Edgar Brandt (1880-1960)

Pair of interior wrought-iron grilles composed of four elements (two mobile and two fixed). Decorated with scrolls and volutes featuring two kneeling figures. Stamped twice with the artist's stamp "E.Brandt" at the bottom of the outer jambs. Circa 1925-1930 Dim. max. height 134 cm Total length 226 cm Edgar William Brandt was born in Paris in 1880. From the age of 14 to 18, he studied metalwork at the Ecole Nationale Professionnelle de Vierzon, graduating in 1898 for military service. Garrisoned in Nancy, his already established taste for modernity and drawing was further encouraged by his exposure to the Lorraine art scene and the Art Nouveau movement. At the 1900 Paris World Fair, the success of Gallé, Majorelle and Daum made Brandt realize that the art industry required a combination of artistic conception and industrial pragmatism. With this in mind, in 1902 he opened Etablissements Brandt, a small Parisian workshop where he employed a small number of workers, specializing the tasks of each in a rational logic to produce wrought-iron jewelry embellished with gold and silver. Buoyed by the success of his first models, Brandt extended his production in 1904 to include fireplace screens, table lamps, vase frames, mirrors (...) and exhibited regularly at various Salons. The artist and entrepreneur reinvested every success in his company, which he gradually equipped with additional tools and hands. This enabled him to take on major architectural commissions[2] in which he deployed a decorative vocabulary essentially inspired by Nature and Japonism (pine cones and needles, leaves, etc.). In August 1914, Brandt was called up for military service and in 1915 designed a new mortar model, which the military authorities ordered in large numbers[3]. To ensure this production, in 1919 he had a large workshop built in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, where he designed the ironwork for windows, balustrades and doors as a demonstration of his skills. Somewhere between naturalism and abstract geometry in a wide variety of patinas, Brandt pursued an innovative style of decoration, still inspired by Nature, but with more advanced stylization and geometry. At the inauguration of his new premises, he explained that he wanted to mass-produce using "the marvellous mechanical tools that industry possesses" in order to "spread modern taste and feeling throughout the nation. This approach, in which serial production sacrifices neither design nor final hand-crafting, won him commercial and critical acclaim, as well as the collaboration of other artists such as the Daum brothers, with whom he created lighting fixtures and vases blown into wrought-iron frames. Brandt was also commissioned to design several public monuments[4], worked on the decoration of liners for Compagnie Générale Transatlantique, and created the railings and grilles for the signs at Paris's Bon Marché in 1923-1924. At the 1925 Exposition des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, Edgar Brandt was already considered the greatest wrought-iron craftsman of his generation. In association with Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann, he designed the entrance gate to the Exhibition, as well as the exterior and interior gates of the Hôtel du Collectionneur. Following the success of the Salon, he opens his own gallery at 27 boulevard Malesherbes, where he exhibits his own creations as well as those of other artists with whom he collaborates, such as Daum and Lalique. At the same time, he opened a showroom in London and a branch in New York, and in 1930 hosted the exhibition of animal artists gathered around François Pompon, including Edouard-Marcel Sandoz, Paul Jouve, Georges Guyot and Gaston Suisse. Brandt's reputation continued to grow, as his chandeliers and ceiling lights delighted audiences at the various International Expos, and his railings and balustrades decorated buildings in France and New York. Although he faced competition from Poillerat and Subes, who worked more with steel than with wrought iron, and the development of Modernism, which favored aluminum, Brandt retained a loyal clientele and even opened a gigantic factory in Chatillon-sous-Bagneux in 1932.