Tuesday, March 17, 2015

The magic that was Geoffrey Bennison


I'm very glad to finally have this book but what struck me is how slim it is compared to many a designer monograph about people still living and who are much younger now than Geoffrey Bennison was when he died thirty-one years ago. The book's slimness does rather belie the excellent quality of its contents. The problem, of course, is that Geoffrey Bennison died relatively young (sixty-three years old) and his oeuvre is small – yet Gillian Newberry did not subtitle her book about Bennison Master Decorator for nothing, so full of treasures is it.


I have written a number of times about Bennison (see sidebar Labels) including him as a member of the Lost Generation though his name was not forgotten, as are the names of many. The author of this book, with others, kept the Bennison name in front of the public through his fabric designs and now, splendidly, with this book. 
   

In the introduction, John Richardson, calls his friend Geoffrey Bennison "England's best decorator" and this book goes a long way to proving his point. Bennison, however camp he might have been in his humor and way of commenting at life, was no satin britches, powder and patch kind of decorator.

I'll keep my opinion to myself as to whether or not he was the best but see how many times I have written about him. I sought photographs of the Lord Weidenfeld rooms above for a long time, having glimpsed them once but never found them, and here they are in all their literary splendor. Some of my favorite Bennison rooms.

A 19th-century automaton of a seated pasha 
which smokes a hookah and raises a coffee cup to its lips
In Bennison's living room

This is a book entirely worth having. Believe me, you will pore over it and go back to it time after time. It is a treasure.  

I'm making this recommendation purely for the pleasure of doing so – my only recompense. Oh, and I bought my copy here

14 comments:

  1. Wow it really must be good then! I'm definitely going to purchase this from my wish list ASAP!

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    1. I have bought three books on decorators in the last few months and this is the third. Two are living and in different ways brilliant – Chester Jones and Jean-Louis Denoit – but perhaps because I've waited thirty years for a book about Bennison I think it the best of all.

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  2. Thank you for this. I always appreciate your recommendations. The last picture of the automaton is charming. It reminds me of one my favorite movies, "Sleuth." In it, Laurence Olivier's character has quite an impressive collection.

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  3. gésbi, I have never seen "Sleuth" and shall seek it out. It has been remade but I'll watch the older one first. Automata are fascinating and who, nowadays, thinks about them? Thank you.

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    1. I was interested in the remake naturally since Michael Caine who played the role of the younger man takes on the role played by Olivier , however the preview was less than inspiring. See the original! Do tell me what you think if you see the remake. I didn't have the courage but I just might be wrong.

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  4. Bennison had a great talent for pulling it all together, that trait lacking even in many professional interior designers. There is such an appearance of effortless arrangement that makes it all so comfortable, even in formal surroundings.

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    1. The Devoted Classicist, thank you. Yes, orchestrating a room is a talent rare enough to have much nonsense spoken and written about it. I looked at a room the other day by one of Atlanta's "finest" and realized I was looking at yet another hotel room equivalent - so easy to pull together.

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  5. Weidenfeld's art collection is quite stunning, as one might expect. Although I have seen a Bacon exhibition, (at the Tate, I think, but it could have been the National Gallery), I can appreciate him much better when his Pope Innocent X is in this setting.

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    1. columnist, thank you. The Bacon picture of Innocent X looks splendid in that room and quite at home - more so than the original portrait in Rome, pushed off to the side as it is.

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  6. Isn't it nice to have Geoffrey Bennison's name on the design radar once again? That his work had depth, which set it apart, might have something to do with his skills as an artist. I recall a WOI article about Peter Glenville's
    apartment (NY, but it looked as if it might have been situated in Paris) in which Geoffrey was quoted as saying, What a lovely dado, do let's get it marbleised..and then, according to Peter Glenville, carrying out that task himself.

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  7. Toby Worthington, thank you. WoI, May 1985 Glenville quotes Bennison as saying " .... Very classical, dear, and above all masculine. Oh, and I like this dado hugely, let's get it marbleised." As you say, Bennison carried out the work himself and it "was (and is) a minor chef-d'oeuvre in grey, mauve and white with flecks of mustard yellow."

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  8. My husband is traveling this week, and I have laid in provisions and Geoffrey Bennison's book is the top of my treat for me list. It arrived Saturday and I resisted dropping every thing to read it because I wanted to savor the experience. So looking forward to it.

    As for the condition of the world which is devolving in front of our eyes faster than the speed of light, one simply has to sigh, retreat to spaces and places where the past is loved and knowledge was a quest rather than a google.

    ps: Gobsmacked indeed. A well deserved valentine.

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    1. home before dark, thank you. I'm in one of those places right now – you and I both are, I know – and it occurs to me now you are a wise woman to have chosen such an online nom-de-plume as "home before dark." It is my favorite.

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  9. Dear Blue,
    Your sense and sensibility so welcome. Was at
    Fairchild memorial service on Monday...end of an era.
    Thanks for being here.

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