"Madeleine Castaing: Je Fais Des Maisons Comme d’Autres Ecrivent Des Poèmes" 2010 EERDMANS, Emily Evans
$450
I Build Houses Like Others Write Poems.
EERDMANS, Emily Evans
[272] pp.
Editions Du Regard
2010
11 3/8" x 10"
New
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"Muse, magician, patron, merchant, maker of myths ― all these terms have been used to describe Madeleine Castaing, whose style continues to bewitch and hypnotize. Reader, dreamer, traveller, second-hand dealer and ― although she found the activity inherent in this term in bad taste ― decorator. During her almost century-long life, she took on all these roles with passion. Thus begins Emily Evans Eerdmans' detailed and fascinating study of the incomparable Madeleine Castaing. While modernism was in full swing in the early and mid-twentieth century, French antique dealer and decorator Madeleine Castaing created her own style, a unique blend of neoclassicism, Proustian romanticism, and pure French spirit. His aesthetic vision has inspired the masters of taste on both sides of the Atlantic and his followers are legion today as in the past. This book, the result of a research carried out with competence ― the first of its kind ― explores all facets of the life and work of Madeleine Castaing. After presenting her childhood and her life as a schoolgirl in a convent near Chartres, the author looks back on the years in this epicenter of Parisian artistic life that was then Montparnasse as lived by Madeleine Castaing, who discovered there in the company of her beloved Marcellin the taciturn artist Chaïm Soutine and a number of masters of modern art. After a few impetuous years spent in Paris, the Castaings retired to their country house, Lèves, which she made into what can be considered her masterpiece, a veritable laboratory where her style took shape and where her unparalleled vision blossomed. All the elements of the Castaing style ― leopard carpet, opaline blue, "coolie" lampshades as well as an eclectic mix of neoclassical furniture (ranging from Regency to Napoleon III) ― were put to use in this romantic house. During the Occupation, Madeleine Castaing boldly transformed her decorative stylizations into a profession in its own right. After the war, she opened her legendary boutique on rue Jacob in Paris, which was frequented by a conquered and loyal clientele. Always curious and tirelessly striving to create living environments that reflected the magic of her eccentric aesthetic, she worked until she was eighty years old. When she died in 1992 at the age of 98, she left a legacy that is still unmatched. In addition to more than 250 illustrations, this book contains an appendix devoted to her favorite fabrics and rugs, both made by others and produced by her.