The École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (ÉnsAD, also known as Arts Decos', École des Arts Décoratifs) is a public

grande école A ''grande école'' () is a specialised university that is separate from, but parallel and often connected to, the main framework of the French public university system. The grandes écoles offer teaching, research and professional training in s ...

of art and

design A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design' ...

PSL Research University Paris Sciences et Lettres University (PSL University or simply PSL) is a public research university based in Paris, France. It was established in 2010 and formally created as a university in 2019. It is a collegiate university with 11 constituen ...

. The school is located in the Rue d'Ulm in Paris.

Profile

The ''École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs'' played a major role in the development of the

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unit ...

design movement in the 1920s and in the creation of new design concepts. The School has an international reputation for its teaching in the fields of

animation Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most ani ...

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is emplo ...

scenography Scenography (inclusive of scenic design, lighting design, sound design, costume design) is a practice of crafting stage environments or atmospheres. In the contemporary English usage, scenography is the combination of technological and material ...

industrial design Industrial design is a process of design applied to physical products that are to be manufactured by mass production. It is the creative act of determining and defining a product's form and features, which takes place in advance of the manufactu ...

communication design Communication design is a mixed discipline between design and information-development which is concerned with how media communicate with people. A communication design approach is not only concerned with developing the message in addition to th ...

interactive design Interactive design is a user-oriented field of study that focuses on meaningful communication using media to create products through cyclical and collaborative processes between people and technology. Successful interactive designs have simple, cl ...

video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) sy ...

interior design Interior design is the art and science of enhancing the interior of a building to achieve a healthier and more aesthetically pleasing environment for the people using the space. An interior designer is someone who plans, researches, coordin ...

fashion Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy at a particular period and place and in a specific context, of clothing, footwear, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and body posture. The term implies a look defined by the fash ...

textile Textile is an Hyponymy and hypernymy, umbrella term that includes various Fiber, fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, Staple (textiles)#Filament fiber, filaments, Thread (yarn), threads, different #Fabric, fabric types, etc. At f ...

and

engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an in ...

History

The E.N.S.A.D. has its roots in the '' École royale gratuite de dessin'' (Royal Free School of Design) founded in 1766 by Jean-Jacques Bachelier, confirmed in 1767 by letters patent from

Louis XV of France Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reache ...

. Its founder's aim was to develop crafts relating to the arts in order to improve the quality of manufactured goods. Through a rigorous and demanding apprenticeship in the Arts, the school strove to combine technique and culture, intelligence and sensitivity, so as to enable the more gifted artisans to develop into creative artists. After several changes of name, in 1877 the school became the National School of Decorative Arts (''École nationale des arts décoratifs'') before taking its present name of ENSAD (''École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs'') in 1927.

Directors

Léon Deshairs Leon, Léon (French) or León (Spanish) may refer to: Places Europe * León, Spain, capital city of the Province of León * Province of León, Spain * Kingdom of León, an independent state in the Iberian Peninsula from 910 to 1230 and again fro ...

−1940 and 1943–1945 *

Léon Moussinac Léon Pierre Guillaume Moussinac (19 January 1890 – 10 March 1964) was a French writer, film and art critic, film historian and film theorist. Life and career Moussinac was born in the family of a railroad station master. He studied law and ha ...

1945–1959 *

Jacques Adnet Jacques Adnet (20 April 1900 – 29 October 1984) was a French art deco modernist designer, architect and interior designer. He was known for his furniture designs in leather. Education An icon of luxurious French Modernism, Jacques Adnet ...

1959–1970 *

Michel Tourlière Michel may refer to: * Michel (name), a given name or surname of French origin (and list of people with the name) * Míchel (nickname), a nickname (a list of people with the nickname, mainly Spanish footballers) * Míchel (footballer, born 1963), ...

* Richard Peduzzi 1990–2002 *

Patrick Raynaud Patrick may refer to: *Patrick (given name), list of people and fictional characters with this name * Patrick (surname), list of people with this name People *Saint Patrick (c. 385–c. 461), Christian saint * Gilla Pátraic (died 1084), Patrick ...

2002–2008 *

Geneviève Gallot Genevieve (french: link=no, Sainte Geneviève; la, Sancta Genovefa, Genoveva; 419/422 AD – 502/512 AD) is the patroness saint of Paris in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions. Her feast is on 3 January. Genevieve was born in Nanterre an ...

2008–2013 *

Marc Partouche Marc or MARC may refer to: People * Marc (given name), people with the first name * Marc (surname), people with the family name Acronyms * MARC standards, a data format used for library cataloging, * MARC Train, a regional commuter rail system o ...

