A Woman Without a Face

A woman lies on a U-shaped chaise lounge, the lines of her body following the gentle curves of its tubular steel frame. She seems to merge with the furniture, woman and chair becoming one. Her face is turned from the camera, her identity obscured.

This is the image of French designer Charlotte Perriand (1903–1999) donning the cover of the latest monograph on her work, Charlotte Perriand: The Art of Dwelling (Hatje Cantz). Released earlier this year in conjunction with an exhibition of the same title organized by the Kunstmuseen Krefeld in Germany, the book traces the enduring yet often overlooked influence of this enchanting character of 20th-century European design—a lone woman in a sea of male designers, who, it turns out, was responsible for many of the era’s now-iconic furniture designs, including the tubular steel LC4 chaise lounge on the cover—that had previously been attributed solely to Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret.

That cover image of Perriand is simultaneously intriguing and frustrating: Who is this person, and why can we not see her face, her full identity? As historians and curators have worked over the last several decades to unearth Perriand’s story and restore her to her rightful place in the history of European modernism, images like this, of Perriand with her face turned from the camera, have proliferated. A similar photograph donned the cover of another recent monograph on Perriand, Charlotte Perriand: The Modern Life (Design Museum, 2021), as well as the cover of a 2019 biography on Perriand written by French journalist Laure Adler.

The images are a fitting metaphor for Perriand, a woman whose influence on modern design looms large, but whose identity was, for many years, overshadowed by her male colleagues, or in some cases, actively erased. In her introduction to The Art of Dwelling, Kunstmuseen Krefeld director Katia Baudin notes this obfuscation, writing of a 1958 exhibition of Le Corbusier’s work, “Although Perriand had contributed significantly to [Le Corbusier’s] projects as the person responsible for furniture design and interiors, her name was not mentioned in the exhibition or catalogue.” Perriand was there, but for many years, she was not seen.

The book does a fantastic job contributing to the recovery efforts of Perriand’s story, and, more importantly, adds pieces to the puzzle of her life that present her as a complex, whole person. Essentially a collection of essays by Perriand scholars, the book is interspersed with interviews with family members and writings by Perriand herself.

The Art of Dwelling traces moments of the designer’s life and work that I had previously been unaware of. The chapter on her time in Japan in the 1940s, and the several newly translated manifestos penned by Perriand, for example, were illuminating. The interview with Perriand’s daughter, Pernette Perriand-Barsac, was delightful—how beautiful to learn about Perriand as a mother, as a person who, like many of us, was constantly searching for the balance between work and home life, only to find them so often overlapping.

While many early Perriand books and exhibitions of the late 1980s and early 1990s presented her as merely a foil to Le Corbusier and Jeanneret, The Art of Dwelling reflects the shift that was taking place since her death, in 1999. Over the last two decades, Perriand’s work has increasingly been considered on its own terms, rather than through the lens of her male counterparts. In that regard, The Art of Dwelling succeeds in locating Perriand in the history of European modernism, as an individual with her own unique point of view and set of life experiences.

And yet, as I was reading the book, the cover photograph kept nagging at me. Exhibitions and books such as The Art of Dwelling are doing the important work of defining Perriand, so why does the token image of her continue to be one of veiled identity? There are dozens, if not hundreds, of photographs of Perriand that show her face—they are scattered throughout the pages of the book, alongside her words, drawings, designs, and photo montages. And it is generally accepted among historians that she is one of the most important thinkers and designers of the 20th century. So why does she continue to be identified with this picture of obfuscation?

I am hungry for books like The Art of Dwelling and for stories like Perriand’s, of women who thrived and made their mark in the fields of architecture and design. But it feels somewhat deflating to see yet another book about Perriand where her face is intentionally removed from the cover. These title images hold power—they are the ones that get circulated and reproduced in popular media, and I worry about the impact of perpetuating an image of Perriand as a designer without a face. Even if the content behind the cover is anything but obfuscating.

Of course, it may prove impossible to separate Perriand from her early employer Le Corbusier, and tempting to perpetuate the comeback story of a designer previously erased, but I crave a book that tries. I crave a book that is unafraid of letting Perriand stand on her own, as the bold, opinionated, and visionary designer she was. A book that puts Perriand—and her face, her full identity—squarely on the cover.


The book Charlotte Perriand: The Art of Dwelling is the pick for the October 22 gathering of the New York Architecture + Design Book Club, a quarterly book subscription and event series organized by Untapped and the Brooklyn bookshop Head Hi. The program will feature gallerist Cristina Grajales, who was a close friend and champion of Perriand’s, in conversation with Alex Gilbert. Find out more and RSVP on the book club’s website.