A Conversation with Guillaume Coutheillas

Guillaume Coutheillas is a Paris-born, New York City–based interior designer and the Founder and Creative Director of frenchCALIFORNIA, a design studio creating timeless, globally inspired interiors. The firm specializes in luxury residential design, including turnkey renovations, interior furnishings, art curation, and model residence staging, while also taking on select commercial and exhibition projects. ​As a returning member of our Design + Art Advisory Council, Guillaume joined us for a rapid-fire round of questions on inspiring design eras and movements, emerging artists he thinks everyone should know, and more.

Art + Design

Favorites 

If you could add one museum piece to your personal collection, what would it be?

A Jean Cocteau fresco from the Chapelle Saint-Pierre in Villefranche-sur-Mer. It carries that rare mix of intimacy and mythology—and would bring a piece of the South of France’s Mediterranean light back to New York.

Which design era or movement most inspires you right now?

The postwar Côte d’Azur years, when artists like Picasso, Léger, and Cocteau made the South of France their studio. Raw terracotta, ceramics, sun-bleached plaster—it was a moment when art and life were indistinguishable.

Who is an emerging artist or designer you think everyone should know?

Shoshanna Wayne Gallery is bringing amazing work from Yveline Tropéa, whose recent works incorporate rare Murano beads from the 1940s. Her portraits illustrate a connection between her Sicilian heritage and her engagement with West African traditions.

If you could collaborate with any artist or designer, living or dead, who would it be?

Diego Giacometti. His bronze furniture embodies a poetic restraint that resonates with how I think about interiors: environments of quiet drama.

What’s your favorite space you’ve ever visited for its design or art alone?

The Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence. Walking through gardens dotted with Miró sculptures, Calder mobiles, and Giacometti figures feels like inhabiting a dreamscape—a seamless dialogue between art, architecture, and nature. (Did you see the Jacquemus fashion show there? Extraordinary.)

Lifestyle

What’s the first piece of art or design you ever purchased?

A painting by my brother, Parisian mixed-media artist Sébastien Coutheillas.

What’s your ideal weekend in New York City?

A morning at the Noguchi Museum in Long Island City, an afternoon wandering Chelsea galleries, especially Dia Chelsea, where they have an amazing Duane Linklater show up right now, and an evening at home with friends—candles lit, music playing, a table layered with vintage ceramics and good French wine.

Plugs

What’s a project from the past year that pushed you creatively?

Our work for a private client who purchased a full-floor residence in a building designed by Sir Norman Foster. We layered high-rise New York modernism with a Parisian sensibility—playing with light, texture, and color, and treating art as an integral, lived experience.

Which upcoming exhibition is on your must-see list?

The Salon Art + Design fair itself—where else do you find Lalanne, Zanele Muholi, and today’s most exciting collectible design in one space? And the Gerhard Richter retrospective at the Fondation Louis Vuitton is at the very top of my list.

Where can people see your work next?

In multiple private homes across New York City, Long Island, and the Bay Area—and at the Salon Art + Design fair, where we’re helping Galerie Lerebours design their booth. Stay tuned.