{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O1531465"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1531465/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2021NB3026/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2021NB3026/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"low","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2021NB3026","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2021NB3025","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2021NB3114","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2021NB4628","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2021NC2131","copyright":"©Victoria & Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":null},"record":{"systemNumber":"O1531465","accessionNumber":"B.24-2021","objectType":"Child's chair","titles":[{"title":"Animeubles","type":"series title"}],"summaryDescription":"Gérard Rigot's playful and benign-looking cat chair is a functional object and a well-observed piece of animal art. Before becoming a full-time artist in the late-1970s, Rigot had a varied career including stints as a soldier and a photographic assistant, his practice being particularly influenced by a period he spent working as a teacher in Algeria.\n\nRigot is best-known for his <i>animéubles</i>: colourful animal-shaped furniture which pays particularly close attention to the animals' body language. A cat-shaped chair may have been his first design, originally made for his own children. ","physicalDescription":"The chair is made from softwood, probably pine, alder, ash, birch or hornbeam. It stands on four legs and has a simple D-shaped form. A carved cat’s head adorns the proper right arm, and an erect tail the proper left. The legs of the chair are shaped at the feet to resemble a cat’s paws. The whole chair is painted in simple, dilute oil colours, predominantly a sandy yellow, with a green seat and blue-black stripes on the tail and body. The facial features are highlighted mainly in black, and the insides of the ears and irises of the eyes are purple. The artist’s signature is painted in black on the underside of the seat. ","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Gérard Rigot","id":"AUTH370096"},"association":{"text":"maker","id":"x40240"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"pine","id":"AAT12620"}],"techniques":[{"text":"painting","id":"AAT161986"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Softwood, probably pine, painted in oils","categories":[{"text":"Furniture","id":"THES48948"},{"text":"Children & Childhood","id":"THES48980"},{"text":"Animals and Wildlife","id":"THES250852"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"YVA","id":"THES48593"},"images":["2021NB3026","2021NB3025","2021NB3114","2021NB4628","2021NC2131"],"imageResolution":"low","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"CA003","id":"THES388273"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"chair","id":"AAT37772"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"No","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Marciac","id":"THES378540"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1980s","earliest":"1980-01-01","latest":"1989-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Presented by Joan Hurst with Art Fund support","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"650","unit":"mm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"480","unit":"mm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Depth","value":"340","unit":"mm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"22/09/2020","earliest":"2020-09-22","latest":"2020-09-22"},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Weight","value":"3.5","unit":"kg","qualifier":"nifill","date":{"text":"13/04/2022","earliest":"2022-04-13","latest":"2022-04-13"},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[{"content":"'Gérard Rigot'","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Handpainted on underside of chair seat. Underlined."}],"objectHistory":"","historicalContext":"Gérard Rigot (b. 1929) is a French artist and furniture maker. He came to art via the study of Classics, military service, and periods of time spent working as a photographic laboratory assistant, builder and a teacher in Algiers. In the period he spent teaching, he was profoundly affected by the beauty, colour and texture of the Algerian landscape. From 1978, he devoted himself completely to art, trying unsuccessfully to become a painter. Around the same time, he moved from Paris to a small sheep farm in Marciac in south-west France.  \r\n\r\nRigot began to make furniture for his new home shortly after moving there. He also made wooden toys. His first piece of children’s furniture was either a cat-shaped chair for his daughter, Marie, or a sheep-shaped chest or bedside table for either Marie or his son, Baptiste. He soon received several commissions and his pieces became collectible; some being sold from the shop of the Musée des Arts Decoratif, Paris. Several exhibitions of his work were held in Europe and North America throughout the 1980s. \r\n\r\nRigot draws consciously on the images of childhood and has portrayed a variety of animals, including cats, giraffes and hippopotamuses. His fine art approach to folk art forms set him apart, although he himself defined his work as ‘art which is direct and which everybody can feel and understand’. His animal furniture pieces (or Animeubles) are notable for their attention to animals’ body language.  \r\n\r\nIn describing his process, the artist ‘approached this object like any other sculpture or painting, while respecting its function as a chair. This functional constraint proved very useful to me. After all, there can be no freedom without constraints and structures.’ After the wood is cut to size by an assistant, the pieces are refined by Rigot using hand tools and then simply constructed using dowels and screws. The decoration varies between pieces, none are exactly the same, although Rigot does make some of his furniture in the same basic form. ","briefDescription":"Child's chair in the form of a cat, Gérard Rigot, France, 1980s","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Catalogue, 'Animeubles. The Furniture of Gerard Rigot', 5-29 October 1988, Gardner Centre Gallery, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9R"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Catalogue, 'Janet Bolton and Gérard Rigot', 16 June to 14 July 1989, Contemporary Applied Arts, 43 Earlham Street, Corner of Neal Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9LD."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"‘Animeubles’, Crafts no. 64, October 1983"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Monsieur Rigot's Sit-Down Circus, The World of Interiors, May 1988, p. 105-115"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Perfectly Beastly, Telegraph Magazine, ca. 1988, p.44-48"}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"Unique","id":"THES48864"},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[{"text":"cats","id":"x34806"}],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[{"text":"<b>The cat’s meow </b>\n\r\nCats don’t usually like being sat on.\n\r\nThis chair’s back is curved like a real cat walking around your legs, asking to be stroked. Gérard Rigot liked the challenge of making useful pieces of furniture that copied how animals behave. \n\r\nThe colours were inspired by sandy landscapes in Algeria, where Gérard once worked as a teacher. \n\n<b><i>Animeubles</i> child’s chair </b>\r\nMade by Gérard Rigot \r\n1980s \r\nMarciac, France \r\nCarved pine and oil paints \r\nBequeathed by Joan Hurst with Art Fund support \r\nMuseum no. B.24-2021 \n\n[Young V&amp;A, Imagine Gallery, The Living Room, long object label] ","date":{"text":"01/07/2023","earliest":"2023-07-01","latest":"2023-07-01"}}],"partNumbers":["B.24-2021"],"accessionNumberNum":"24","accessionNumberPrefix":"B","accessionYear":2021,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2024-05-30","recordCreationDate":"2020-02-20","availableToBook":false}}