Elsie De Wolfe: The Birth of Modern Decoration

From Publishers Weekly
An actress and social climber with a love for the dramatic, Elsie de Wolfe defined interior decorating from the gilded age through two world wars, the jazz age and the onset of modernism. She began with the residence she shared with companion and theatrical manager Elisabeth Marbury and expanded her client list to include newly moneyed Americans looking for social respectability via graceful, 18th-century-inspired interiors: Anne Morgan, Condé Nast, Henry Clay Frick, J. Pierpont Morgan, Anne Vanderbilt and the Duchess of Windsor. In her later career, she traded in genteel American aristocracy for rising Hollywood stars such as Ethel Barrymore and Gary Cooper. Sparke proceeds through these chintz-draped residences of the "smart set" like any good docent: a touch of background followed by a detailed tour: "De Wolfe was extremely particular about the equipment of dressing rooms and boudoirs. Many drawers were needed to contain letter-writing equipment, among other things, to save having to go into another room to get them. A hollow table on casters was also thought to be an asset in a dressing room, as were a heated towel rack, a wall cabinet, lots of shelves and hooks, and a shallow bottle closet. The wall had to be lined with closets, painted with bright colors inside and 'fitted with perfumed pads.' Even the clothes hangers had to be covered with chintz." In a large format coffee-table book illustrated with 273 black-and-white and just 12 color archival photographs and illustrations, descriptions do as good a job as possible of providing the reader with a sense of the mauves and greens that were a hallmark of de Wolfe's work. Well-written-Sparke and Owens manage to keep what could have been repetitious accounts of Chinoiserie panels and rococo bibelots varied and interesting-it is the most thorough accounting of de Wolfe's work to date.

Book Description
"I am going in now for interior decoration. By that I mean supplying objets d'art and giving advice regarding the decoration of their houses to wealthy persons who do not have the time, inclination, nor culture to do such work for themselves. It is nothing new. Women have done the same thing before." Elsie de Wolfe Authored by English Decorative Arts Scholar Penny Sparke and edited by New York Times and Elle Decor contributor Mitchell Owens, this large format, profusely illustrated book provides the foundation of a renewed interest in the decorator's groundbreaking carrer, her philosophy of design, and her belief that an atmosphere of beauty could cure the world of ills.

From the Publisher
Elsie de Wolfe is a 20th-century legend and is the mother of modern interior decoration. Her name is familiar to many who practice the art of interior design or who are linked to the fashionable world of tastemaking. She provided appropriate settings for the "new rich" and in the process helped to shape our understanding of what we have come to know as the modern domestic interior. "Elsie de Wolfe: the Birth of Modern Interior Decoration" covers 29 projects (including Villa Trianon, the Colony Club, Anne Vanderbilt, Anne Morgan, the Duchess of Windsor, and J. Ogden Armour, to name a few) and concludes with the timeline of her works. The book presents the most in-deph look ever into the design aesthetic of this early 20th-century master decorator.

About the Author
Penny Sparke is Professor of Design History and Pro-Vice Chancellor of Kingston University, London. She is the outhor of over a dozen books on 20th-century design. her best known publications include "An Introduction to Design & Culture in the 20th Century", "Italian Design", "Japanese Design", and, most recently, "A Century of Design" and "A Century of Car Design". She has also curated a number of exhibitions and has broadcast widely on her specialist area. Mitchell Owens is a style and design correspondent for the New York Times, a consulting editor of Elle Decor, and a frequent contributor to Travel and Leisure. His work has been published in a variety of national and international publications, including Architectural Digest, Nest, The World of Interiors, The New York Times Magazine.


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