Adrien Audoux and Frida Minet for Vibo Vesail

ADRIEN AUDOUX (France) & FRIDA MINET (Switzerland) for Vibo Vesail.
Pair of armchairs, c. 1940.
Oak.
Signed and numbered.
Measurements: 72 x 63 x 65 cm (x2).
This pair of armchairs is one of the most representative creations by the design duo Adrien Audoux and Frida Minet. Produced by the firm Vibo Vesoul, they stand out for their innovative combination of bent oak and braided rope—humble materials that the designers elevated to the level of fine craftsmanship.
Adrien Audoux and Frida Minet were one of the most unique design duos in 20th-century French furniture design. Active primarily between the 1940s and 1960s, they developed their own design language based on the use of natural materials such as rattan, bamboo, abaca rope, raffia, and wood, deliberately moving away from the ornamental luxury of Art Deco to champion a more understated, functional aesthetic that was closer to nature.
The couple established their first workshop in Cannes in the late 1920s and, in 1942, moved their operations to Golfe-Juan on the French Riviera. Frida Minet came from a family of rattan furniture makers in Switzerland, a circumstance that had a decisive influence on the artisanal focus of their work. Audoux and Minet were members of the Union des Artistes Modernes (UAM), a collective founded in 1929 that championed accessible, functional design adapted to contemporary life. They shared this vision with figures such as Charlotte Perriand, Jean Prouvé, Pierre Chareau, and Francis Jourdain, exploring the expressive possibilities of humble materials through high-quality artisanal techniques. Many of their pieces were manufactured by the Vibo Vesoul company, while others were sold exclusively at their own store in Golfe-Juan, which explains the relative scarcity of original pieces on the market.