Abraham and Rol

"It is a rare species, but it exists," as '60s art critic Pascal Renous pointed out on the subject of artistic couples. This designer-decorator duo of Janine Abraham and Dirk-Jan Rol met at Jacques Dumond's studio in 1955. The couple shares the same love of precision, line and plain colours. Their earliest joint creations were first exhibited at the Salon des artistes decorateurs, in Paris. Their furniture, made of wicker, wood and aluminium, twice won prizes at the Salon des artistes decorateurs (a sideboard in 1956 and an armchair in 1958), garnering notice from the public and professionals alike. Jean Royere did not hesitate to use their emblematic Soleil armchair (gold medal at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair) in the decoration of the palace of the Shah of Iran, in Teheran. Their light and functional designs are available today, re-edited by Yota Design. Abraham & Rol were also interior designers and intervened in this capacity for both individual clients and large corporate clients, such as Yves Rocher and Saint-Gobain, with the same precision and sense of composition that define their furniture pieces. Finally, the couple also expressed their creativity through architecture, their mastery of this discipline enabling them to design some twenty houses from the 1960s through the 2000s in the Ile-de-France region. Their homes are genuine inhabited sculptures, of which certain have become truly emblematic.

Patrick Favardin is an art historian and critic. His work focuses mainly on research and writing on the decorative arts of the second half of the 20 century and exhibition curatorship. He is also the author of a number of books on artistic movements and emblematic figures of the decorative arts. He has authored and published with Éditions Norma: Les Décorateurs des années 50, Decorators of the 60s-70s, The Gras Lamp, Mathieu Mategot.