Alexandre Noll

Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo Buonarotti (1475-1564) famously said, “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” This same principle — the sumptuousness of the raw material seeming to spiritually guide and coax the artist’s hand — is at work in artist and designer Alexandre Noll’s wood sculptures, furniture and household objects.

 A 1966 catalog accompanying his show at the Galerie Messine in Paris detailed that Alexandre Noll (1890-1970) wanted “to make of wood all that could be made out of wood.” Today, his name is obscure in the furniture world as he is mostly known for being a sculptor, but Noll was enraptured with wood and attempted to make anything and everything he could out of the material, from artfully undulating totems and sculptures to functional chairs and cabinets. This love of the material is what set him apart from other designers of the time. Noll eschewed the man-made resources becoming popular in Mid-century design such as steel or plywood, and found his muse in wood.

 Noll never traveled extensively, but he worked with woods from all over the world, including Africa, Japan, North and South America, and his native France. The types of woods he took up ranges from elm to mahogany, walnut and ebony.