6 Chairs by Geneviève Dangles for Burov, 1950s

6 chairs “Model 18” designed by Geneviève Dangles and Christian Defrance for Burov, France, late 1950s.

• The chairs are covered with a beige velvet of the period, glued.
• Very good structural condition, normal wear.
• H 80 cm x D 50 cm x W 46 cm
• Seat height 43 cm
• Price for the lot (indivisible)

Geneviève Dangles and Christian Defrance, French Design of the 1950s

This chair is part of the research conducted in the mid-1950s by Geneviève Dangles and Christian Defrance, focusing on new forms of seating adapted to modern production. Its design combines a molded plywood shell with a particularly light metal base, achieving a balance between the suppleness of curves and an economy of means characteristic of post-war French furniture.

The model is documented as early as 1954 in prototype form, prior to its production by Burov. The enveloping shell and taut lines exemplify the “nervous geometry” that design literature attributes to the couple as a distinctive feature of their work. Dangles and Defrance thus avoid the austerity sometimes associated with functionalist furniture: their seating retains a sculptural dimension while maintaining perfect legibility in its construction.

The Model 18 chair designed by Geneviève Dangles and Christian Defrance for Burov, 1950s

Geneviève Dangles and Christian Defrance, both born in 1929, met during their formative years. Dangles entered the École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in 1946, simultaneously working in sculptor Robert Couturier’s studio. René Gabriel encouraged her to pursue furniture design rather than sculpture. After her studies, she worked notably in André Arbus’s studio, then, on the advice of Pierre Guariche, joined Marcel Gascoin, with whom she worked until 1953.

Christian Defrance, for his part, trained as a wood sculptor at École Boulle before continuing his studies in decorative arts. The couple opened their agency in 1953, quickly developing a shared approach to interior architecture and furniture design.

Research on Seating and New Materials

Seating holds a significant place in their oeuvre. From the early 1950s, Geneviève Dangles experimented with curved forms, light structures, and industrial materials. She also participated in Groupe 4, centered around publisher Georges Charron, within a context where a new generation of French decorators sought to profoundly renew domestic furniture.

With Christian Defrance, she subsequently designed storage units and dining room furniture, but primarily several series of armchairs, lounge chairs, and sofas for Burov. Their creations favored shells, folds, and continuous volumes over a simple juxtaposition of legs, seats, and backs. This approach aligns them with research conducted concurrently by other French designers such as Pierre Guariche or René-Jean Caillette, particularly concerning metal and molded plywood.

Their activity was not, however, limited to domestic furniture. Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, Dangles and Defrance also undertook school layouts, office furniture, and several projects for airlines. They notably worked on offices in Paris, Le Bourget, and Dakar, and contributed to the definition of aircraft interiors. This diversity attests to a very broad conception of the decorator’s profession, where the design of a seat contributes to a more global reflection on space and usage.

This chair thus belongs to a particularly fertile period of French modernist furniture, when the development of molded plywood and metal structures allowed designers to entirely rethink the traditional form of seating.