Magazine Rack by Mathieu Matégot, circa 1950

Mathieu Matégot (1910–2001) was one of the most original figures in French post-war design, a Hungarian-born artist and designer who settled in Paris and developed a personal formal language that set him apart from both the prevailing organicism of Scandinavian design and the austere rationalism of the Bauhaus tradition. His most celebrated innovation was “Rigitulle” — a perforated steel sheet that he patented and used to create furniture of remarkable lightness and visual distinction, allowing air, light, and line to pass through the structure in a way solid materials could not achieve.

Matégot’s production of the late 1940s and 1950s encompasses some of the most coveted objects of the period: the “Copacabana” chair, the “Antony” armchair, an extensive range of shelves, planters, magazine racks, and small furniture. Each piece demonstrates his ability to find an elegant geometric solution to a practical domestic problem, transforming the mundane into something of aesthetic value.

This magazine rack, measuring 51 by 21 by 52 centimetres, is a characteristic exercise in that vocabulary. The proportions — near square, slender in depth — are well suited to the functional requirements of storing periodicals while presenting them in an ordered, accessible manner. Matégot’s objects are now keenly collected, and pieces dating from his most creative period in the early 1950s command considerable attention in the market for post-war French design.

A collector’s piece from one of the most original designers of mid-century France, this magazine rack is both a useful domestic object and a work of applied art in its own right.