Jean Royère (1902-1981)

Jean Royère made his career debut in 1933 with the fitting-out of the café-restaurant “Le Carlton” on the Champs-Elysées in Paris . The project met with immediate success, and Royère quickly became one of the regular participants of the large Parisian design shows of the time, such as the Salon d’Automne (Autumn Salon) or the Salon des Artistes Décorateurs (Artistic Decorators’ Salon). Royère’s innovative fresh, and liberal style distanced him from the conventionalism of his colleagues. He expressed a masterful command of the interior spaces he designed, as if he had an innate sense of decoration, where comfort does not alienate a richness of material and where a fanciful wistfulness is expressed through innovative shapes and vivid colors. Even before World War II, Royère appropriated the sinuous forms that prefigure the “free-form shapes” characteristic of the 1950s.

Royère went on to command an international clientele and even opened agencies in the Near-East and in South and Latin America. King Farouk of Egypt , King Hussein of Jordan and the Shah of Iran, all commissioned Royère with important projects. In 1972, Jean Royère retired from the profession, and spent his time between France and the United States . In 1980, he definitively left France for the States, where he passed away on May 14th, 1981, in Pennsylvania .

- ArtDaily


Jean Royère's "Daybed," covered in goat fur with curved maple edges, (23 x 83 x 38 inches), through SOLLO RAGO (Rago Arts and Auction Center).