Jean-Michel Frank was not a minimalist. This statement will shock admirers who view the most influential designer... (http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/frank-article-012000) Jean-Michel Frank (28 Feb. 1895-3 Aug. 1941); French interior designer known for minimalist interiors decorated with plain-lined but sumptuous furniture made of luxury materials, such as shagreen, mica, and intricate straw marquetry. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Michel_Frank) Third son of banker Leon Frank and Nanette Loewi daughter of a rabbi from Philadelphia, Frank was born in Paris Feb. 28 1895. When at Lycee Janson de Sailly... he made several important encounters: Léon Pierre Quint future head of Sagittaire publishing company and René Crevel who will become an important figure of Surrealism. It is with them that Frank makes his first esthetic experiences and encounters the works of Marcel Proust and André Gide. World War1 immerse his family into tragedy. Being of German nationality, his parents are under house arrest while his 2 elder brothers, as himself born French, leave for the battlefront on the French side. In 1915 mourning hits the family: the 2 brothers are killed while fighting and his father commits suicide. Alone with his mother Frank works for a moment for a businessman but he is mainly interested by the intellectual and artistic world. As far back as 1918 he become close friend to Pierre Drieu la Rochelle and Louis Aragon. For them, he improvises himself decorator. In 1921, he does up Drieu La Rochelle bachelor's flat by painting the walls white, getting everything out leaving only a few furniture and a glass cubic vase discovered in an electrician workshop. ....His international success is completed with commissions from multi-millionaires argentine Jorge Born and american Nelson Rockefeller. ....in New York, on March 8 1941, he is completely desperate and kills himself, ending abruptly a brilliant career. http://www.comitejmf.com/biography.html undefined

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