CERA, Rene Alexandre Paul (1895-1992), a highly influential interior designer and decorator who lived and worked in Montreal and Toronto, and who was singularly responsible for introducing the art moderne style to hundreds of commercial, retail and residential clients in Canada. In association with the T. Eaton Department Store chain, he served as director of their Interior Design department, staging public exhibitions, displays and sales of furniture and interiors using designs developed by leading European modernist designers from 1928 until his retirement in 1960.
Born in Nice, France on 15 April 1895, he studied art and architecture at the Nice School of Art. After serving with the French Army during WWI, he returned to Paris and resumed his architectural education in the ateliers of Victor Laloux (1850-1937), with Gaston Redon (1853-1921), and with Charles Le Moresque (1870-1972). By 1923, however, he was completely smitten by the startling modernism of the young architect Le Corbusier, and he was appointed director of the House of Martine, the architectural branch of the fashion house of Paul Poiret (1879-1944). Cera participated in the design and construction of several pavilions at the landmark 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs in Paris, and was credited as the first man to install an art moderne shop front in Paris. He later prepared the designs for the “Suite De Luxe” on the ocean liner “Ile de France”, launched in March 1926.
In 1928 he was invited by the T. Eaton Department Store company to come to Canada and to take up the post in Montreal as the resident “French Moderne Art Decorator” (Montreal Gazette, 15 November 1928, 9, advert.). Originally intended as a year-long appointment, the stock market crash of October 1929 would change his plans, and he remained in Canada for the next 30 years, pushing the T. Eaton company to the forefront of interior design and decoration for the retail sector across the country. In 1929 he staged an important public exhibition entitled “The House of Today” at the T. Eaton Store in Calgary Alberta, which received extensive coverage in the national press, including the journal Canadian Homes & Gardens [Toronto], vi, June 1929, 17-20, 51, illus. & descrip.; and Oct. 1929, 13-14, 40-41, illus. & descrip., and in the Toronto Daily Star, 4 Sept. 1929, 37, illus. & descrip. In Toronto, this same journal also featured an illustrated article showing his “moderne” re-decoration of the apartment for Harry A. Rowe, on Oriole Parkway, Toronto, 1930 (C.H.G., vii, April 1930, 31, illus.).
Although he was not a registered architect, Cera played an important role in disseminating ideas about contemporary European architectural design in Canada, and he often hired young architects in his Toronto office to assist with preparation of drawings and exhibition displays. One of his staff in 1937 was J. Frank Brennan, who later opened his own office in Toronto. During WWII, Cera was placed in charge of the design of all the public display windows in the Eaton’s College Street store in Toronto. After WWII, he concentrated on the design of several new stores for T. Eaton Co, including those in Gander, Nfld., Charlottetown, P.E.I., and remodelling of the store in Moncton, N.B., the remodelling and enlargement of the store in Hamilton, Ont., and renovations to the Georgian Room Restaurant at the Eaton flagship store in Toronto. When the old David Spencer Store in Vancouver was taken over by the T. Eaton Co., he designed the interiors, including the famous Marine Room Restaurant, with its outstanding panoramic views of Vancouver Harbour and the mountains beyond.
Cera was also active as an artist, and was the subject of a one-man exhibition held at the Hart House Gallery at the Univ. of Toronto in 1959 (Globe & Mail [Toronto], 6 June 1959, 15). He was elected to the Legion of Honour in France in March 1959 for his services to French culture and art. Cera retired in 1960 and he and his wife Elizabeth moved to Lenox, Massachusetts where he remained active as a painter. A detailed biography and photographic portrait of Cera was published in The Berkshire Eagle [Pittsfield, Mass.], 4 March 1977, 6). Cera later died in Lenox on 20 April 1992 (inf. and correspondence with Mr. Rene Cera, July 1983; inf. Mrs. Elizabeth Cera, Lenox, Mass.)