Table by Elisabeth Garouste and Mattia Bonetti, circa 1980, France (BU0016)

Table or console by Elisabeth Garouste and Mattia Bonetti. Very decorative. Unique piece.designed for an appartment in Paris. Circa 1949, France. Very good vintage condition. Elizabeth Garouste is an interior architect and a designer. Graduated from the Camondo School, she began collaborating with her husband, painter Gérard Garouste, and designed stage sets and costumes. She has also served as a stylist for Marie Berani and worked with Andrée Putman. From early 1980s, Elisabeth Garouste began working with Mattia Bonetti, first with the commission, also with Gérard Garouste, for the decoration of Le Privilège restaurant in Le Palace nightclub in Paris. The Garouste-Boneti relationship was officially launched with the first series of their objets primitifs and objets barbares, first shown at interior-design firm Jansen, in 1981. The soubriquet “New Barbarians” was coined for their work that was edited by Pierre Staudenmeyer’s Neotu gallery in Paris. Garouste and Bonetti eschewed functionalism and standardization in favor of primitivism and the former elegance of past periods. The work, spanning two decades, spoke a language that was extravagant, surreal, baroque, and theatrical that included the Barbare chair. Another example is the extravagant Extroverted kitchen that is an enormous bean-shaped volume with a gold-clad oven and sink, now in the permanent collection of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Several monographs have been published on their work. After their separation in 2002, Garouste’s and Bonetti’s individual perspectives have become more apparent.

DIMENSIONS

Height: 76 cm (29,92 in)Width: 179,99 cm (70,86 in)Depth: 79,99 cm (31,49 in)