Max INGRAND

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Alongside his first orders for stained-glass windows, Max Ingrand was interested in engraved glass, which became more and more used in the decades of hotels, shops and brasseries, houses and apartments. He soon became one of the specialists in this technique. Glass, sometimes colored, is worked with acid and sand during complex and often dangerous operations (manipulation of hydrofluoric acid and jets of sand), and is subsequently silvered or gilded in order to reveal the engraved patterns . In 1931, he married Paule, a graduate of the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs, with whom he developed a large clientele seduced by the talent of the young couple. If Max is the technician who experimentes and carries out the engraving on glass, Paule works on the design of the subjects and motifs that will animate the glasses. Paule is a graphic artist, a painter, a fresco, and a very active career, ranging from the cover pages of the magazine Art et Industrie to tapestry boxes, frescoes and jewelery. Max and Paule made a major contribution to the fashion of engraved mirrors, which developed in the 1930s. Adepts of classicism, their motifs included, besides a few attempts of constructivist spirit, numerous mythological and astrological subjects. Milky Way, signs of the zodiac, works of Hercules, Venus, Bacchus, Mount Parnassus, fish and shells, floral entwines invade, on their supports of mirrors, walls, ceilings, doors, tables and screens. The famous American decorator Elsie de Wolfe commissioned several sets for her Parisian hotel, and opened the doors of the wealthy high society: Helena Rubinstein, Baroness of Gunzburg, Edsel Ford, Prince Asaka of Japan, and even King Charles II of Romania of whom they realize the canopy of his private theater ....

The decors of the engraved glasses of Max and Paule Ingrand are characterized by the sharpness of the line, the precision of the shapes, a powerful drawing. The mastery of the technique is such that it allows all subtleties to their creations, whose quality surpasses the achievements of their many followers, and makes them inimitable . It is therefore not surprising that most of the decorators of the time used them for hanging mirrors, table tops or slabs which serve not only for the decoration of furniture but also for important building sites, interiors. Among them are René Prou, Gilbert Poillerat, Marc du Plantier, René Drouet, Jules Leleu, Maxime Old, André Arbus and Raymond Subes. For the hotel of the baron Empain in Brussels, they conceive a canopy of thirty square meters where Hercules shoots down the hydra of the Herne while frolic wild beasts and other animals amidst stars and planets that illuminate when the night comes ... For the legendary steamer "Normandie", they realize among others a "Toilette of Venus" and decorate with mirrors the walls of more than 240 bathrooms! The years of war lead to a de facto separation between Max and Paule, By a divorce in 1945, and the end of their collaboration. He meets with his friend Gilbert Poillerat, the famous ironworker, Marie-Alberte Madre-Rey, who will become his second wife and of whom he will have two children.

The notoriety of Max Ingrand is largely due to his work on glass and light. For him, "noble and precious, glass seems to be the ideal complement to light," which itself is linked to life. In 1954, he became the artistic director of Fontana Arte. Created in 1932 by Gio Ponti, who shared his artistic direction with Pietro Chiesa, this company specializes in the production of furniture, light fixtures and glass objects. Saint Gobain has been a shareholder since 1952 to become its sole owner in 1966. With the help of talented designers, Max Ingrand is relaunching the company with collections of products that are distributed in Italy and abroad. He draws a large number of them, all of whom are subject to his approval. One of his first creations for Fontana Arte is a masterpiece: his lamp 853, designed in 1954, made of opal glass will prove to be a worldwide success. Chandeliers, ceiling lamps, floor lamps, sconces, table lamps, as well as some tables and objects, such as ashtrays, candle holders and vases invade the catalogs of the house Fontana Arte. Inventiveness is always present, with a keen sense of design and a highlighting of the multiple transparencies of the glass, thanks to a perfect knowledge of this material. The research of Max Ingrand and his collaborators explores all possibilities. The ashtrays are as smooth as pebbles, the "Trident" floor lamp imprisons three candles in a polished glass shell, just like the "Micro" floor lamp parodies the microphone of the 60s stars with its polished ice lamp and Reserve of sanded glass, placed on a rod of lacquered metal and brass. In order to widen the demand, a number of creations are available in lines of lamps including chandeliers, sconces and lamps. Particularly seductive, the illuminating mirror "Pistil", set with glass cabochons burst, dates from the same time. Some creations are real sculptures, such as this table lamp in bronze and polished glass slab and cut with a chisel on the edge, placed on a black lacquered wooden base, and published by Fontana Arte, around 1955-60. If Max Ingrand likes to use white opaline glass for the softness he confers on light, the technique of chisel size which allows spectacular visual effects, giving the glass a "broken" appearance, rough and crude that dominates the Light, becomes in a way its signature. While Max Ingrand travels to Milan every month, his Tenaille workshops continue to produce stained glass and all kinds of glass pieces, including prototypes for Fontana Arte. Already in 1947, the mirror industry had made some glass decorations, such as that of antique glass and sandblasted mirrors for the André Arbus stand at the Salon des Artistes Décorateurs in 1947. Many mirrors, large or smaller, are ordered By the decorators of the time. Some of them are of classical spirit, the mirror being simply framed with chopsticks also in mirror crossed by elegant interlacings. Other frames mix sandblasted, broken and cut glass, or cut-out mirrors and glass cabochons, transmitting to the object strength and power. The artist plays with shapes, using in turn the rectangle, the octagon or the free form. Thus, an ice slab sanded and cut with a chisel, like a piece of stone that is almost rough, surrounds a mirror, while a transparent, thermoformed, cut and gouged glass slab represents a sun. At the end of the 1950s, Max Ingrand made the luminous walls of the swimming pool of the first class for the "France" liner. The glass is worked with sand and chisel to form abstract patterns, giving the impression of quartz walls. The emblematic illuminating fountains of the Champs Elysées roundabout in Paris, with their acid-etched glasses and chiselled, were erected in 1959, those of the Place Victor Hugo in 1960. Gifted with an amazing work power, Hardly Max Ingrand leaves the direction of Fontana Arte in 1967, that decides to create the company Verre Lumière, one of the aims of which is to exploit the new technologies in the field of electricity. It is thus the first to publish halogen lamps. Another of the objectives of Verre Lumière is to establish a collaboration with architects and decorators in the light of lighting so that light becomes "building material".

Max Ingrand, President of the French Society of Lighting, former Vice-President of the Society of Decorative Artists, disappeared brutally in 1969. This humanist leaves behind a sum of creations all having the aim of magnifying the material that he loved so much, the glass, as transcended by light, which has so fascinated him.

(Guy Bloch-Champfort)