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| Andrée Putman, Global Interior Designer, Dies at 87 | Andrée Putman, Global Interior Designer, Dies at 87 |
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| Andrée Putman, the Parisienne who rediscovered and reissued early Modernist French furniture and then went on to a renowned global career as a designer of interiors, died on Saturday at her home in Paris. She was 87. | Andrée Putman, the Parisienne who rediscovered and reissued early Modernist French furniture and then went on to a renowned global career as a designer of interiors, died on Saturday at her home in Paris. She was 87. |
| Her family confirmed the death to Agence France-Presse. | Her family confirmed the death to Agence France-Presse. |
| Ms. Putman’s reach extended from Europe to the Far East, from North to South America. | Ms. Putman’s reach extended from Europe to the Far East, from North to South America. |
| At home, she created the Guerlain flagship store on the Champs-Élysées and redesigned the interior of the Concorde. Abroad, she created the look of the first major boutique hotel, Morgans, in New York; private residences in Dublin, Miami, Paris, Rome, Shanghai, Tel Aviv and Tangier; and a 31-floor apartment skyscraper in Hong Kong, appropriately branded the Putman. | At home, she created the Guerlain flagship store on the Champs-Élysées and redesigned the interior of the Concorde. Abroad, she created the look of the first major boutique hotel, Morgans, in New York; private residences in Dublin, Miami, Paris, Rome, Shanghai, Tel Aviv and Tangier; and a 31-floor apartment skyscraper in Hong Kong, appropriately branded the Putman. |
| A member of the Left Bank intelligentsia in Paris, she designed the set for “The Pillow Book,” Peter Greenaway’s 1996 film about a young Japanese woman’s erotic obsessions; the elegantly spare office of the French minister of culture Jack Lang; and the subtly textured, dramatically lighted CAPC Museum of Contemporary Art in Bordeaux. A master of detail at the service of simplicity, she took her elegant touch into small-scale objects, designing furniture, crystal, carpets, tableware and flatware. She even produced refreshing but elusive scents. | A member of the Left Bank intelligentsia in Paris, she designed the set for “The Pillow Book,” Peter Greenaway’s 1996 film about a young Japanese woman’s erotic obsessions; the elegantly spare office of the French minister of culture Jack Lang; and the subtly textured, dramatically lighted CAPC Museum of Contemporary Art in Bordeaux. A master of detail at the service of simplicity, she took her elegant touch into small-scale objects, designing furniture, crystal, carpets, tableware and flatware. She even produced refreshing but elusive scents. |
| Ms. Putman had worked in design since the 1950s, variously as a product design consultant, publicist and journalist. Whatever her role, she believed that good design should come at accessible prices. | Ms. Putman had worked in design since the 1950s, variously as a product design consultant, publicist and journalist. Whatever her role, she believed that good design should come at accessible prices. |
| “Of course style and money have nothing to do with each other,” she said in an interview with House Beautiful magazine. “Good design is pure and simple, and I am interested in that family of things that will never date. “ | “Of course style and money have nothing to do with each other,” she said in an interview with House Beautiful magazine. “Good design is pure and simple, and I am interested in that family of things that will never date. “ |
| An emissary of Parisian chic and culture, Ms. Putman looked and dressed the part, as tailored and elegant as her interiors. Whether wearing a black slash of skirt and a lace bustier under a creamy jacket big on shoulders or a long-sleeved black Yamamoto silk dress with an eruption of white near her favorite brass zipper necklace, she was one of her own most arresting creations. With a gravelly Gauloise voice worthy of a chanteuse, she seemed to exhale words. A tsunami of auburn hair crested over her Mount Rushmore features. | An emissary of Parisian chic and culture, Ms. Putman looked and dressed the part, as tailored and elegant as her interiors. Whether wearing a black slash of skirt and a lace bustier under a creamy jacket big on shoulders or a long-sleeved black Yamamoto silk dress with an eruption of white near her favorite brass zipper necklace, she was one of her own most arresting creations. With a gravelly Gauloise voice worthy of a chanteuse, she seemed to exhale words. A tsunami of auburn hair crested over her Mount Rushmore features. |
