Jean Royere ( 1902-1981) Born into a cultivated family of provincial origin, Jean Royère showed a taste for decoration from an early age. After having tried to follow a career in line with his parents’ wishes, he began a brilliant career as a decorator at the age of 30, when the Gouffé firm published his first pieces of furniture. In 1939, he presented a boudoir at the Salon des artistes décorateurs that provocatively marked a return to ornament. A keen observer of contemporary design, Royère was already discovering new forms among Scandinavians and Italians, notably Alvar Aalto and Gio Ponti, to which he would associate his highly personal repertoire of ornamental designs, expressed with extreme virtuosity. From 1931 to 1972, this tireless traveler completed over a thousand projects around the world, from the development of the working-class housing estate of Aplemont in northern France to the decoration of the palace of the Shah of Iran, creating with lightness, fantasy and humor a style that evoked the desire for freedom of an era and left its mark on many contemporary designers.