Biography

Charles DUDOUYT (1885-1946)

French illustrator, entrepreneur, and furniture designer.

Charles Dudouyt was born on March 27, 1885, in Paris’s 4th arrondissement, to Gabrielle Fromage and Charles-Louis Dudouyt, an auctioneer. His father instilled in him a taste for beautiful objects and found him jobs with antique dealers.

In 1908, Charles Dudouyt married Jeanne Haguenauer. Three children were born from this union: Rosine in 1909, Geneviève in 1911, and Jacques in 1913. The young couple settled in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine. Charles earned a living producing illustrations for periodicals such as Rions, Le Rire, and Le Sourire, and for publishers such as Librairie Arthème Fayard and Calmann-Levy.

Mobilized during the First World War, he was wounded near Ypres, then worked in military weapons and equipment factories until April 1919. During the last three years of the conflict, Jeanne and Charles Dudouyt secretly manufactured lighting and embroidered decorative items at night.

After the war, the Dudouyt family settled in Pontoise. The Dudouyts were responsible for decorating a bar on Rue Daunou in Paris, and Mistinguett commissioned them to redecorate his apartment on Boulevard des Capucines. In May 1920, Dudouyt, with his initial successes, joined forces with decorator Louis Pierre Eugène Duval to create the company Dudouyt, Duval et Cie, headquartered at 33 Rue Basse in Pontoise, which manufactured furniture and decorative items.

In May 1922, Dudouyt founded a new furniture company with Parisian industrialist Jean Lemée, called L’Abeillée, based in Pontoise, then quickly relocated to Saint Ouen l’Aumône. L’Abeillée’s products are contemporary with Art Deco, but stand out for their raw appearance, not lacking in originality. Affected by the economic crisis, the company closed in 1931.

Dudouyt moved to 60 rue d’Hauteville in Paris, then in early 1933 opened a store on Boulevard Raspail, La Gentilhommière, in addition to a workshop located on Butte aux Cailles, from which emerged his furniture productions, with increasingly refined forms, some marked by a subtle Africanism. Dudouyt, very aware of the trends of his time, also presented creations by Jean Besnard, Georges Jouve, Jean Després, and Alexandre Noll in his store. In 1937, he exhibited at the International Exhibition of Arts and Techniques Applied to Modern Life, then, at the end of April 1938, at the Petit Palais with 29 other contemporary artists.

In July 1944, Dudouyt filmed the evacuation of German troops from the Normandy front from the store on Boulevard Raspail, and then, on August 22, the liberation of Paris. This documentary film is preserved by the Resistance Museum.

Very weakened by the Occupation, Dudouyt died on April 5, 1946, in Paris’s 7th arrondissement. His son Jacques continued La Gentilhommière until 1960, opening it to contemporary painters and primitive art.