| Success came to Ms. Putman after a failed marriage and a new passion for forgotten 1930s French Modernist pieces that she culled from flea markets. Her rediscovery of these French classics led her to start a career marketing them through Ecart International, which she founded in 1978. “I love the crazies, the solitaires,” she told House Beautiful. “Mariano Fortuny, Eileen Gray, Pierre Chareau, for example, were delicate creatures, failures condemned to a fatal solitude.” | Success came to Ms. Putman after a failed marriage and a new passion for forgotten 1930s French Modernist pieces that she culled from flea markets. Her rediscovery of these French classics led her to start a career marketing them through Ecart International, which she founded in 1978. “I love the crazies, the solitaires,” she told House Beautiful. “Mariano Fortuny, Eileen Gray, Pierre Chareau, for example, were delicate creatures, failures condemned to a fatal solitude.” |
| She added, “My supreme reward was to realize that my work as an amateur archaeologist of my century made famous names that I once had to spell, with rage, even to art historians.” | She added, “My supreme reward was to realize that my work as an amateur archaeologist of my century made famous names that I once had to spell, with rage, even to art historians.” |
| Through Ecart, she started a design practice of her own, though she had never formally studied design or architecture. The publicity she generated from residential projects she did for friends attracted the attention of fashion designers like Thierry Mugler, Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld, who hired her to create stores for them in France and overseas. | Through Ecart, she started a design practice of her own, though she had never formally studied design or architecture. The publicity she generated from residential projects she did for friends attracted the attention of fashion designers like Thierry Mugler, Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld, who hired her to create stores for them in France and overseas. |
| Her career-changing commission came in the early 1980s, when the New York hotelier Ian Schrager hired her to design the interiors for his new Morgans Hotel, a formerly dowdy brick building in the Murray Hill section of Manhattan. Ms. Putman, who lived on site during construction, eschewed what she considered the “vulgar” clichés of luxury — “too much Louis and too many flowers,” as she put it — in favor of simple lines and a few good pieces that enhanced an otherwise hushed, monochromatic environment. | Her career-changing commission came in the early 1980s, when the New York hotelier Ian Schrager hired her to design the interiors for his new Morgans Hotel, a formerly dowdy brick building in the Murray Hill section of Manhattan. Ms. Putman, who lived on site during construction, eschewed what she considered the “vulgar” clichés of luxury — “too much Louis and too many flowers,” as she put it — in favor of simple lines and a few good pieces that enhanced an otherwise hushed, monochromatic environment. |
| With its checkerboard motifs, subdued tones and starkly contrasting features — transparent and opaque, rough and smooth, expensive and inexpensive materials — the hotel was a critical and popular hit when it opened in 1984. It also became the prototype of the new boutique hotel, a small, artistically designed answer to standardized mass-market hotels. | With its checkerboard motifs, subdued tones and starkly contrasting features — transparent and opaque, rough and smooth, expensive and inexpensive materials — the hotel was a critical and popular hit when it opened in 1984. It also became the prototype of the new boutique hotel, a small, artistically designed answer to standardized mass-market hotels. |
| Ms. Putman went on to work with other hotels, including the Wasserturm in Cologne and the Pershing Hall in Paris, creating shadowy designs poised at what she called “the perfect balance between discipline and revolt.” | Ms. Putman went on to work with other hotels, including the Wasserturm in Cologne and the Pershing Hall in Paris, creating shadowy designs poised at what she called “the perfect balance between discipline and revolt.” |
| She often spoke of her work in the lingua franca of the Latin Quarter avant-garde, where she knew the great intellectuals of her day, including Samuel Beckett. She spoke of “the interiority of emotion, of emptiness and of the inner scenography of space.” | She often spoke of her work in the lingua franca of the Latin Quarter avant-garde, where she knew the great intellectuals of her day, including Samuel Beckett. She spoke of “the interiority of emotion, of emptiness and of the inner scenography of space.” |
| She brought a literary sensibility and a philosophical approach to design. “Materials are not objects, like letters in a vocabulary,” she said in a monograph on her work. “They have connotations, they belong to a code, like shapes or words.” Her husband, Jacques Putman, a wealthy art critic, collector and publisher, introduced her to contemporary art and the world of Modernism, which gave a logic and confidence to her instinctively Modernist voice. | She brought a literary sensibility and a philosophical approach to design. “Materials are not objects, like letters in a vocabulary,” she said in a monograph on her work. “They have connotations, they belong to a code, like shapes or words.” Her husband, Jacques Putman, a wealthy art critic, collector and publisher, introduced her to contemporary art and the world of Modernism, which gave a logic and confidence to her instinctively Modernist voice. |
