Born in 1925, to an intellectual father, a graduate of the Ecole Normale Supérieure who mastered seven languages perfectly, but who had taken a vow of austerity and seclusion in reaction to his environment, and to a mother who was a concert pianist, a talented, whimsical pianist, who consoled herself in the frivolity of "being an immense artist without a stage". Andrée retained the best of it, a precocious artistic taste but also the rejection of bourgeois conventions.
Andrée Putman became a journalist for several magazines and then in 1958, as a stylist, joined the popu-lar chain of stores Prisunic, where she worked "to make beautiful things for nothing": she imagined piec-es of furniture and decoration at affordable prices. She then made a name for herself at the Mafia-style agency.
In 1971, with her friend Didier Grumbach, she created an innovative company specializing in the devel-opment of ready-to-wear: Créateurs et Industriels. In the concept store on rue de Rennes in Paris, she will be the revelation of many talents, such as Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, Issey Miyake, Claude Mon-tana or Thierry Mugler.
In 1978, Andrée Putman created the company Ecart and resurrected the forgotten talents of the 1930s: Eileen Gray, René Herbst, Jean-Michel Frank, Pierre Chareau, Robert Mallet-Stevens, ... She is passionate about their work, unearthing pieces, restoring them, republishing them, making them known. She has produced a catalogue of invaluable coherence.
In 1984, the development of the Morgans Hotel in New York, the world's first boutique hotel, marked a turning point in her career: she managed to build a luxury hotel with very little means. Andrée was called upon to design more and more interior design projects and designed hotel interiors for Sheraton and Ritz Carlton, and boutiques for Azzedine Alaïa and Karl Lagerfeld. She also designed offices, notably that of Jack Lang at the Ministry of Culture in 1984, and museums such as the CAPC, the Museum of Contempo-rary Art in Bordeaux, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Rouen.
Through her creations, Andrée Putman wishes to reconcile rich and poor materials and use light in a new way. She strives to lay bare spaces in order to rediscover their origin. In the course of her work, she also tackles lifestyles by reforming our use of spaces.
In 1997, Andrée Putman created Studio Putman, specializing in interior architecture, design and scenog-raphy. She furnishes hotels, private residences, offices, shops all over the world and designs objects and furniture.
In 2007, Andrée Putman wanted to open a new and great chapter by entrusting her daughter, Olivia, with the reins of her studio and thus perpetuate a know-how, a label, a style, a stamp. Indifferent to trends, Andrée Putman is a constant reminder that design should be used to sweeten and beautify life.