File:Doors detail 02 - Séraphin Soudbinine and Jean Dunand (38944029104).jpg

Detail of a door on display as part of the "Jazz Age" exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art in Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States.

Séraphin Soudbinine (also known as Serafim Nikolayevich Sudbinin; 1867-1944) was born in Nizhny Novgorod, Imperial Russia. He trained as an actor at the Moscow Art Theatre under Stanislavsky. In the early 1900s, Sudbinin became interested in painting, photography, and sculpture, focusing on sculpture after a visit to Paris in 1904. He relocated to France and studied under Leopold Sinaeff-Bernstein until 1906 and Auguste Rodin. Rodin was so impressed with him that he made the Russian his assistant. His first exhibit was at the Salon d'Automne in 1908. After the 1917 Communist revolution, Sudbinin moved permanently to Paris. He visited the United States from 1922 to 1924. He remained in Paris during World War II, during which his studio was destroyed in an air raid.

Jean Dunand (1877-1942) was born in Lancy, Switzerland, as Jules-John Dunand. He studied sculpture at the Geneva School of Industrial Arts, graduating in 1896. He moved to Paris to continue his studies at the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs. He became an interior designer, and was elected to the Société Nationale des Beaux Arts in 1905. About 1910, he began working with Japanese laquerist Seizo Sugawara to learn lacquer techniques, an art form long abandoned in France. He became a naturalized French citizen in 1922. He was considered the greatest Art Deco lacquerist in France, working in a range of stayles that included Cubist-like and Art Nouveau-like genres.

These doors were commissioned by Alaskan gold magnate Solomon Guggenheim and his wife, Irene (nee Rothschild) in 1924. This was two years before Guggenheims began collecting modern art.

Isaac Guggenheim, Solomon's brother, purchased the Sands Point estate in Port Washington, Long Island, New York, in 1916 and began construction of a manor house there. It was completed in 1918. Isaac died in 1922, and the property was purchased in 1924 by Solomon. The Guggenheims wanted these doors for their music room, and two lacquer screens in a matching style were included in the commission.

The doors, made between 1925 and 1926, are of carved, joined, and lacquered wood; eggshell; mother-of-pearl; gold leaf; and cast bronze.

1. CMAJazzAge