Jean Michel Frank

Jean Michel Frank
(1895 - 1941)

The only heir to a vast inheritance, Michel Frank was born and educated in Paris. From 1920 to 1925 he travelled the world aboard luxurious steamships. A well-known and envied personality in the Parisian Beau Monde, Frank had no difficulty in making his design studio, opened in Paris in 1932 with his friend Adolphe Chanoux. His furnishing proposal are luxurious, sophisticated and so exclusive and sought-after that theu became a constant in the taste of elite Parisians of that time. He did noit limit himself to using traditional materials for his furniture such as hand-worked raffia, but also special upholstery such as costly sharkskin. He used the innovative works of masters such as Matisse and De Pisis for the imaginative decorations. Following the Nazi invasion he was forced to leave his homeland and seek refuge in America. Frank was not, however, able to overcome the trauma of separation from his Paris and a short time later, in 1941, he committed suicide by throwing himself from a skyscraper.