Cartier in Motion by Norman Foster

Exploring the creativity of Cartier and its links with the history of flight and design in the early twentieth century, Cartier in Motion, an exhibition curated by Norman Foster, marks the opening year of the new Design Museum in london.

The exhibition explores the myriad changes in society at the turn of the twentieth century, through the prism of Louis Cartier’s involvement with the pioneers of the age, including the renowned aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont – for whom he designed one of the world’s first wristwatches – and noted engineer, Gustave Eiffel. It illustrates a time where, amidst upheavals in art, architecture, travel and lifestyles, traces of a new world could be seen.

Norman Foster, curator of the exhibit said: “Louis Cartier and his close circle of friends – who were part of the avant-garde in Paris at the beginning of the twentieth century – personified the beginning of the modern age with its emphasis on motion, speed and flight. Cartier’s interest in aircraft, cars and boats inspired many of his classic designs and marked the birth of the men’s wristwatch as we know it today.”

Cartier in Motion includes over 170 exhibits that will provide rare insights into the relationship between Cartier and design from the Collection Palais Princier de Monaco, Principality of Monaco; Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace, Paris – Le Bourget; Rockefeller Center, New York; private lenders and the Cartier Collection, along with extracts from material found in the Cartier Archives.

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Rendering. "Cartier in Motion" by Norman Foster. Photograph © Nigel Young / Foster + Partners

Alberto Santos-Dumont aboard his airplane No.15, in 1907. Cartier Archives. Photograph © Cartier. Image courtesy Design Museum

Norman Foster. "Cartier in Motion" by Norman Foster. Photograph © Foster + Partners

Sketch. "Cartier in Motion" by Norman Foster. Photograph © Foster + Partners

Project team meeting in the Paris office of Cartier. "Cartier in Motion" by Norman Foster. Photograph © Emmanuel Schmitt / Cartier. Image courtesy Design Museum

Invitation for the «Santos Night» party, in New York City, 1979. Cartier New York Archives. Photograph © Cartier. Image courtesy Design Museum

Catherine Deneuve at the Cannes International Film Festival in 1965, wearing her favorite watch, the Baignoire model. Photograph © R.A. / Gamma. Image courtesy Design Museum

Alberto Santos-Dumont in his Parisian home dining with friends seated on high furniture so that they could experience what it was like to be elevated above the ground. Circa 1900 Cartier Archives. Photograph © Cartier. Image courtesy Design Museum

Marquis Boniface de Castellane, a friend of Louis Cartier, was one of the first male figures of Parisian high society to wear a Cartier watch on his wrist. Circa 1912. Photograph © Ministère de la Culture. Médiathèque du Patrimoine, Dist. RMN / Atelier Nada. Image courtesy Design Museum

A printing of a Polaroid self-portrait by Andy Warhol. Warhol wears a Cartier Tank wristwatch. Circa 1970. Photograph © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Image courtesy Design Museum

Igor Stravinsky by Pablo Picasso. 31 December 1920 Private Collection. Photograph © Succession Picasso 2017. Image courtesy Design Museum

The Cartier Manufacture in La Chaux-de-Fonds, 2009 O. Ziegler. Photograph © Cartier. Image courtesy Design Museum

Cigarette case Cartier New York, circa 1928 Gold, enamel At the center, the monogram DC Inside, an inscription and facsimile signature: Au Capitaine Dieudonné Costes / En souvenir de son envolée qui en deux / coups d’ailes a relié l’Europe, l’Afrique / et l’Amérique. / Son compatriote et admirateur / New York, le 16 février, 1928 / P. C. Cartier [To Captain Dieudonné Costes / in memory of his flight, who with two flaps of his wings linked Europe, Africa / and America. / From his compatriot and admirer. / Ne

Cigarette case Cartier Paris, 1912 Silver, gold, one sapphire cabochon (push-piece) Sold to Willis McCormick, president of Queen Aviation The inside of the case is engraved with the signatures of approximately thirty figures related to the birth of aviation, including the likes of Chevillard, Igo Etrich, Jacques Mortane, Perreyor, Alberto Santos-Dumont, Jules Védrines, Gabriel Voisin, Roland-Garros, Raymond Saulnier, and Jacques Schneider. Cartier Collection Nils Herrmann, Cartier Collection. Photograph © C

Model A mystery clock Cartier Paris, 1914 Platinum, gold, agate, rock crystal, four sapphire cabochons, diamonds, enamel The very first Model A mystery clock was sold by Cartier in 1912. They are mysterious because their platinum and diamond hands do not seem to be linked to any mechanical movement. In fact each hand of the clock is set on a flat disk of glass with a hidden, toothed edge; the toothed disks are driven by two vertical racks hidden in the sides of the clock; these racks are themselves driven b

