Pierre Paulin

Pierre Paulin's impact and success 

However, he was reluctant to build on this success – he refused to write marketing texts for the manufacturers to promote his products and wouldn’t dream of asking his influential patrons for influence or introductions. When the industrial design firm that he and his wife, Maïa Wodzislawska-Paulin, had founded in the mid-1970s was sold to a French communications agency (now Havas Worldwide), he retreated to the Cévennes mountains of southern France. He poured all his efforts into designing and building a country house and a landscape – the final masterpiece before his death in 2009 at the age of 81.

Before he died, Maïa Wodzislawska-Paulin, their son Benjamin, and Benjamin’s wife Alice Lemoine – whose mother was a colourist for Paulin and a family friend – created a family enterprise called ‘Paulin, Paulin, Paulin’ to fulfil Paulin’s desire to see his unrealized designs put into production. It has since evolved into something with a bigger purpose – to win the man and his work the recognition he deserved within his lifetime but was too modest to pursue. Today, Kanye West, Nicolas Ghesquiere or Virgil Abloh figure among Paulin’s collectors and his designs can be found in contemporary art and design collections around the world, from the Museum of Modern Art, New York, to the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, along with the Centre Pompidou in Paris. His legacy has finally been assured.