Olivia Putman

Olivia Putman
Nationality	French
Awards	Dream Garden Prize at the Garden Festival of Saint-Cloud 2000
Work
Practice	Studio Putman

Olivia Putman is a French designer, daughter to Andrée Putman and heir to her mother's design studio, Studio Putman. Her works range from interior architecture to scenography and design.

Biography

Olivia Putman grew up in Paris with her mother, Andrée Putman, a designer, and her father Jacques Putman, an art collector, editor and critic. Through family acquaintances and her teenage nights at Le Palace, she got to meet the most eclectic figures of the artistic scene of those days, including Andy Warhol and Yves Saint-Laurent. She befriended Christian Louboutin and Vincent Darré.

Career

After graduating from high school, Putman completed a bachelor’s degree in art history in 1987, at the Paris-Sorbonne University. She then divided her time and workspace between Paris and New York. She became the agent of the Ivorian painter Ouattara Watts, and Jean-Charles de Castelbajac introduced her to the modern art icon Jean-Michel Basquiat, whom she counted among her friends until he died. For her first time as curator of an exhibition in 1988, the gallery owner Leo Castelli lent Putman some art pieces. Le chiffre dans l’art contemporain (The figure in contemporary art) was then on display at the Parc Floral, in Vincennes, east of Paris.

This first exhibition gained Putman popularity and she started working with the association Usines Ephémères, which converts disused urban spaces into studios and exhibition sites. In 1990, the group transformed 161 450 square feet (15 000 m²) of the former Bretonneau Hospital in the 18th district of Paris, thus becoming the Ephemeral Hospital.

Landscape architecture (1994-2006)

Putman was drawn to Land Art ever since she met Christian Louboutin, a botanic fanatic. In 1994, she created temporary gardens combining art and agriculture with Jean-Paul Ganem, such as mixed fields of flax and lupin at Saint-Juire-Champgillon, in the west of France. At this stage, Putman was an active artist and started studying landscape management in 1995, to assert herself as such. She worked alongside the landscape architect Louis Benech when he was in charge, amongst other things, of the lay out of the Tuileries Garden.

In 1997, Olivia Putman started as a freelancer and flew to Japan to design her first private garden. Public acknowledgement of her talent only took a few years. Her work for perfume creator Caron was awarded the Dream Garden Prize at the Garden Festival of Saint-Cloud in 2000. Putman also joined forces from time to time with her mother's design studio, Studio Andrée Putman, as a landscape architect. On such occasions, like the Pagoda House project in Tel Aviv or for Marc Jacobs in Paris, she would focus on the gardens and terraces.

Studio Putman

Satisfying a longstanding wish of the founder ^[1] of Studio Andrée Putman, Olivia Putman became the art director of the company ^[2]. In 2007, she followed the renovation of the Morgans Hotel in New York. From 2007 to 2011, she won a Nespresso contest designing the Ritual collection^[3], created furniture for Fermob, Emeco, or Serralunga, and Le Rivage hotel in Hong Kong ^[4]. Putman also invented two scenographies : one for the Madeleine Vionnet exhibition at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris, the second for the French singer [Christophe (singer)|Christophe]]]. Since January 2011, Olivia also collaborates with Lalique.

Personal

Putman has two children, Julien and Noé, and in 2010 married Parisian auctioneer Christophe Joron Derem.

External links

• (English) Studio Putman's website
• (French) Le Palace
• Usines Éphémères

Notes and references

1. ^ (French)Interview Paris Match 20/11/10
2. ^ Interview Modem Mag december 2010
3. ^ Interview Nespresso Magazine 2010
4. ^ Le Rivage: French in the best way, CNN International, 10/11/09

Persondata
Name	Putman, Olivia
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