2014-2018 : *

Emmanuel Tibloux Immanuel ( he, עִמָּנוּאֵל, 'Īmmānū'ēl, meaning, "God is with us"; also romanized: , ; and or in Koine Greek of the New Testament) is a Hebrew name that appears in the Book of Isaiah (7:14) as a sign that God will protect the H ...

2018 -

Notable teachers

Pierre Bernard (graphic designer) Pierre Bernard (25 February 1942 – 23 November 2015) was a French graphic artist and designer. He was a member and then the manager for the L’Atelier Création Graphique in Paris, an organization he founded along with Dirk Behage and Fokk ...

Rosa Bonheur Rosa Bonheur (born Marie-Rosalie Bonheur; 16 March 1822 – 25 May 1899) was a French artist known best as a painter of animals ( animalière). She also made sculpture in a realist style. Her paintings include ''Ploughing in the Nivernais'', fir ...

* Cassandre * Marcel Gromaire *

André Lurçat André Lurçat (August 27, 1894 – July 11, 1970) was a French modernist architect, landscape architect, furniture designer, city planner, and founding member of CIAM. He was active in the rebuilding in French cities after World War II. He was th ...

Pierre Louis Rouillard Pierre Louis Rouillard (Paris, 16 January 1820 – Paris, 2 June 1881) was a French sculptor known for his sculptures of animals. He was one of a "school of French ''animalier, animalières''", which also included Pierre-Jules Mêne, Antoine-Loui ...

, professor of sculpture from 1840 to 1881 *

Joseph-André Motte Joseph-André Motte (6 January 1925 – 1 June 2013) was a French furniture designer and interior designer and ranks among the most influential and innovative figures of post-war French design. Joseph-André Motte was born in Saint-Bonnet-en-C ...

furniture and interior designer * Philippe Starck * Roger Tallon

Notable alumni

Philippe Apeloig Philippe Apeloig is a French graphic designer and typographer born in Paris in 1962. Biography Philippe Apeloig studied at the École supérieure des arts appliqués Duperré, then at the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs. It wa ...

, graphic designer * Ximena Armas, painter *

Antun Augustinčić Antun Augustinčić (4 May 1900 – 10 May 1979) was a Croatian sculptor active in Yugoslavia and the United States. Along with Ivan Meštrović and Frano Kršinić he is considered one of the three most important Croatian sculptors of the 20th ...

, sculptor * Pierre Bismuth, artist * François Boisrond, painter *

Ronan Bouroullec Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec (born 1971 and 1976) are brothers noted for their design work, which has been featured in publications and museums globally — and spans a wide range from tables and chairs to tableware, rugs, textile walls, office furn ...

, designer *

Yvonne Canu Yvonne Canu (1921–2008) was a French painter, considered part of Neo-Impressionism, who used the techniques of pointillism in her works. She was born to French parents in Meknes in Morocco in 1921. She began her studies at the École des Ar ...

, painter *

Nina Childress Nina Childress (born Christine Childress, 1961) is a French-American visual artist, based in Paris, France. Life and work Born in Pasadena, California, United States, she studied in Paris at the Ecole National Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs ( EN ...

, painter *

Claude Closky Claude Closky (born 22 May 1963) is a French Contemporary Artist who lives and works in Paris, France. Reception Closky won the "Grand prix des Arts plastiques" (1999) and the Marcel Duchamp Prize (2005) awarded by the ADIAF. Dike Blair wrot ...

, artist * Paul Coze, artist *

Leon Dabo Leon Dabo (July 9, 1864 – November 7, 1960) was an American tonalist landscape artist best known for his paintings of New York, particularly the Hudson Valley. His paintings were known for their feeling of spaciousness, with large areas of t ...

, painter * Léon Delarbre, painter, museum curator *

Philippe Dupuy Philippe Dupuy (born 12 December 1960, Sainte-Adresse) and Charles Berbérian (born 28 May 1959, Baghdad) are French cartoonists most famous for their series of Franco-Belgian comics albums featuring the character ''Monsieur Jean''. Their collab ...

, cartoonist * Benoît-Pierre Émery, graphic designer * Vincent Ferniot, actor, presenter, writer * Jean-Paul Goude, photographer and director * René Georges Hermann-Paul, artist and illustrator * John Howe, illustrator and author *

Camille Henrot Camille Henrot (born 1978) is a French artist who lives and works in Paris and New York. Biography Henrot was born in 1978 in Paris, France. She attended the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs where she studied film animation and s ...

, artist *

Pierre Huyghe Pierre Huyghe (born 11 September 1962) is a French artist who works in a variety of media from films and sculptures to public interventions and living systems. Education Pierre Huyghe (pronounced ''hweeg'') was born in Paris in 1962. He lives a ...

