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T Magazine

In 1968, when Maria Pergay debuted her collection of curved stainless steel furniture, bending the industrial material past its perceived limitations, the Moldova-born, Paris-raised designer changed the face of French interiors. But by the 1990s, when the collectors Suzanne Demisch and Stephane Danant happened upon one of her alloyed designs at a flea market, the once eminent matron of metal — whose discerning clients had included Cristóbal Balenciaga, Pierre Cardin and Salvador Dalí — had slipped into obscurity. This month, the pair’s namesake New York gallery, Demisch Danant, which helped set the stage for Pergay’s early-2000s revival, is once again showcasing her work. Opening a year after her death at 93, “Precious Strength,” celebrates Pergay’s expansive oeuvre with an emblematic collection of about 35 pieces. Accompanied by a trove of samples, sketches and personal objects, her seminal steel creations, including the Ring chair and Three-Tiered table, will be on display alongside her later experimentations with lacquer, mother-of-pearl and precious woods — all of which are best experienced with Pergay’s own words in mind: “The only thing I want,” she once said, “is that the work not leave you indifferent, one way or another.”

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