| Born in Paris on Dec. 23, 1925, Andrée Christine Aynard was a granddaughter of a wealthy banker; her father was a polyglot intellectual and her mother a concert-caliber pianist. Aesthetes and eccentrics abounded in her family. One grandmother, Madeleine Saint-René Taillander, displayed Egyptian mummies in her Paris apartment and sat on the jury for the prestigious Femina literary prize. | Born in Paris on Dec. 23, 1925, Andrée Christine Aynard was a granddaughter of a wealthy banker; her father was a polyglot intellectual and her mother a concert-caliber pianist. Aesthetes and eccentrics abounded in her family. One grandmother, Madeleine Saint-René Taillander, displayed Egyptian mummies in her Paris apartment and sat on the jury for the prestigious Femina literary prize. |
| She summered at the family’s Cistercian monastery in eastern France, the Romanesque Fontenay Abbey. There, she said, she was in a state of “visual arousal bordering on the spiritual.” Part of the family descended from the Montgolfiers, the hot-air balloon inventors; wallpaper, teacups, teapots and shutters at the abbey were covered with images of the balloons. | She summered at the family’s Cistercian monastery in eastern France, the Romanesque Fontenay Abbey. There, she said, she was in a state of “visual arousal bordering on the spiritual.” Part of the family descended from the Montgolfiers, the hot-air balloon inventors; wallpaper, teacups, teapots and shutters at the abbey were covered with images of the balloons. |
| Ms. Putman studied piano and composition at the Paris Conservatory, winning first prize in harmony, presented by Francis Poulenc. But she rejected a career in music, refusing, as Poulenc had suggested, to sequester herself for 10 years to master the craft. Presaging her designs to come, at 20 she emptied her room in her family’s apartment so that it was both monastic and odd, furnished with a steel bed, Chinese and African spoons arrayed on a bench, Mies van der Rohe chairs, a Noguchi globe chandelier and some Abstract Expressionist paintings. | Ms. Putman studied piano and composition at the Paris Conservatory, winning first prize in harmony, presented by Francis Poulenc. But she rejected a career in music, refusing, as Poulenc had suggested, to sequester herself for 10 years to master the craft. Presaging her designs to come, at 20 she emptied her room in her family’s apartment so that it was both monastic and odd, furnished with a steel bed, Chinese and African spoons arrayed on a bench, Mies van der Rohe chairs, a Noguchi globe chandelier and some Abstract Expressionist paintings. |
| She began her professional life as a journalist, working for French magazines, beginning in 1950 at Femina. She was a design columnist at Elle from 1952 until 1958 and the interiors editor at L’Oeil from 1960 to 1964. She was also a stylist for the Prisunic department stores in Paris from 1958 to 1967. | She began her professional life as a journalist, working for French magazines, beginning in 1950 at Femina. She was a design columnist at Elle from 1952 until 1958 and the interiors editor at L’Oeil from 1960 to 1964. She was also a stylist for the Prisunic department stores in Paris from 1958 to 1967. |
| Her survivors include her children, Olivia and Cyrille Putman, and a sister. Olivia has been art director of the Studio Andrée Putman since 2007. | |
| Ms. Putman saw herself and her career as perpetually unfinished projects, telling House Beautiful: “I’ve had so many occasions to start believing in myself, and I never will. Strange. I am protected by a lot of angels from any self-esteem, from the capacity to feel content with myself. Perhaps that also gives me a certain capacity for wonder at the world, like a child before a Christmas tree. This is very strong in my life, and maybe it’s what opens me to other people, and to new ventures and experiences. In French, we have a nice word for that: ‘partant,’ ‘ready to go.’ I’m always ready.” | Ms. Putman saw herself and her career as perpetually unfinished projects, telling House Beautiful: “I’ve had so many occasions to start believing in myself, and I never will. Strange. I am protected by a lot of angels from any self-esteem, from the capacity to feel content with myself. Perhaps that also gives me a certain capacity for wonder at the world, like a child before a Christmas tree. This is very strong in my life, and maybe it’s what opens me to other people, and to new ventures and experiences. In French, we have a nice word for that: ‘partant,’ ‘ready to go.’ I’m always ready.” |
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: | |
| Correction: January 21, 2013 | |
An earlier version of this obituary misspelled the first name of Ms. Putman’s surviving son. He is Cyrille Putman, not Cyril. |