24 Jun Donald Judd x Puiforcat/Galerie

Donald Judd is an artist generally associated with strict rectilinear forms, from his iconic milled aluminum boxes permanently installed at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas, to his austere furniture designs realized in wood. Now, 29 years after his death, he’s finally throwing the world a curve: a collection of eight sterling silver tableware pieces, all circular forms, created by venerable French silversmith Puiforcat. These pieces – dinner, salad, soup, bread and dessert plates as well as a cup and large serving bowl – are just a small selection from a full set of dinnerware that Judd designed in 1989. Some of the originals were produced in porcelain, others were prototyped in materials including enamel, but none were put out into the world in an official capacity until now.

Judd’s designs all originated from the idea of function and simplicity. His son, Flavin Judd, Artistic Director of the Judd Foundation, noted that this collection “comes from the same ethic. Given a set of criteria – a plate, a cup and so on – what can you produce that solves the problems but that doesn’t violate design ethics in the process.”  And lives up to the artist’s well-documented exacting standards. He was, for example, famously allergic to visible seams or welds, and creating strict forms such as these, with the intersection of straight and curved planes (in highly polished sterling silver no less) allows for zero margin of error.

Considering these challenges, it’s a small miracle that such a collection ever came to be, posthumously or not. And while the partnership with Puiforcat, now owned by Hermes, may raise some skeptical/cynical eyebrows, in reality it is a perfect match. The 200 year-old company employs just 15 artisans, who each train for ten years before they can begin working with silver, making every single piece by hand in a workshop in Paris.  Judd senior would no doubt appreciate the rigor each brings to their craft, settling for nothing less than perfection. Flavin noted that the two-year process included a lengthy prototyping period, which he personally oversaw in Paris. “Some of the pieces required adjustments and refinements until we were able to achieve Don’s specifications,” he explained of the process. But what of the results? “They are exactly as drawn by Don,” who, he admitted, “would have loved them.”