Maria Pergay: Place des Vosges
March 22 - 31, 2012Maria Pergay
Place des Vosges
March 22 - 31, 2012
In the Spring of 2011, we approached Maria Pergay with the idea of doing an exhibition in Paris which would allow her to present her work as a total environment and reflect her personal style. Maria had never favored the white cube approach and this was an opportunity to show her designs in her own way by curating the exhibition herself. The search began for a house that for two weeks would become Maria's private universe. We found 24 place des Vosges, a 17th century townhouse, just across the place from Maria's original 1960s shop. With high ceilings and views across the place, it was the perfect venue.
Nearly a year later on March 22, 2012, Demisch Danant, with the collaboration of JGM Galerie Paris, opened the exhibition Maria Pergay: Place des Vosges, celebrating Maria's 55th year of her career and featuring over five decades of creation. The retrospective brought together exceptional examples of furniture, lighting, and decorative objects featuring an extraordinary new design created expressly for the exhibition incorporating a 17th century slice of oak from Marie Antoinette’s famed gardens at Versailles. Each of three decorated rooms represented a different aspect of Maria's decorative taste: the Grand Salon, the Chinese Room and the 'Sous-Sol' with a middle eastern style.
The exhibition received major recognition from the international press, describing her talent as 'near-mystical.' The exhibition, which offered a rare and original view of Pergay's designs over the last fifty years, also reaffirmed her status as a master of stainless steel and her important contribution to the field of decorative arts.