of the Union was to design household furnishings and decorative pieces for a wider demographic of people, not merely affluent Parisians — a target kind of buyer for many creators of the day. They promoted simplicity and prioritized functionalism. The collective’s membership boasted other celebrated furniture designers, including Jean Prouvé, Charlotte Perriand, Francis Jourdain and Louis Sognot. 

Minnet and Audoux spent much of their time in the Provence region, a hub of creativity where other artists such as Pablo Picasso found endless inspiration. They created everything from lighting to lounge chairs and end tables that reflected a nautical theme and coastal living. Minnet and Audoux’s imaginative works — table lamps with shades covered in raffia, oak benches with seat backs of woven rope — were made available to passers-by in the duo’s retail outlet in the seaside resort town of Golfe-Juan. The pair also incorporated woven rope into larger pieces such as armchairs and side tables. These furnishings are often compared to the work of similarly adventurous Union des Artistes Modernes member Charlotte Perriand. Several of Audoux and Minnet’s seating pieces are on display at the Maison Dumas in St. Tropez, France. 

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