Georges Geffroy and the “du Geffroy” style

"An eighteenth-century gentleman, a figure from another era, one of a breed of decorators that is extinct today,” remembers couturier Hubert de Givenchy, Geffroy was a purist. He never accepted more than one job at a time—that way he could devote himself entirely to each assignment. Moreover, he guided his clients in buying art, assisting them with the polite authority of a connoisseur. In the appraisal of antique furniture, he had an especially unerring eye. The designer was a prominent society figure in postwar Paris, and his clients were invariably personal friends. In the afternoons he could be seen making the rounds of the dealers with millionaire socialite Arturo Lopez-Willshaw, and later he would escort Gloria Guinness through the galleries.

His own beginnings as a fashion designer left Geffroy with an abiding taste for fabrics. “He draped the folds of his curtains like a couturier,” says Antoine de Grandsaignes of Decour, where the art of upholstery has been handed down from father to son since 1840. When Geffroy became an interior designer, he had his taffetas, silk satins and failles made to measure by Prelle, one of the last great silk manufacturers of Lyons. He was demanding, insisting on the highest standards of workmanship.

“du Geffroy”

What was meant by “du Geffroy?” A certain brand of ostentation? Perhaps. More likely, people were talking about his unique gift for selecting textiles. The bedroom of Mrs. Moreira-Sales, the wife of the Brazilian ambassador to France, was upholstered in yellow silk, all of it hand-embroidered, that would have done honor to Versailles. Geffroy was also daring in the way he mixed colors. In the salon of Pierre David-Weill’s country house at Gambais, he paired solid pink with canary yellow. There was always a provocative touch: In an otherwise classical décor at the baronne de Montesquiou’s house in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Geffroy slipped in a sofa covered with leopard-print velvet. A keen collector, Geffroy favored eighteenth-century pieces, though he preferred the elegant sobriety of Louis XVI or the Directoire to the busier style of Louis XV. His own apartment on the rue de Rivoli was proof of this, containing chairs with the stamp of Georges Jacob, architectural furniture by Adam Weisweiler or Jean-Henri Riesener, Neoclassical bibelots, vases and stone obelisks. He had a sense of theater and delighted in trompe l’oeil effects. The bookcases he designed reflect that. He built a large number of them, notably for Baron Alexis de Redé at the Hôtel Lambert and, in 1944, in collaboration with Charles de Beistegui, for the residence of Sir Duff Cooper and Lady Diana Cooper, the British ambassador to France. Are the columns in these bookcases lapis lazuli or wood? Neither—they’re made of stucco. Staircases were another specialty—he would sketch them out with a bold hand while sitting at his Louis XVI desk. Indeed, it was around a spectacular staircase that he organized the avenue Messine house of movie actor Alain Delon, and it was a staircase that set the Geffroy stamp on antiques dealer Jacques Kugel’s Paris shop in 1971. A few months later he was dead, but his final creation was worthy of its author, the lover of antiques who was Georges Geffroy.

Georges Geffroy

Reinterpreting past eras for the upper echelons of Paris society

By Laurence Mouillefarine

January 1, 2000

https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/geffroy-article-012000

Design Legends Georges Geffroy

Georges Geffroy was an eighteenth-century gentleman, a figure from another era, one of a breed of decorators that is extinct today," remembers couturier Hubert de Givenchy, a fellow aesthete and an ardent admirer of his work.

Geffroy was a purist. He never accepted more than one job at a time—that way he could devote himself entirely to each assignment. Moreover, he guided his clients in buying art, assisting them with the polite authority of a connoisseur. In the appraisal of antique furniture, he had an especially unerring eye.

The designer was a prominent society figure in postwar Paris, and his clients were invariably personal friends. In the afternoons he could be seen making the rounds of the dealers with millionaire socialite Arturo Lopez, and later he would escort Gloria Guinness through the galleries.

His own beginnings as a fashion designer left Geffroy with an abiding taste for fabrics. "He draped the folds of his curtains like a couturier," says Antoine de Grandsaignes of Decour, where the art of upholstery has been handed down from father to son since 1840. When Geffroy became an interior designer, he had his taffetas, silk satins and failles made to measure by Prelle, one of the last great silk manufacturers of Lyons. He was demanding, insisting on the highest standards of workmanship.

