Pierre Paulin was born in Paris in 1927, where he later studied at the École Camondo, a school for interior design and architecture. He gained further experience in the atelier of Pierre Guariche and Michel Mortier.
Very quickly, this visionary artist understood that French design didn't evolve quickly with the new post-war lifestyles. In 1951, his trip to the Scandinavian countries marked him and his production forever. In addition, the discovery of companies that embraced this search for modernity early on, such as Knoll and Herman Miller, strongly inspired him.
Paulin took all of these influences home with him and by the late 1950s developed a style that combined modernity and comfort. During this period, Paulin was particularly interested in works made of wood by Scandinavian and American designers.
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In 1953, he exhibited in the Salon des Arts ménagers (the Household Arts Show), an annual home design exhibition in Paris. His creations were inspired by the simplicity and lightness of Scandinavian furniture and were intended as "products for young households", as he explained in a 2007 documentary.
Between 1954 and 1958, Pierre Paulin worked with Thonet, followed by a collaboration with the Dutch company Artifort, for which he designed over two hundred pieces of seating furniture.
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It was during this period that he patented a stretch jersey that would remove demarcations and seams of his creations, the idea of the material directly inspired by a swimsuit.
Little by little, the classic shapes of his furniture had to give way to new and organic shapes. The foam covers changed, adapted more and more to the human body and thus revolutionised the way of sitting. His Ribbon (1966), Mushroom (1963) and Tongue (1967) armchairs were very successful.
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In 1970, Pierre Paulin began working with Mobilier National. A year later he became internationally known when he designed various pieces of furniture for the Elysée Palace on behalf of President Georges Pompidou, which were to mark "France's entry into modernity".
In 1975, he and his wife Maïa founded ADSA, the first French agency for global design.
Despite belated recognition (MoMA was the first museum to dedicate an exhibition to him in the mid-1960s), the mythical creations of Pierre Paulin are now exhibited in the largest design museums. In 2015, the Perrotin gallery devoted an exhibition of several weeks to him, while in 2016, The Centre Pompidou presented a major retrospective spanning nearly 8,000 ft².