Jean-Boris Lacroix

Jean Boris Lacroix appears since 1927 at Salon des Artistes Décorateurs and Salon d’automne, after a long apprenticeship with the cabinetmaker Paul Dumas that he began in 1920. He is mostly known for his metal modernists lights realized by the firm Damon while he was at the same time designer, architect and artistic director of the fashion houseMadeleine Vionnet between 1934 and 1937. After the war, he joins l’Union des Artistes Modernes in 1945 and continues his researches in the possibilities of the rational light. Since the beginning of the 1950s, he goes into partnership with the craftsman in wrought iron Robert Caillat who gets specialized in the making of light systems that constitutes an interesting transition by mixing conservative decorative elements from the Forties and a modernity of the material use such as the stamp reflectors, which announce the serial production and the research of new forms of modern light.

In 1955, for the same manufacturer, this designer realizes models with cast and lacquered aluminium reflectors in primary colours and creates a strong graphic identity such as the second collection designed at the same time by the designer and producer Robert Mathieu. In 1958/1959, he decides to participate to Luminalite and his association with Jacques Biny offers one of the most beautiful light collection in which the Perspex is taken, in the form research, to the extreme. He exploits the metal and Perspex in the aim of highlighting his researches in the drawing radicalism and the renewal of the forms to develop some spectacular models such as the Sconce 302 or Lamp 316. Renowned design critic at the time, he collaborates as a co-chief editor of the review Art et Décorationand signs the first technical articles concerning the light control in the housing environment and its revolution in the conception of models intended for series.