Maria Pergay - Maria Alexandrovna Kashnitskaya (b. 1930) is a Russian-born star of French post-war industry. Today, she is not only a living legend of post-war design, but also an actively practicing pro.

Maria's family emigrated from Moldova in the late 1930s. My father went to Stalin's camps, and he and his mother fled to France. After the war, Pergey studied design, set design, and in the workshop of the famous sculptor Osip Tsadkina created glass sculptures. In the 1960s, she opened her shop in the Place des Vosges in central Paris, where she exhibited miniature silver objects. In the 1970s, it was Maria Perge who convinced steel-producing companies that they should try to make designer furniture. One of her collections was bought entirely by Pierre Cardin. Among the clients of Perge is the King of Saudi Arabia and the Russian oligarchs: since the end of the 1980s, she has received orders from our compatriots and has repeatedly visited Moscow.

Chair Ring, 1968. Maria Perge, Turtle sofa, commissioned by Pierre Cardin, 1977.

She likes to speak Russian. With a slight southern accent and old-fashioned syntax. Despite the fact that Pergey is eighty-six, she is energetic, elegant and sharp on the tongue. Her fame is at its zenith: a few years ago she became a holder of the Order of Arts and Literature, the catalog was released, and her works are being sold around the world, prices at auctions are approaching half a million. The solo exhibition at the Duroc Hotel on Place des Vosges in Paris, which in 2012, the gallery owners Demisch Danant and JGM celebrated the 55th anniversary of Madame Pergei's creative activity, became a real sensation. Madame attended the exhibition every day in person, enthusiastically showing the guests of Marie Antoinette - a table with a table top made of antique oak fallen by the 1999 hurricane in Versailles Park, and completely new objects.

Coffee table Marie Antoinette. 2012 Exposition at the Hotel Duroc on the Place des Vosges. 2012 Broken Cube. 2010. 8 экз. Demisch Danant. Totem twin sconces. Estimated price of 58,000 dollars.

Her style combines sensitivity to fashion (hence all its straps, bows, pins), brutality and temperament great sculptor. She, without batting an eye, combines steel with the most unexpected materials - plexiglass, red wood, tortoise shell. Advanced age gives her the right to write things without looking at Bonton, so the interior objects she uses any favorite motifs, easily passes from giant safety pins to the foliage and dry bouquets. The attractiveness of her style to suite appreciated company of Fendi, which is compatible with Maria Perge made at the fair Design Miami in 2013, showing a collection of fantasy short-run Metamorphosis.

Silvia Venturini Fendi and Maria Perge in the chairs Metamorphosis, Fendi. 2013 Exposition of Maria Perge for Fendi at Design Miami in 2013.

Today, things of the past years now and then come up at auctions with estimeytami several hundred euros. Gallery owner, American Susan Demish is doing everything in her power to strengthen the fame Pergey, and the prices of steel maidens work steadily increased. It is Susan Demish at the most prestigious fairs, like Design Miami, that Perge devotes whole stands, and in 2006 she published the book “Maria Perge. Between ideas and design, which has become the most complete description of her life and work. Pergey herself would like to release a book of memoirs, but the beginning of the journey was difficult, remembering it is not easy even now, when a professional career has developed in the most brilliant way.

Wardrobe Broken Cabinet. Steel. Circulation 8 copies. 2007, Demisch Danant. Table Marronier, steel, walnut, glass inserts, bronze base, formed by hand. 2015 Stand for magazines Enveloppe, steel. 1968. Sold in 2013 at Phillips auction for 10 thousand dollars. Secret Cube, steel, copper, bronze. 2013. Demisch Danant. Drape Cabinet, steel, palm tree, makassar. Circulation - 8 copies. 2005. Demisch Danant. Stool Ribbon, stainless steel, enamel. Circulation 12 copies. 2007. Demisch Danant.