HUBERT LE GALL
A giraffe-shaped chimney painted matte black; an enormous potted plant that splits into two armchairs; a chest of drawers with hoofed legs and a bull’s head; a ready-made faux plaster fireplace incorporating a clock and flower vases—bienvenue to the world of Hubert le Gall, a rising star in the sparkling firmament of Parisian bespoke furniture.

Le Gall, 40, began his career as an exhibition designer for museums such as the Musée du Luxembourg and for shows in such lofty locations as the Grand Palais. But having always been an artist (he is a painter and sculptor), le Gall was soon making furniture, both for himself and his friends. For his first piece, he used dozens of metal daisies, subtly gold, to envelop a chest of drawers—making it appear as though they were growing from the chest’s branchlike legs. A sense of fun and frivolity pervades all of le Gall’s furniture, but his work also manages to be sophisticated, thought-provoking and (above all) finely crafted.

Entirely self-taught, le Gall finds inspiration in the Surrealist movement—Dali’s melting clocks, Cocteau and the arm sconces in Beauty and the Beast—and in the art of Max Ernst and the elongated forms of Giacometti. He is also inspired by the work of Louise Bourgeois, Francis Bacon and Franciso Clemente. Despite these legendary influences, le Gall’s fanciful furniture resonates, not in a historian’s monotone, but in an eccentric painter’s giggle.