Architect, decorator, publisher and, in later life, guardian of a great sculptor's legacy, Michel Dufet was among the most cultivated and versatile figures of French Art Deco. His furniture, with its broad planes, crisp edges and unmoulded surfaces enlivened by rich woods and a discreet Cubist inflection, combined sophistication with a genuine belief in well-made pieces for a wider public. From Paris to Rio de Janeiro, and from the salons to the great ocean liners, he pursued a modernity that was at once rigorous, refined and profoundly of its time.
Michel Dufet was born on 8 December 1888 in Déville-lès-Rouen, into a family of engineers and industrialists. Drawn to painting, he enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1907 to study architecture, a compromise more acceptable to his parents. In 1913, in partnership with the antique dealer Edmond Vasset, he founded Meubles Artistiques Modernes, or MAM, which produced and exhibited its designs in a shop near the Opéra. Even in these early years his furniture showed a Cubist sensibility.
Mobilised in 1914, he continued to design furniture during his periods of leave. His interests extended well beyond the workshop: in 1918 he founded the review Feuillets d'Art, a publication associated with such figures as Paul Claudel, André Gide, Marcel Proust and Gabriel Fauré. From 1919, MAM exhibited regularly at the Salon d'Automne and the Salon des Artistes Décorateurs, and from 1920 Dufet worked with the painter Louis Bureau on a series of acclaimed interiors.
In 1922 a new horizon opened. Dufet was called to Rio de Janeiro to lead Red Star, the largest decoration firm in South America, where he designed everything from shops and cinemas to theatres, bars and offices. During this period he sold MAM to P.-A. Dumas, for whom he nonetheless continued to design for years to come.
On his return to Paris he took the helm of Le Sylve, the design studio of the furniture house Le Bûcheron, together with the critic Léandre Vaillat, and directed it until 1939. It was a natural home for his convictions: Le Bûcheron's originality lay in producing modern, artistic pieces in series, within reach of a wider public, in contrast to the prevailing practice of luxurious one-off commissions. Dufet produced both simple, superbly executed furniture and pieces of real luxury in exotic woods such as satinwood, mahogany and rosewood. His futuristic desk caused a sensation at the Salon d'Automne of 1929, as did his lady's desk in wood and zinc, and one of his desks appeared on stage in Louis Jouvet's production of Jules Romains's Donogoo in 1930.
The 1930s brought a steady flow of commissions. At the Exposition coloniale of 1931 he designed the offices of Marshal Lyautey and of the Commissioner General. He created sets for film and theatre and interiors for ocean liners including the Île-de-France and the Normandie. In 1933 he became editor-in-chief of the review Décor d'Aujourd'hui, and in 1936 he was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur, later rising to Officer in 1952.
The final chapter of his life was devoted to the work of Antoine Bourdelle. As early as 1928 the sculptor had asked him to draw up plans for the museum he hoped to build. Dufet married Bourdelle's daughter, Rhodia, and from 1950 gave most of his time to preserving and promoting his father-in-law's œuvre, through exhibitions and lectures in France and abroad. He became curator of the Musée Bourdelle in 1972 and died in 1985, leaving behind a body of work that reflected his own conviction that decorative art has value only insofar as it faithfully reflects its time.
