On the occasion of the International Year of Light launched by UNESCO and for the third participation in Design Miami/Basel, Galerie Pascal Cuisinier has dedicated its booth to a solo show of the work of Jacques Biny, presenting an exceptional collection of his lighting pieces, the fruit of eight years of research.

Jacques Biny was one of the most important French lighting designers from 1950 to 1970. Unlike most designers, he also manufactured designs and worked in partnership with some of the best designers of the time, including Michel Buffet, Jean Boris Lacroix and Gustave Gauthier. Together, they set out to forge a new future for this field.

A graduate of the École Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Paris, Jacques Biny settled in his home town of Valence in order to practise his profession of interior designer. Confronted by a lack of light fittings on the sites he was working on, he decided to design his own, which he then offered to his clients. Following this experience, Jacques Biny returned to Paris in 1950, founding his own contemporary light fittings production workshop, Luminalite, three years later.

Modern and pioneering, Jacques Biny produced a range of sophisticated light fittings for the home, using new materials such as perforated sheet metal and Perspex. With each stroke of his pencil, shapes morphed into radical new forms, mostly divested of their decorative function. In the 1960s, he was appointed lighting designer for large-scale projects such as major cinema, Le Palace and the Préfecture (administrative offices) of Valence and the shipyards of Saint Nazaire.

For this year’s Design Miami/Basel, Pascal Cuisinier has decided to stage, in the most literal sense of the word, a show comprising of Jacques Biny’s finest creations. The stand has been designed in the same manner as a theatre, with black curtains in the wings and lighting inspired by director Robert Wilson’s work. A luminescent white backdrop à la James Turrell completes the display. This mise en scène also features a rare ‘sofa-sculpture’, the model 62 by Geneviève Dangles and Christian Defrance, as well as one of the finest examples of a Président range desk by Pierre Guariche.

This exhibition, organized by Galerie Pascal Cuisinier, will run from 16 to 21 June 2015 in Basel, before moving to Galerie Pascal Cuisinier’s exhibition space in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris, where it will be on display from 27 June to 12 September 2015.