Guillerme Et Chambron, Set Of Six Fumay Chairs. Edition Votre Maison, Circa 1970

Guillerme and Chambron, Set of Six Fumay Chairs. Edition Votre Maison, Circa 1970
Your house: a style, a concept, a spirit. The story of Votre Maison begins in 1940 in East Prussia, on the shores of the Masurian lakes: a stalag, a wooden barracks... Brought together by the absurd consequences of a war, men from different worlds are there, and among them, Jacques Chambron and Robert Guillerme. Together, they fight a daily battle to live and to preserve what seems essential to them: human dignity. The war drags on. To better endure the present, they build plans for the future. Winter 1944, the war is coming to an end. With other fellow prisoners, Chambron and Guillerme escape, advance among the Nazi troops and reach the port of Odessa, the Bosphorus and finally France. In Paris, Guillerme reunited with his family, while Chambron continued on his way. Then came the post-war years, with restrictions, ration coupons, and a country that needed to be rebuilt. Chambron and Guillerme resumed their former professional activities. Guillerme returned to Lille, in northern France, to practice his profession as an interior designer. Graduating top of the 1934 class of the Boulle school, he excelled in architecture and interior furniture design and put his talent to work at the Rogie workshops. For his part, Chambron, a graduate of the Reims School of Applied Arts, resumed his work as a painter and decorator in his Parisian studio on rue Nollet. Despite the passage of time, their contacts remained close. In 1948, Jacques Chambron and his family left Paris and settled in Lille. The initial project took shape: Guillerme and Chambron met Emile Dariosecq, owner of a cabinetmaking workshop, and in 1949, Votre Maison was born. Guillerme designed the furniture, Chambron took charge of welcoming and advising customers and succeeded in convincing them to adopt this new spirit, while the Dariosecq establishments devoted themselves to manufacturing. Together, they defined and imposed a new concept of furnishing. Creativity, originality, the Votre Maison style quickly took shape as that of quality furniture in which one could finally live every day. With harmony and coherence, Robert Guillerme therefore focused on creating models of sideboards, tables, chairs, and armchairs that would be manufactured in small series. Wood, leather, ceramics, fabrics, his creations were perceived as sincere and authentic. In the 1970s, Hervé Chambron, son of Jacques Chambron, joined Votre Maison. Also a graduate of the Ecole Boulle, he assisted Robert Guillerme and created his own designs from 1983, the date of the retirement of Jacques Chambron and Robert Guillerme. Today, Robert Guillerme's designs are one of the references in furniture from the 50s to 70s. In Europe as well as in North America, a new public is discovering them. Once attributed to other stylists, Guillerme's designs are nevertheless easy to identify: use of waxed oak, a light shade obtained by the chemical reaction on the tannin in the wood, sometimes in a dark shade achieved by the application of iron oxide. The active and remarkable participation of the ceramist Boleslaw Danikowski (1928 – 1979), creator of the majority of the tiles adorning the furniture published by Votre Maison, contributed significantly to the growth of this company which had up to 50 employees. See the exhibition catalog