Bernard Buffet

We’ve been meaning to do a blog post about Bernard Buffet for a long time.

The recent purchase of this vintage poster brought it to mind once again. We had it sent from France and it advertises an exhibition held in 1969 at the Musée d’Unterlinden in Colmar.

It’s just come back from our wonderful local framers, Abacus. We chose burnished gold – reminiscent of an antique religious icon.

It now hangs above our bedroom fireplace. We love it!

We also framed these vinyl album covers that were illustrated by Buffet.

The set – Ella Fitzgerald sings Gershwin – dates from 1959.

Great records and great covers – a perfect combination.

He’s a fabulous artist – so distinctive – and one of our real favourites. Here’s a link to the online Musée Bernard Buffet…

…and here’s a 2-minute, black & white film from 1962 of Buffet and his wife, Annabel in their château and private chapel. We discovered on the British Pathé website – there’s so much beautiful art on the walls!

We’ve set up a Buffet Flickr group – please add your images if you have some or just have a browse!

Festival of Britain

We mentioned buying this Festival of Britain brochure in our last blog – Five Flea Finds.

We’ve really enjoyed flicking through it.

Quite a few people have expressed an interest, so we thought we’d share some of its contents with you.

The Festival was held in 1951 – it celebrated the centenary of The Great Exhibition held in 1851 – but was also intended to showcase Britain in the mid twentieth century.

What an exciting event in must have been – with the new wave of optimism after the Second World War.

Exhibitions were held around the country, the main site occupying a position on the South Bank in London which was completely redeveloped.

The Festival had a great influence on architecture, interior and product design in the years that followed.

The brochure contains about 100 pages in total.

It highlights the main attractions – exhibition spaces & their contents, new structures (including the Royal Festival Hall and the famous Skylon), the designers involved etc.

As is often the case with publications from this era, there are some fantastic advertisements too…

…bold, colourful and forward-looking.

The brochure is a must have item for Festival of Britain collectors – but also of broader interest to fans of modernism & mid twentieth century design.

Lotus Position

Amongst the items of fresh stock for next week we’ve got some lovely Cathrineholm pots & pans that we recently picked up.

This range of enamelware was designed by Grete Prytz Kittelsen in the 1950s.

Grete Prytz was born in Norway in 1917 to a famous, Oslo-based family of goldsmiths.

Between 1936 & 1941 she studied at the National College of Arts & Crafts. After graduating she went to work for the family firm designing jewellery and metalware.

Enamelling was a Norwegian speciality in the early years of the 20th century, a technique which Grete revived, drawing on the family’s expertise in this field. Characteristic of her designs were the abstract motifs and striking colours such as her Lotus range illustrated here.

There was an exhibition of her work at the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design (Nasjonalmuseet for Kunst, Arkitektur og Design) in Oslo until the end of August 2008. There’s also a book/catalogue to accompany the exhibition available here.

If you’re a collector or are interested in seeing more of this work have a look at the Lovers of Cathrineholm Designs Flickr group.

H is for Home Harbinger

Tag: exhibition

Bernard Buffet

Festival of Britain

Lotus Position