The Invention of Chic
Thérèse Bonney and Paris Moderne
Lisa Schlansker Kolosek
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| ‘A lovely compendium of the Parisian follies of the Twenties and Thirties’ | | – World of Interiors |
This book comprehensively documents the modern movement
in Paris between the wars.
The American photojournalist Thérèse Bonney was one of many brilliant young foreigners drawn to the bright lights of Paris in the 1920s. There she founded the Bonney Service, the first American illustrated press service in Europe. Its speciality – her passion – was modern French design and architecture.
This was an exciting time: Art Deco, still at its height, was increasingly being challenged by the more austere aesthetics of modernism. Bonney photographed architecture, interiors, salon installations and international expositions. She was dazzlingly well-connected and her captions read like a roll-call of Deco and Moderne: Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann, Jean Dunand, Pierre Chareau, Le Corbusier....She also recorded the changing face of Paris as the city embraced the modernist aesthetic – shop fronts and window displays, advertising and graphic arts, theatres, restaurants, nightclubs and bars.
Thérèse Bonney is usually remembered for her work as a war photographer; The Invention of Chic, based on Bonney’s amazing and little known archive, reveals an earlier episode in the life of this extraordinary woman, an influential player at a key moment in the history of twentieth-century design.
Also of interest:
Le Corbusier
Art Deco Architecture
La Maison de Verre
Light, Air and Openness: Modern Architecture Between the Wars
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|  |  | | | | ISBN 0500510962 | | ISBN-13 978-0500510964 | | | | 25.4 x 21.7 cm | | Hardback | | 192pp | | 186 illustrations, 186 in duotone | | First published 2002 | | | | £29.95 | | | |  | | | | 
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