Silver box by Maria Pergay displayed at 2 Place des Vosges, Paris, 1960
Part One | The Introduction
The collecting of Maria Pergay’s work happened, seemingly, out of nowhere. Sometime in the late 1990s, while still sourcing works on her own, Suzanne Demisch happened upon Table Éventail / Three-tier Table from 1968, designed by Pergay. After meeting Stéphane Danant at a Paris flea market in 1999, and before deciding on French design as the focus of their future gallery, the pair spent the next few years traveling throughout Europe – heading to Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland – to source various post-war works and discover new designers in the process. Within this search, Demisch’s curiosity surrounding Pergay’s work was growing, and the pair were inspired to source more works by the then elusive artist.
Chaise Anneaux / Ring Chair, Coiffeuse Barbarella / Barbarella Vanity, and Daybed, 1968.
The French magazines Maison et Jardin and L'ŒIL served as pivotal guides as Demisch and Danant navigated the flea markets of Paris, using archival images and texts to narrow in on their understanding of Pergay’s oeuvre. The more they expanded their knowledge of what makes Pergay’s work singular, the more these works appeared to them. Shapes of steel, masterful and innovative in design, but momentarily unsung, Demisch and Danant were realizing they had found something to foster, both in collecting and in the eventual scholarship her works would inspire.
Sometime in the years 2000-2001, Demisch and Danant stopped by a shop owned by a local Parisian dealer, and came across the Chaise Anneaux (Ring Chair), from 1968. One of Pergay’s first furniture concepts and one of only fifty made, the chair is a handmade work that features three concentric sheets of stainless steel that create the effect of spiral sitting on top of four legs. A product of Pergay’s imagination, inspired by the peeling of an orange as a child, the piece highlights her ability to execute a design that is at once elegant and playful, while mastering and manipulating the notoriously stubborn material, steel. The first of others to follow, it is a piece that is still kept sacred, and owned personally twenty years later by Demisch and Danant.
Chaise Anneaux / Ring Chair, 1968: Stainless steel
INQUIRE Maria Pergay, Chaise Anneaux / Ring Chair, 1968
After three more years of collecting and gathering information, Demisch and Danant wanted to meet the woman whose work they had become avid admirers of. Using public resources, and receiving help from close friends, the pair began the search to discover where Pergay had gone after she stopped producing work in the 1990s. They called all the Pergays listed in the Yellow Pages, and eventually found a relative who was able to put them in contact. This led to their initial meeting in 2004, and the full image of Maria Pergay, as the woman and designer, began to materialize.
Demisch and Danant weren’t the only collectors trying to get into contact with Pergay at the time, and she expressed her surprise at the attention she was getting from the younger generation of dealers. In answering questions about her past, Pergay revealed her character and her life’s work, showing herself to be a spark that had never extinguished. While she wasn’t creating furniture works, in the late 1970s to early 1980s she took architecture commissions in Saudi Arabia, and in the 1990s, she was working in Moscow designing residences and restaurants. She spoke of the design world in the 1960s, and although in many ways removed from the social circles of that world, she was nevertheless both an active observer and producer, becoming inspired by the key players of the time and creating works for her own pockets of interest. She described with her hands a steel table that had particularly inspired her, a table that Danant knew immediately to be a work of Joseph-André Motte. In this exchange, and in the hours spent over coffee, it had quickly become evident the three of them spoke the same language.
Pergay at the construction site of one of the first villas she designed in Saudi Arabia, 1977-78.
At the end of their meeting, Maria Pergay extended an invitation for Demisch and Danant to visit her home in Morocco. This invitation would be one the first of many building blocks in the growing relationship between Demisch, Danant, and Pergay. It welcomed the pair to discuss her past further, and would also reveal new personal creative interests of Pergay that inspired Demisch and Danant to not only look at the past, but to look forward to a new chapter of Pergay’s life’s work.
Table Arc-en-Ciel / Rainbow Table, c 1975 / Design project by Pergay for Charles De Pauw, Hautville, Brussels, 1974.
We are excited to share with you our next iteration of Made in France, where we will take you to Morocco to experience the interviews conducted by Suzanne Demisch that began a relationship, both personal and professional, between Demisch Danant and the designer and artist Maria Pergay. A relationship bonded from a passion for design, and thoughtfully cultivated through a process of rediscovery and collaboration. Demisch Danant seeks to continue Pergay’s legacy, and honor her life and work through the sharing of her personal stories and profound insight.