PARIS.- The next of PIASA's twice-yearly specialist auctions of American Design, to be held on Wednesday 17 May 2017, will be acccompanied by an ensemble by the great American designer Warren McArthur (1885-1961), whose iconic style marked an entire generation.

With its clean, elegant lines and aluminium tubing, McArthur's furniture epitomized 1930s Hollywood.

His pioneering recourse to metal and aluminium gave furniture design a breath of fresh air, and was much admired in interwar Europe.

Warren McArthur grew up in Chicago in one of the first ‘Moonlight Houses' designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. He was greatly influenced by this groundbreaking artistic heritage and, after studying mechanical engineering and opening a number of car dealerships, he became involved in the Arizona Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix in the late 1920s.

“Kicking back in a buffed aluminum Warren McArthur chair is like sliding into three decades of XXth-century American history” ---Robert Goff in Forbes, 1998

The hotel was designed by his brother, Albert Chase McArthur, in a style influenced by Wright. The aim was to bring tourists to the desert, and the personalities who stayed ranged from Clark Gable to Marylin Monroe via presidential couple Ronald and Nancy Reagan.

All the hotel furniture was conceived and manufactured by Warren McArthur. The project opened up the doors of 1930s Hollywood, where he soon begin producing his own furniture – with metal, especially aluminium, his hallmark material.

McArthur began by making custom pieces but soon introduced such technical innovations as notched tubes, milled washers, standardized units for manufacturing, the anodic process to toughen aluminium and make it difficult to tarnish, and a colouring technique with dyes that became part of the metal, ensuring that his colours did not crack or chip and allowing him to give his products a lifetime guarantee.

They soon became an icon of 1930s Hollywood – to be found on film-sets, at the new Ambassador Hotel and Warner Brothers Theatre, and in movie stars' homes. His furniture caught the eye with its curves, aluminium structure, and elegant, precise lines devoid of superfluous ornament. Upholstery was often in contrasting colours and in rare, expensive materials like mole hair. The aluminium frame was an integral part of the design – epitomized by his chairs with tubular armrests .

From the 1970s, the work of this visionary designer became gradually forgotten, but it is now regaining the prestigious status it deserves in the history of 20th century decorative arts.