By Odile Hainaut, WantedDesign co-founder

In September 2021, it was with immense sadness that Claire and I learned that French designer Pauline Deltour passed away. We cannot imagine how devastating this is for her family, friends and team. We also want to note how painful of a loss this is for the design community, and for us, who had the chance to collaborate with her as part of the Transatlantic Creative Exchange several years ago.

In 2017 we presented this special project as part of the Transatlantic Creative Exchange presented at WantedDesign Brooklyn with the Cultural Services of the French Embassy.

As part of the Transatlantic Creative Exchange project, Pauline worked with the Corning Museum of Glass Hot Glass Demo Team with live demonstrations in the Amphitheater Hot Shop on December 13–15, 2016.

“I was very fortunate to be able to spend time working with Pauline at the Corning Museum of Glass. I am always amazed to encounter someone so humbly gifted who can take a material with a 4,000 year history and immediately make it their own. The objects created in that week were truly unique, beautifully simplistic and technically quite challenging. She showed us a new facet of the material we love, an impression that will last on the whole team here,” said Eric Meek, Senior Manager of the Hot Glass Programs at Corning Museum of Glass (CMoG). 

Pauline Deltour was born in 1983, in Landerneau, France. She graduated from ENSAD (EcoleNationaleSupérieur des Arts Décoratifs) in 2007. She worked for 4 years for Konstantin Grcic in Munich, Germany, before opening her own design studio in Paris in 2011.

From New York, where both Claire and I have been based for more than 2 decades, we have always been passionate about initiating transatlantic connections. Discovering and following promising French designers who could develop collaborations in the US is a priority and exciting for us. For this residency project with Corning Glass, Pauline was the first designer on our list, as well as the top choice for the team at Corning. 

Without hesitation, she said “yes” to our invitation, with the only caveat that she could manage to leave her baby and her teaching at ENSAD during her stay in the US. She was the most curious and passionate person: strong and delicate, creative with generosity and empathy, humble and gifted. Her week at Corning resulted in a collection of beautiful original pieces, revisiting the cane technique of glass-making and challenging the team at Corning, who had not explored this technique for a long time. 

On her way back to Paris, stopping in New York City, Pauline shared with us how much she loved her time at Corning. Not only for the beauty of working with glass, but also for the cultural and human experience, the people she met in this small village of upstate New York, and the warm welcome she received from the Corning team.

What seemed to be essential for Pauline was to put humanity first. She left too soon, but we can still feel her luminous presence and admire her creativity in looking at her beautiful glass collection.

“I definitely want to do more with glass,” Pauline said in January 2017. “It’s very alive. Very unperfected, but that’s what makes the beauty of it. It’s the imperfection and it’s all made by hand. I find it very rare that you can do this work by hand, it’s fantastic.” 

Pauline will be dearly missed. You can learn more about Pauline Deltour and the Pauline Deltour Design Office at www.paulinedeltour.com