Georges Rémy was a senior designer at Cartier Paris from the 1930s into the 1960s, part of the small group of designers mentored by Jeanne Toussaint whose collaboration with her produced the Cartier Bestiary of animal jewels and the post-war revival of the Paris workshop. Working alongside Pierre Lemarchand and Lucien Lachassagne (he and Lachassagne shared an office in the Paris design studio for years), he became known among collectors as the "King of Rings" for the small, sculptural ring designs that came to define the Paris workshop's mid-century output.
His rings were among the pieces that brought the Paris workshop back to life after the austerity of the war years. Cartier had been making ceremonial swords for new members of the Académie française since 1934 (the first was for François Mauriac), and Rémy was selected as the designer for several of them, each one requiring extended conversations with the future academician about his life's work, an unusual brief for a jeweller. His clients during the same period included Barbara Hutton and the Duchess of Windsor.
Rémy spent the early years of the war as a prisoner in a Polish camp, returning to Paris only at Christmas 1943. His full story, including the years of captivity that left a lasting mark on him, is in The Cartiers, ch. 9.
Sources
- Francesca Cartier Brickell, The Cartiers (Ballantine Books, 2019), pp. 313, 405–406, 459–460, 461, 507
- Hans Nadelhoffer, Cartier: Jewelers Extraordinary (Thames and Hudson, 1984; revised 2007)
- Macklowe Gallery, "Highlighting Women Makers: Jeanne Toussaint and Cartier's Preeminent Jewels"
- Esprit Joaillerie, "L'épée d'académicien"
