Serge Mouille

Serge Mouille was born in 1922 and raised in a popular part of Paris. At the age of 13 he was admitted to the École des Arts Appliqués, where his area of study was metallurgy, and he earned a diploma in silversmithing.

Mouille received a master diploma in silversmithing from the School of Applied Arts in Paris. He studied with silversmith and sculptor Gilbert LaCroix, and after graduation in 1941, he went to work in his studio. After having worked a few years in the workshop of Lacroix, he opened his own workshop in 1945 with the intention of creating silverware utensils. In the same year, Mouille himself became a teacher at the School of Applied Arts. In the following years his design commissions were mostly for handrails, chandeliers and wall sconces. The big change came in 1953, when Jacques Adnet hired him to design lighting fixtures, an art to which he devoted the rest of his life. He began researching and designing lighting, and during this period, he was also supervising the gold smithing department at l'École des Arts Appliqués. In 1955, he was inducted into the Société des Artistes Décorateurs ("the Interior Decorators' Society") and of the French National Art Society.

The following year, Steph Simon opened a design gallery at 145 Bd. St. Germain in Paris. Displaying the work of Charlotte Perriand and Jean Prouvé, the gallery soon also featured the work of Serge Mouille, Isamu Noguchi, and Jean Luce. The designs of these artists soon become more widely known thanks to orders placed by institutions such as, Cité universitaire d’Antony, University of Strasbourg, University of Aix-Marseille, and Centre d’essais en vol de Brétigny. In 1955, he was awarded the Charles Plumet prize for his work and in 1958 he received a Diploma of Honour at the Brussels Expo.

Throughout the 1950s Mouille designed large, angular, insect-like wall mounted and standing lamps with several arms and smaller, more curved wall-sconces. Some of his best-known designs from the period are his “Oeil” lamp (1953), “Flammes” (1954) and “Saturn” (1958). He worked to achieve a kinetic, sculptural aesthetic that evoked a sense of movement in space. He also claimed his lighting fixtures were “a reaction to the Italian models, which were beginning to invade the market in 1950” and which he deemed to be “too complicated.” His designs from this period were shown mainly at the Steph Simon Gallery in Paris.

Towards the end of the decade, Mouille began to design for institutions, including the University in Antony, schools in Strasbourg and Marseilles and the Bizerte Cathedral. Mouille established the Société de Création de Modèles in 1961 as a way to encourage young and emerging lighting designers. He worked and taught for the rest of his life, showing his lighting and jewellery at several exhibitions. For his career as a metalsmith and designer he was awarded a medal from the City of Paris from the Directors of Professional Artists. In 1959 however, he was forced to suspend his design activities and undergo medical treatment, and retired from designing in 1961. Serge Mouille remains famous primarily for his minimalistic designs and use of uniformly black painted metal materials and his discrete, yet highly functional designs. ~H.

Interesting literature:

Serge Mouille: a French classic / un classique Français, Pierre Emile Pralus, Editions Du Mont Thou, France, 2006