There was a child went forth every day

The last two weeks seem to have been – witness my new waistline – nothing more than a round of lunches, dinners and, ultimately, a reception given by a good friend, celebrating our wedding. Bemused as we both still are about our new legal state and suffering, variously, from indigestion, hangover and, in my case, occasional bad temper, it has proved difficult to knuckle down and continue my posts about timelessness in decorating.  (By the way, in this photograph I'm the one at the back in the Liberace wig and the botox.)

One thing I have done, though, is look through the blog for posts when I have used the word "timeless" and have come up with a few examples for, seemingly, I have been concerned for quite a while with interiors "standing the test of time". A reader pointed out that for him the rooms by David Mlinaric in the last post were redolent of the 1980s and though for me they were not – Post-Modernism and English Country House Style is what I associate with those years – I have given and continue to give his reaction some thought. The following, which I quote from here, I wrote three years ago 

"It never ceases to impress me how some interiors, at their creation completely contemporary, do not date and retain that quality of here today here tomorrow. Why some interiors look dated and why some do not is a question occasionally on my mind and if I have reached a conclusion it is this: when a decorator trysts with or construes contemporary interpretations of living, it is at this point that the spectre of senescence begins to take form as an identifiable characteristic of a period.

To my mind, one of the characteristics of good 20th century decorating is a refusal to draw the curtains against the philistine dark but instead to embrace the best of global aesthetic culture. It's an axiom, a "truth universally acknowledged" to say that the best of one period will fit with the best of another, and whilst this is totally debatable, as a maxim, assuming we all agree what is the best of ...... well, you know the rest of that argument."

Today, thus, I'm giving a few images from past posts (all photographs from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s) that illustrate my interpretation of timelessness – there yesterday and here today. 

Kalef Alaton

Alberto Pinto 

Arthur E Smith 

Geoffrey Bennison

 Roderick Cameron

Antony Childs 

There was a child went forth every day,

And the first object he looked upon and received with wonder,

pity, love, or dread, that object he became,

And that object became part of him for the day, for a certain part

of the day, and for many years, or stretching cycles of years.

William Baldwin 

Generally speaking, all the rooms I consider to have stood the test of time have a certain asceticism – I have referred to it as absence – a refusal to fill space for the sake of it. The other day, I came across the quotation (above in Italics) in my favorite book of the moment Art in Everyday Life. A book written at  a time when concepts such as good taste and character were not snigger-inducing, it is proving a salutary experience to revisit the principles and opinions underlying my training as both a graphic and interior designer: to read the unselfconscious acceptance of those verities considered eternal before marketing, branding and cult of personality removed any need for them. The quotation above from Leaves of Grass begins the following from Art in Everyday Life. 

"Mere belongings have a tremendous influence in forming character. It would take an unusually strong character to remain true to high ideals of truth and sincerity if dishonesty were the keynote of the home surroundings. Such things as wall paper and metal made to simulate wood; too shiny fabrics imitating costly damask – all these would be avoid if there significance were understood.

"Unfortunately, quality in things is more or less intangible – as difficult to define as personality in an individual – but the outstanding feathers can be recognized and classified. With the eyes opened one very quickly reaches the point where every picture, every piece of furniture, or drapery pattern speaks its note of social grace or friendly domesticity, vigor, or fineness. Louis XIV, Louis XV, and Napoleon told as much about themselves in the furniture and decorations with which they like to surround themselves as we are able to learn from historical records. Similarly, we are better acquainted with people after a short time spent in their home, surrounded by their own things, than we would be in a long time spent  with them in a hotel or any other impersonal setting.