, artist * Jean Jansem, painter *

Marcel Ichac Marcel Ichac (22 October 1906 - 9 April 1994) was a French alpinist, explorer, photographer and film director. Born in Rueil, France, Ichac was one of the first people to introduce electronic music in cinema with Ondes Martenot for ''Karakora ...

, director and photographer *

Richard Isanove Richard Isanove (born 1968) is a French artist and painter working in the American comic book industry. Early life Richard Isanove was born in the south of France, studied film and animation at the Ecole nationale superieure des arts decoratifs ...

, cartoonist *

Claire Keane Claire Keane (born March 1, 1979) is an author and illustrator and visual development artist who contributed to the Disney films '' Enchanted'', ''Tangled'', ''Wreck-It Ralph'' and '' Frozen''. She is the daughter of Disney animator Glen Keane and ...

, illustrator *

Fernand Léger Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as " tubism") which he gradually modified into a more figurative, p ...

, artist *

Georges Léonnec Georges Léonnec (1881 – 1940), the brother of the novelist Félix Léonnec, began his career as a cartoonist selling drawings to newspapers in 1899. After participating in World War I he worked as an illustrator for the magazine ''La Vie Pa ...

, illustrator *

Annette Messager Annette Messager (born 30 November 1943) is a French visual artist. In 2005 she won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Biennale for her artwork at the French Pavilion. In 2016, she won the prestigious Praemium Imperiale International Arts Award. ...

, artist *

Morteza Momayez Morteza Momayez ( fa, مرتضی ممیز; August 26, 1936 – October 25, 2005) was an Iranian graphic designer. He was one of the founders of Iranian Graphic Design Society (IGDS) and held a membership to Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI ...

, graphic designer * Fernand Mourlot, lithographer, publisher *

Thierry Mugler Manfred Thierry Mugler (; 21 December 1948 – 23 January 2022) was a French fashion designer, creative director and creative adviser of Mugler. In the 1970s, Mugler launched his eponymous fashion house; and quickly rose to prominence in the fo ...

, fashion designer *

Victor Nicolas Victor Edmond Nicolas (2 February 1906 – 16 July 1979) was a French sculptor. Biography Victor Nicolas was born in Brignoles, the son of Nicolas Bertin (1879–1918), professor of mathematics Mort pour la France, and Victorine Tardieu ( ...

, sculptor *

Francis Picabia Francis Picabia (: born Francis-Marie Martinez de Picabia; 22January 1879 – 30November 1953) was a French avant-garde painter, poet and typographist. After experimenting with Impressionism and Pointillism, Picabia became associated with Cubism ...

, artist * Arthur de Pins, director of the 2000 animated short film '' Geraldine'' *

Charles Ethan Porter Charles Ethan Porter (1847 – March 6, 1923) was an American painter who specialized in still life painting. A student at the National Academy of Design in New York City, he was one of the first African Americans to exhibit there. He was the onl ...

, painter * Robert Poughéon, painter * Alfred-Georges Regner, painter engraver *

Pierre Roy Pierre Roy (born March 12, 1952) is a Canadian retired professional ice hockey player who played 316 games in the World Hockey Association. He played for the Quebec Nordiques, Cincinnati Stingers, and New England Whalers New is an adjective re ...

, painter *

Émile Savitry Émile Savitry (1903–1967) was a French photographer and painter. Early life Born in Saigon, in 1903, into the wealthy colonial industrialist family of Felix Marius Alphonse Dupont and Cecile Leonie Audra, Émile renamed himself Savitry to go a ...

, painter, photographer *

Jacques Tardi Jacques Tardi (; born 30 August 1946) is a French comic artist. He is often credited solely as Tardi. Biography Tardi was born on 30 August 1946 in Valence, Drôme. After graduating from the École nationale des beaux-arts de Lyon and the Éco ...

, cartoonist *

Raymond Templier Raymond Templier (22 April 1891 - 22 May 1968) was a French jewellery designer. He is best known for his Cubic Art Deco and abstract designs in the 1920s and 1930s. He built coral reefs as well. Early life Templier was born into a family of jewell ...

, jewelry designer *

Adrien Voisin Adrien Alexandre Voisin (1890–1979), was an American sculptor. He was known for his bronze work, and had been one of the lead architectural sculptors at Hearst Castle. Early life and education Adrien Alexandre Voisin was born on May 8, 1979 i ...

(1890–1979), American sculptor. * Jean-Didier Wolfromm, critic, writer

References

External links

Official ENSAD Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ecole nationale superieure des arts decoratifs Art schools in Paris Design schools in France Decorative arts Grands établissements University of Paris 1766 establishments in France Schools in Paris Educational institutions established in 1766