An article fromHéritage Montréal by Maude Bouchard Dupont, in collaboration with Marie-Maxime de Andrade, doctoral student in art history (UQAM and Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne).
Born in Bonnières-sur-Seine, France, on April 7, 1890, Jacques Carlu was the son of Léon Carlu, a civil engineer, and Julie Marin. He was the brother of Jean Carlu (1900-1997), a famous poster artist and designer.
Jacques Carlu was admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts in 1909. He had already completed a first project in Romania before interrupting his studies for military service and the First World War (1914-1918). Back at the academy, he apprenticed at the studio of Victor Laloux (1850-1937), architect of the Gare d'Orsay railway station.
It was at this time that he met Anna Nathalie Pecker (1895-1972), nicknamed Anne or Natacha, a young medical student in Paris. Intrigued by the young woman who was to become an accomplished artist, art history doctoral student Marie-Maxime de Andrade has consulted numerous documents in recent years, including Jacques Carlu's correspondence preserved in Paris.
Her research confirms that Natacha Carlu was born in Paris in 1895 into a family of renowned Jewish doctors from the Crimea, Russia. The correspondence also reveals that the two young people were very much in love at the time. They married in the City of Light on May 9, 1917.
Two years later, Jacques Carlu won the Grand Prix de Rome. It was during a stay in residence at the Villa Medici in Rome that his wife became familiar with painting, having had to put aside her studies to accompany her husband on his travels. Jacques Carlu, however, refused to allow her to take classes, fearing that this would restrict her individuality. After four years in Italy, the couple left for the United States.
From 1924 to 1933, Jacques Carlu taught at MIT(Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in Boston, while also heading the American Summer School in Fontainebleau (1923-1937), of which he was the founding director. A tall, charismatic professor, he enthusiastically passed on his passion for architecture and modern art to his students, who would go on to make a name for themselves.
While in America, he designed the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Boston and Stewart & Co. stores in New York, in collaboration with his wife, better known as Anne Carlu in Europe and Natacha Carlu in North America.
Returning periodically to France, Jacques Carlu worked alongside architect and decorator Pierre Patout (1879-1965) on the Île-de-France liner between 1926 and 1927. He later incorporatedStreamline Modern (or liner style) trends into his practice, with the aerodynamic lines so popular in the United States.
In 1930-31, in Canada, he created the 9th-floor restaurant at Eaton's stores in Montreal (677, rue Sainte-Catherine O.), as well as the 7th-floor restaurant in Toronto (2 College Street), complete with auditorium and café. Decor and accessories are designed by leading French artisans, including his wife, Natacha Carlu. While the design of the Toronto stores is more elaborate, it's in Montreal that it's considered the most successful.
In 1935, Natacha Carlu decorated the French Pavilion for the Brussels World Fair. For the Exposition Universelle des Arts et Techniques two years later, Jacques Carlu participated as chief architect in the (re)construction of the Palais de Chaillot opposite the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Natacha Carlu designed the stage curtains for the theater of this vast complex. Before the war, Jacques Carlu was also appointed Inspector General of Civil Buildings and National Palaces, then Chief Architect of Lycées and Colleges in 1939.
The couple took refuge in the United States during the Second World War. Some members of Natacha Carlu's family who remained in France suffered the terrible consequences of the conflict, as Marie-Maxime de Andrade discovered during her research in Paris. Two of the artist's three brothers, Raphaël Pecker, a surgeon and member of the Resistance, as well as Victor Pecker, an electrical engineer, and her sister-in-law, Nelly Herrmann, were arrested, deported and executed in concentration camps.
During this enforced stay, Jacques Carlu designed the French classroom for the Cathedral of Learning at Pittsburg University in 1943. He also designed prefabricated emergency housing for the National Housing Company in Texas. For her part, Natacha Carlu was one of the few women to design posters for the war effort. Those of Jean Carlu, her husband's brother also in exile in America, were highly prized by the American government.
After the war, Jacques Carlu returned to his roots, designing numerous public buildings in a more refined style.
From 1950, he was chief architect, then technical advisor for the extension and refurbishment of the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. Natacha Carlu paints the "Guerre/War" mural, still on display in the building's lobby. Artistic advisor for the interior design of the UN headquarters in New York, he designed the Palais de l'OTAN in Paris between 1955 and 1957, today the Faculty of Law and Economics, Porte Dauphine.
In the 1950s and 1960s, he also designed three lycées, the Censier center of the Faculty of Arts (now Université Paris 3), the Murat residences (1956) and the Théâtre national de Bretagne (1968). He also built the Maison de la Culture in Rennes and the Maison de la Radio in Tunis, Rennes, Bordeaux and Lyon.
In 1957, he was elected full member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, architecture section. He was President from 1959 to 1971. He was also curator of the Palais de Chaillot until 1963.
While the work of the Carlu brothers is well known to posterity, that of Natacha Carlu has yet to be discovered and recognized. Let's hope that Marie-Maxime de Andrade's research will soon enable us to lift the veil on this exceptional artist.
The couple had no children. Jacques Carlu died in 1976. He is buried alongside his wife Natacha and his brother Jean and sister Marcelle in the Passy cemetery, near the Palais de Chaillot in Paris.
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- Gournay, Isabelle, Notice biographique de Jacques Carlu, published in Archives d'architecture du XXe s., Paris: Ifa/Archives d'architecture du XXe siècle ; Liège: Mardaga, 1991. [online - pp.15-19]
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