Material whose production only became industrialized at the beginning of the 20th century, aluminum made a late entry in the field of the decorative arts. This article retraces, in a precise way, the first utilizations of the light metal in furniture conceived by Franch decorative artists between the two wars, based particularly on the magazine and the photographic collections of L'Aluminium Français. The adoption of this new metal depended certainly on the individual initiatives of the creators, but also, just as decisively on the commercial effort of the industrialists, and on the technical transformations of the material itself. If aluminum benefitted from the early curiosity of the artist of the modern movement, it also was largely adopted by the creators attached to the tradition of decorative arts who proposed a singular interpretation. Minor counterpoint to steel, which certain contemporaries, reproached as being cold and rigid, aluminum by the diversity of its forms and appearances constituted a seductive alternative which allowed to reconcile industrial modernity with both elegance and fantasy.
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