Meret Oppenheim

Meret Oppenheim (1913-1985) was a Swiss artist of German origins, the muse of the surrealist movement. She grew up in an environment rich in cultural stimuli, she was interested in art and psychoanalysis from an early age. She moved to Paris at the age of eighteen, she immediately entered the cultural milieu of the time, frequenting artists and writers such as Hans Arp, Alberto Giacometti, André Breton and Max Ernst. She soon became the most relevant female figure in the surrealist movement, which explored the unconscious and dreams through a dreamlike reversal of reality. She created prominent works such as the sculptures Déjeuner en fourrure and Ma Gouvernante and she was a model in some of Man Ray's most famous shots. In 1939 she also designed "fantastic furnishings" for an exhibition at Leo Castelli's gallery, including the "Coffee Table with Bird Legs" which was later rediscovered and brought to success in the 1970s by Dino Gavina with the re-edition for the Ultramobile collection of his Simon International (now merged into Cassina).