The label’s name, derived from the slogan “Ambition to Create Novel Expressions,” reflects both the authenticity and creativity of its collections. Each season, the style, a reflection of its artistic director, Jonny Johansson, is different, chic or casual but always surprising.
An antique dealer grandmother, a decorator father, art history studies, Oscar Graf, despite his young age, has the job under his skin. But he chose to focus on a very particular period: the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century in Europe and the United States, which his father François-Joseph was one of the first to defend. Like him, Oscar is fond of this Japanese movement which operated in Western Europe from 1868, when the Japanese ports opened up to the world. This current at the origin of many styles was interpreted very differently according to countries and fashions. From the almost contemporary forms of Godwin to the ceramics of Carriès, passing by Edouard Lièvre and the Herter Brothers, the decorative arts were cradled for almost thirty years by this Far Eastern culture which very often appeared as a new world.
The 88 Phillipe Rapin Gallery features a selection of furniture and artwork of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and historical curiosities. An unusual space opposite to the Louvre which features major artists , Robert Goossens , the famous craftsman of Coco Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent, Roberto Rida , Marc Bankowsky … The icons of Italian decorative arts : Gio Ponti , Osvaldo Borsani , Franco Albini , Guglielmo Ulrich … And the English painter and sculptor of Op Art, Marc Cavell ( 1911-1989 ). An eclectic and prolific gallery where styles and periods collide.