"One day," recalls de Grandsaignes, "when the one fabric he had in mind failed to turn up among our samples, he went right ahead and invented it. He made us sew strips of taffeta one by one in graduated colors of yellow, green and old rose. Long after his death, our most loyal clients were still asking us to reproduce du Geffroy, his exact style."

Georges Geffroy (1903 –1971), one of postwar Paris society's most eminent designers, was an expert in classic, yet somewhat theatrical, period decoration. He sits in his living room, near a portrait of him by François de Bigorie, in 1948. The walls are covered in satin.

What was meant by "du Geffroy?" A certain brand of ostentation? Perhaps. More likely, people were talking about his unique gift for selecting textiles. The bedroom of Mrs. Moreira-Sales, the wife of the Brazilian ambassador to France, was upholstered in yellow silk, all of it hand-embroidered, that would have done honor to Versailles. Geffroy was also daring in the way he mixed colors. In the salon of Pierre David-Weill's country house at Gambais, he paired solid pink with canary yellow. There was always a provocative touch: In an otherwise classical décor at the baronne de Montesqulou's house in Neuilly, Geffroy slipped in a sofa covered with leopard-print velvet.

A keen collector, Geffroy favored eighteenth-century pieces, though he preferred the elegant sobriety of Louis XVI or the Directoire to the busier style of Louis XV. His own apartment on the rue de Rivoli was proof of this, containing chairs with the stamp of Georges Jacob, architectural furniture by Adam Weisweiler or Jean-Henri Riesener, Neoclassical bibelots, vases and stone obelisks.

He had a sense of theater and delighted in trompe l'oeil effects. The bookcases he designed reflect that. He built a large number of them, notably for Baron Alexis de Redé at the Hôtel Lambert and, in 1944, in collaboration with Charles de Beistegui, for the residence of Sir Duff Cooper, the British ambassador to France. Are the columns in these bookcases lapis lazuli or wood? Neither—they're made of stucco.

Staircases were another specialty—he would sketch them out with a bold hand while sitting at his Louis XVI desk. Indeed, it was around a spectacular staircase that he organized the avenue Messine house of movie actor Alain Delon, and it was a staircase that set the Geffroy stamp on antiques dealer Jacques Kugel's Paris shop in 1971. A few months later he was dead, but his final creation was worthy of its author, the lover of antiques who was Georges Geffroy.

Georges Geffroy (1905-1971): Une Legende Du Grand Decor Francais

By (author)  Pierre Arizzoli-Clementel

-A monograph on a pivotal fifties interior designer, considered one of the most talented and inspired designers of his generation, whose work generated an unrivalled atmosphere in the grand classical style -This book reconstructs Georges Geffroy's interior design projects with the greatest possible accuracy -Generously illustrated throughout with many hitherto unseen images and supported by comprehensive appendices A pivotal figure of 1950s Cafe Society, Georges Geffroy was venerated in his lifetime as an oracle of grand classical interior design - but this was a classicism revisited, purified and stripped back to its quintessence, far removed from any notion of pastiche. Geffroy's loyal client list featured a 'who's who' of the great names of the time, for whom he created interior designs of supreme refinement. He complemented his decorative schemes with objets and furniture from his favourite period, the late eighteenth century, selected with a famously unerring eye from the most distinguished antique dealers of the time, and draped them with silks chosen with his unique flair for colour. Every detail of his compositions spoke eloquently of his incessant quest for perfection. Declaring his unbounded admiration for the work of Christian Berard, Geffroy designed celebrated interiors for Christian Dior, a friend from his youth, as well as for the great beauties of the age, goddesses of elegance such as Daisy Fellowes and Gloria Guinness, and icons of taste including Charles de Beistegui, Alexis de Rede at the Hotel Lambert, and Arturo Lopez in his Neuilly mansion and on his legendary yacht. At the end of his life he crowned his career with his exceptional designs for the great art patron and collector Antenor Patino, a final project that allowed him to showcase his remarkable gifts once more. This book reconstructs Georges Geffroy's interior design projects with the greatest possible accuracy, thanks notably to previously unpublished archive documents and to the valuable contribution of Hubert de Givenchy, one of his most fervent admirers. Generously illustrated throughout with many hitherto unseen images and supported by comprehensive appendices, this is an essential volume for anyone interested in the history of taste, as well as for connoisseurs of architecture and interior design. Text in French.