Pierre Jeanneret

Henri Ingber was born in Poland and emigrated to France at the age of 18 to study physics and aeronautics in Paris.  During World War II, he made many contributions to the Allied war effort, including creating an undetectable method of ship-to-ship communication.  He became a naturalized French citizen and an officer in the military and thus pursued his research in army laboratories. 

In 1939, Ingber fled to Algiers but quickly returned to France in an effort to help the resistance in Marseille.  To that end, he installed himself in Grenoble organizing their radio communications.  Pierre Jeanneret had an atelier in the same city, and there the two met and became close friends.

Continuing his research, Ingber developed warhead technology for the French army, and after the war, he was rewarded with an atelier in Puteaux, a residence in Neuilly, and an apartment in Paris.  Ingber turned to Jeanneret, who had been of considerable support to him during the war, to decorate the interiors.  Between 1946 and 1950, Jeanneret made many pieces for Ingber, including cabinets, benches, chests of drawers, dining room and bedroom suites, and office furniture, some in ebonized wood, as Ingber requested, and others in a natural finish, as Jeanneret preferred. 

Ingber’s immediate family perished during the war, and upon his own death in 1994, he bequeathed his furnishings to his surviving relatives.