Classic Romantic Modern: Paintings by Carl Laubin, Furniture by Jean-Michel-Frank

Carl Laubin is renowned for his paintings of classical as well as contemporary architecture. He first appeared as a painter of architecture in 1986 with paintings of Jeremy Dixon's proposals for The Royal Opera House. Canary Wharf, Compass Point on the Isle of Dogs, Paternoster Square, Leon Krier's Atlantis and the Museum of Scotland are a few of the contemporary designs he has painted. Laubin was born in New York in 1947. He studied architecture at Cornell University and then moved to London and worked as an architect. Amongst others, his paintings have been commissioned by or acquired by Castle Howard, Centre Georges Pompidou,The Museum of London, The Museum of Scotland, the National Trust and the Royal Opera House.

Jean-Michel Frank was born in Paris, 28th of February 1895. From 1904, he attends the Lycée Janson de Sailly in Paris. In 1911, he begins law school. In 1915, he is cruelly hit by the double blow of the death of his two elder brothers, Oscar and Georges, on the Front line and that of his father who commits suicide. In 1919, he loses his mother who had been in an asylum for several years. From 1920 to 1925 he travels and visits the world. In Venice he meets the cosmopolitan society that gathered around Stravinsky and Diaghilev. Around 1927, Eugenia Errázuriz reveals to him the beauty of 18th Century styles. He gets in contact with a Parisian decorator called Adolphe Chanaux to do his apartment in the Rue de Verneuil. In 1932, with Chanaux, he opens a shop at number 140 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. This will be the consecration of ten years of collaboration. During the winter of 1939-40, he leaves France for South America and the United States. In 1941, he commits suicide in New York.