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René Prou was born in Nantes in 1889. Upon leaving the Ecole Bernard-Palissy, he designed his first works in 1908 for the Gouffé company, where he later became the shop foreman. His style was marked by great simplicity, and he used exotic woods, shagreen, lacquer, and shell. He opened his own shop shortly before the 1925 Exposition of Decorative Arts, where he showed his creations. Around 1930, he started using metal in his furniture, chairs, and lights, and gave new impetus to wrought-iron furniture, which he had built by Edgar Brandt, Raymond Subes, and other craftsmen. He opened a store in Paris in 1937, then decorated several ocean liners, the Pullman cars on the Blue Train, the dining room of New York City’s Waldorf Astoria, and a room at the League of Nations in Geneva. He passed away in 1947.
