(1910-1991)
Maxime Old was one of the most celebrated and prolific French cabinetmakers, furniture designers, and interior architects of his generation. The longevity of his success, which he managed to sustain and make flourish throughout the 60 years of his career, was enabled by his ability to combine high craftsmanship with simple, refined, and functional designs. His work was rooted in the long tradition of French cabinetmaking which he seamlessly harnessed in creating timeless pieces and interiors which responded to the new set of demands brought the modern era of the mid-20th century. His oeuvre functions as the “missing link” between an older generation of furniture designers and the younger generations that were active in the Union des Artistes Modernes or that turned towards industrial design in the postwar period.Through the expertise with which his furniture was designed and executed, the pure lines and simple motifs of his precisely refined aesthetic, and his consistently pragmatic approach to the functioning of interior spaces, he stands as a bridging figure between the great “maîtres ébénistes” of the 18th century, the celebrated figures of the International Style, and the forward-looking designers of the postwar period.
Maxime Old’s parents were both cabinetmakers and came from long lines of artisans within the craft. They owned and operated a workshop that counted 15 employees and was located in the 11th arrondissement of Paris near the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, an area historically known for its concentration of cabinetmakers. Encouraged by his mother, at age 14 Maxime Old joined the prestigious École Boulle, an applied and decorative arts school founded in the late 19th century, where he met friends and future collaborators Émile Bonnoron, Jacques Dumond, André Renou, Jean-Pierre Génisset, Louis Sognot, and Maurice Pré. He graduated with honors in 1928 and that same year he joined as a draftsman the atelier of Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann who was then at the height of his career. During these formative years Old furthered his technical skills while being immersed in the practices and aesthetic of one of Paris’s most celebrated decoration houses. There he learned the importance of perfecting his drawings and proportions, to sublimate his pieces with precious materials, and the artful simplicity of pure lines as a form of luxury.
After Ruhlmann’s death and the close of his atelier in 1933, Maxime Old took over his family’s workshop where he now started producing some of his own designs. Around the same time he was sending his first pieces to the Salon des Artistes Décorateurs and the Salon des Arts Ménagers, which he would participate in throughout his career, where he was receiving critical acclaim and forging his reputation. Over the following years his name and pieces would start appearing in some of the most important French periodicals on interior decoration such as Mobilier et Décoration, Art et Décoration, or Le Décor d’Aujourd’hui. Despite his young age, Old was praised for the quality of his craftsmanship and the maturity of his style with its simple straightforwardness and understated elegance that gave it a modern feel. Alongside his peers from the École Boulle he shared a real enthusiasm for modernity and together they came to form a generation that bridged the traditional and refined French savoir-faire with the emerging International and Modernist styles.
By the time the Second World War ended, Maxime Old was a well-established figure, and he started multiplying projects. Aside from furnishings and interiors for clients, he taught at the Centre des Arts et techniques de l’Union centrale des Arts Décoratifs and the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, he also actively participated in the Reconstruction as he received multiple commissions from the Mobilier National. At a moment when the need for functional and space-saving designs were necessary, and when a younger generation of designers was pushing for new of living and thinking about furniture, Maxime Old made well thought out convertible or built-in furniture, but also started using new materials like laminate, metal, or glass, which he associated within his signature style. His capacity to combine the tradition of French cabinetmaking with a modern aesthetic in creating comfortable and functional interiors which exuded an elegant and quiet sense of luxury was particularly appreciated by his contemporaries. His furniture was usually devoid of ornament, preferring instead to use the materials themselves as embellishments to the emphasis on form he placed through clean lines and slightly angled curves.
Starting in the late 1940s and extending till the very end of his career this earned him a number of high-profile commissions for which he designed entire interiors as coherent spaces. During the last 3 decades of his career Maxime Old gradually shifted his attention away from furniture design to instead carry the role of interior architect. Alongside offices for various business executives, he worked on hotels such as the Marhaba hotel in Casablance which earned him the first prize at the 1953 Salon des Artistes Décorateurs. Notably he also designed interiors for several ocean liners such as the SS Liberté and the SS France. Additionally, he received a number of public commissions from the French government such as furnishing embassies in Oslo, the Hague or Ottawa, or for designing the interior of the entire city hall of Rouen which is one of his most famous and accomplished that remains visible today.
Just as the list of projects Old worked on is almost endless, he received a great number of distinctions such as the Legion d’Honneur, the grand prize for the 1958 International Exposition in Brussels, and the position of Vice President of the Société des Artistes Décorateurs amongst multiple prestigious teaching positions. Despite closing the family workshop in 1969 and passing in 1991, Maxime Old’s savoir-faire and philosophy are now carried by son Olivier Old.