Title: Pour l'art moderne
Description: First and only edition. An epoch-making modernist manifesto. UAM was founded in May 1929 by an influential group of committed Modernist designers who had become disillusioned with the conservatism of the Societé des Artistes Décorateurs (SAD),from whom they split. SAD was largely geared to the expensive tastes of an affluent urban cultural elite, an outlook evident in the majority of lavish decorative displays seen at the 1925 Paris Exposition des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels. Members of the UAM included Robert Mallet-Stevens, Rose Adler, Jean Prouvé, Cassandre, Jean Carlu, René Herbst, Francis Jourdain, Charlotte Perriand, Le Corbusier, Jean Puiforcat, Pierre Chareau, Louis Sognot, Charles Loupot and others. They promoted beautiful modern French art {u2013} architecture, furniture and related objects {u2013} highly functional, visually simple, and financially accessible. UAM members emphasized design over decoration.^

Interiors were designed to function with concrete, steel and glass architecture and furniture made of metallic structures without additional decoration. The group's first exhibition, L'Art moderne cadre de la vie contemporaine, was held at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, in 1930, it also included the work of foreign designers such as Eileen Gray, Bart Van der Leck, and Gerrit Rietveld. IN 1934 UAM Issued its first manifesto entitled " Pour l'art moderne" as a strategic counter to the attacks being made against the modernist avant-garde. The group also played an important role in the 1937 Paris Exposition with its emphasis on sciences and techniques.^

Francis Jourdain{u2019}s rationalist work was displayed in his interior design for A Worker{u2019}s Home ; Marcel Gascoin's storage and organization capabilities were displayed in his library exhibit ; Charlotte Perriand exhibited folding chairs with steel tubing while Jean Prouvé introduced one of the first chairs constructed with the new material {u2013} Plexiglas. After the Second World War UAM re-established itself with the 1949 exhibition entitled Formes utiles, objets de notre temps. In 1950 Formes Utiles became an organization in its own right, mounting an annual exhibition. UAM was wound up in 1958 (Oxford Reference). -- vendor description.
Subjects: Modern Art, Union des artistes modernes (Paris, France)
Time periods: 20th century