Paper knife with watch Cartier Paris, S Department, special order, 1930 Silver, gold, agate, lapis lazuli Cartier Collection Nick Welsh, Cartier Collection. Photograph © Cartier. Image courtesy Design Museum

Desk set with clock Cartier Paris for Cartier New York, S Department, 1931 Silver, gold, nephrite, black lacquer, enamel Nick Welsh, Cartier Collection. Photograph © Cartier. Image courtesy Design Museum

Blueprint for a Limousine coupé on an Itala chassis commissioned by Louis Cartier, 1906. Cartier Archives. Photograph © Cartier. Image courtesy Design Museum

Lunar Excursion Module (exact replica) Cartier Paris, 1969 Gold, black lacquer, enamel Engraved: United States and Les lecteurs du journal Le Figaro à Michael Collins [From readers of Le Figaro newspaper to Michael Collins] Cartier Paris was commissioned by Le Figaro newspaper to make three scale models of the LEM, which were presented to the three astronauts when they visited Paris. Figaro readers, who financed the project through a subscription drive, thereby participated in the event of the century. Each

Model of an airplane Cartier New York, circa 1930, Silver, Cartier Collection Studio Gérard, Cartier Collection. Photograph © Cartier. Image courtesy Design Museum

Archives photograph of the replica of the Question Mark Cartier New York, 1933 Executed in silver and enamel Cartier Archives. Photograph © Cartier. Image courtesy Design Museum

Composition of diferent watches, [1] A 1970 version of the Santos. The original model was designed by Louis Cartier for the pioneering aviator Alberto Santos Dumont, and is regarded as the very first wristwatch design. Vincent Wulveryck Cartier Collecction. [2] Cartier Tank. [3] the Panthere - a bracelet re-imagining of the Santos, a watch from the disco era of the 1980s, which has returned in style this year, and [4] A waterproof Cartier Pasha, a design that first appeared in the 1930s. Cartier Collection.

Composition of diferent watches, [1] An art deco desk clock in a mirrored case. Cartier Collection. [2] Model A mystery clock Cartier Pari, See above. [3] Santos-Dumont Skeleton wristwatch Cartier, 2011 Titanium & ADLC (Amorphous Diamond-Like Carbon) One faceted sapphire Leather strap. [4] Rotonde de Cartier mysterious double tourbillon wristwatch Cartier, 2013 Gold, one sapphire cabochon Leather strap Poinçon de Genève certified watch and movement. Photograph © Cartier. Image courtesy Design Museum

Portrait of Norman Foster © Manolo Yllera. Image courtesy Design Museum

Exhibition poster for Cartier in Motion at the Design © Museum Foster + Partners. Image courtesy Design Museum

The new Design Museum © Hufton + Crow. Image courtesy Design Museum

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More information

Label

Curator

Text

Norman Foster

Label

Dates

Text

May 25th, to July 28th, 2017

Label

Venue

Text

Design Museum, 224-238 Kensington High St, Kensington, London W8 6AG, UK

NORMAN FOSTER

Norman Foster is considered by many to be the most prominent architect in Britain. He won the 1999 Pritzker Architecture Prize and the 2009 Príncipe de Asturias de las Artes Prize.

Lord Foster rebuilt the Reichstag as a new German Parliament in Berlin and designed a contemporary Great Court for the British Museum. He linked St. Paul's Cathedral to the Tate Modern with the Millennium Bridge, a steel footbridge across the Thames. He designed the Hearst Corporation Building in Manhattan, at 57th Street and Eighth Avenue.

He was born in Manchester, England, in 1935. Among his firm’s many other projects are London’s City Hall, the Bilbao Metro in Spain, the Canary Wharf Underground Station in London and the renovated courtyard of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery in Washington.

In the 1970s, Lord Foster was one of the most visible practitioners of high-tech architecture that fetishized machine culture. His triumphant 1986 Hong Kong and Shanghai bank building, conceived as a kit-of-parts plugged into a towering steel frame, was capitalism's answer to the populist Pompidou Center in Paris.

Nicolai Ouroussoff, The Times’s architecture critic, has written that although Lord Foster’s work has become sleeker and more predictable in recent years, his forms are always driven by an internal structural logic, and they treat their surroundings with a refreshing bluntness.

Awarded the Prince of Asturias of the Arts 2009.

Published on: June 9, 2017

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