Hector Guimard - The Father of French Art Nouveau
How Art Nouveau tranformed Parisian Architecture. In this episode we travel to France to meet Hector Guimard the father of French Art Nouveau and the sweeping organic forms that came to define one of the most exciting eras in European culture. We’ll be exploring how ceramic tiles became a key element in the architecture at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and we venture underground, down into the Paris Metro where to this day tiles continue to reign supreme.
Ceramics and artwork in this week’s episode include:
Hector Guimard, 1867–1942
Café-Restaurant Au Grand Neptune, 1888, Hector Guimard
Tassel House, Brussels, 1892—93, Victor Horta Photo: kat_hly.1608 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
Illustrations to Salome by Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley
The Art Nouveau Bing Pavilion, Paris Exposition, 1900, Siegfried Bing Courtesy of V&A Museum
Castel Béranger, 1895—98, Hector Guimard Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 1.0)
Alexandre Bigot, 1862—1927 Photo: Absecon 59 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Inside Castel Béranger, 1895—98, Hector Guimard
29 Avenue Rapp, Paris, 1899—1901 Photo: marsupilami92 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0) Photo: Pline / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Maison Coilliot, 1898—1900
Illustrations to Salome by Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley
Porte Dauphine Metro Station, Paris, 1900 Photo :Jean-Pierre Dalbéra / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
Abbesses Metro Station, Paris, 1913 Hector Guimard — Andrzej O / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0) Thesupermat / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Porte Dauphine Metro Station, Paris, 1900
Professor Paul Greenhalgh is a specialist on the art and design of the Modern period. He has written widely on Art Nouveau and curated several exhibitions including the major survey Art Nouveau 1890-1914, which toured internationally (2000-01). His books include Ephemeral Vistas (1988), Modernism in Design (1990), Art Nouveau 1890–1914 (2000), The Modern Ideal (2005), Fair World (2011), L’Art Nouveau: La Revolution Decorative (2013), Ceramic Art and Civilisation (2021) and Pablo Picasso: The Legacy of Youth (2022). He has held positions as Head of Research at the V&A Museum, London; President and Director at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC; Director of the Sainsbury Centre, Norwich; and Inaugural Director of the Zaha Hadid Foundation, London. He was born and raised in Bolton, and is a proud Lancastrian.
Stephanie Rozene is a ceramic artist, Professor of Art, and the Ceramics Program Coordinator at Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York she has been teaching, writing and making art since 2004. At Hartwick she's been honored with the Wandersee Scholar in Residence award twice, along with the Teacher Scholar Award. Stephanie's research uses historical ornament and porcelain as a visual language to critique contemporary political rhetoric, and she also explores the history of clay as a cooking tool. Her work has been shown extensively both nationally and internationally. She is a member of the International Academy of Ceramics and is the Vice President of the board of trustees for the Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts in Newcastle, Maine, and was educated at NSCAD University in Nova Scotia, Canada and the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University.
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