Projet de salle de séjour pour la maison de Monsieur Irving à Decatur, Illinois

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George Mann Niedecken
Projet de salle de séjour pour la maison de Monsieur Irving à Decatur, Illinois
entre 1900 et 1910
plume et encre noire, aquarelle sur toile
H. 71,0 ; L. 66,0 cm.
Achat, 1985
© Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Patrice Schmidt
George Mann Niedecken
Projet de salle de séjour pour la maison de Monsieur Irving à Decatur, Illinois
entre 1900 et 1910
plume et encre noire, aquarelle sur toile
H. 71,0 ; L. 66,0 cm.
Achat, 1985
© RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay) / Gérard Blot
George Mann Niedecken (1878 - 1945)
Artwork not currently exhibited in the museum

A collector of oriental objets d'art, and particularly of Japanese prints, this beautiful drawing illustrates the interior designer and architect George Mann Niedecken's taste for Japanese style. Presented in the style of a scroll painting, painted on canvas, this project favours horizontal lines, accentuated by the large fireplace, made from brick, left bare, without plaster.
Niedecken devoted a lot of his time to murals. In these he recreates the luxuriant wild flowers of the Midwest prairies in a stylised form, flattened and decorative without too much detail. The architect often used photographs of the flowers and plants he wished to reproduce, from which he would elaborate a series of studies, gradually simplifying his work until arriving to a painted decoration.
These images were a determining element as they established the link between the outdoor landscape and the most abstract drawings for the rest of the decoration. Niedecken required high standards for the profession of interior architect, insisting that he had to be an artist capable of painting and drawing, with, of course, experience in the field of architecture and sculpture, as well as in all the other arts including carpet weaving and dyeing, and the decorative use of stucco and plaster.
This project for a living room was realised when the Irving house was built in1909-1910 by Frank Lloyd Wright, with whom Niedecken had already worked.

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