"If the reader happens to be one who has never realized that the things people chose tell about their character and their ideals, let him think for a few moments about impressions which he has received at the theater. The curtain rose, let us say, upon a living room; before anyone came on to the stage the audience formed a very definite idea of the kind of people who would be at home in that room; and, if the stage decorator understood his craft the people would prove to be just about what was expected. If a stage setting shows a living room with glaring lights, florid wallpaper and rugs, showy lace curtains, and overdecorated lamps, one expects the people who live there to come on stage in flashy clothes and using a great deal of common, unpicturesque slang. Suppose, however, that the setting shows a room with soft and mellow lights, yellow walls, rugs with subdued and harmonious coloring, thin white glass curtains with attractive chintz over curtains at the windows, well-designed furniture, with some comfortable chairs in front of an open fire, plenty of books, flowers, a few good pictures and decorative objects that catch the light and create points of interest. The audience would expect the people who live in this room to be tastefully dressed, well-bred, and charming.

One of the wondrous things about the above quotation is the elitism of good taste, the prevailing class stereotypes as illustrated by interiors (first written in the 1920s) and the assumptions we all still make about each other based on what we wear, where we live and how we live. 

I wonder sometimes if what dates a room is not objects or atmospheres attributable to certain decades but our concept of class and the way it is used when selling to us. 

All photographs except for the first which is mine attributed in previous posts.

Hope or hype? Video killed the radio star...

What might well be photos of the last of Kalef Alaton's work caused in a roundabout way an over-a-glass-of-wine conversation about the role of blogging and its possible consequences for print. I wondered – and I realize I might be coming late to this discussion – if blogs are contributing to the decline of magazines.

So, if one compares a blog to a magazine it is clear that there are similarities: each has a distinct personality... generally speaking there is something to be seen or read not available elsewhere... expectations in terms of subject and style are fulfilled and, with luck, the envelope is pushed – but not too far... there is consistency from issue to issue yet there is something new each time... an editor picks good stuff that appeals and presents it, along with some analysis, critique or background... and there is reliability in terms of frequency (be it monthly or weekly).

In short, a well-curated balance of the expected and the novel: in this way is a loyal following created.

So what about this is distinct from what a blog does? (I'm not even talking about those blogs that are so commercialized they are nothing but advertorial.) Are blogs competition for magazines?

To some extent I think they are, but do not expect this competition to be deadly. If one looks at past predictions of the imminent demise of this or that industry, it's clear that whatever was hoped or hyped did not come to pass. The movies did not kill live theatre. TV did not kill the movies. And neither has YouTube killed TV - we still watch them all.

There are two distinct differences between blogs and magazines, which encourage me to believe that both can co-exist. One is that most magazines are graphically better designed than the average blog – though there are notable exceptions. The second is that magazines look good on the coffee table and even the best-designed blog has a hard time doing that.

Talking about graphic design reminds me of another example of the overnight demise of a vast part of that industry caused by technology and software advances. A generation ago, it became possible to be one's own graphic designer. (Some of you may not be old enough to remember that it was ever any other way!) The problem is, it ain't that easy to be a graphic designer without the training - look at any locally produced magazine - Photoshop might make it easy to create but it does not teach one about communication or aesthetics. Today, the same is happening to video - look at YouTube – and when you do look at YouTube, you'll notice that although it's fun and all, actually making a compelling video is not that easy. So it is with blogging - templates enable but do not guarantee clarity of communication or compelling content.

The foregoing notwithstanding, many dearly loved magazines have bitten the dust recently – and the same has happened to newspapers. The causes are different, though both have to do with economics and advertising. Producing and distributing a glossy magazine or a newspaper are both expensive endeavors. In the case of magazines, advertising dollars vaporized with the drastic shrinking of the luxury market – but this is at least in part reversible as the economy revives. Newspapers, on the other hand, are imploding because the advertising they rely on has moved to the internet - to eBay and Craigslist, for example – and because the internet provides timely news updates better than a printed newspaper can. And those are changes which are not reversible. Where newspapers remain valuable is in their synopses, opinion and analysis... although these roles, too, are increasingly being taken over by online media. In fact, one might contend that, in this aspect, blogs are a greater threat to newspapers than to magazines.

Blogs may have given magazines some degree of competition by allowing anyone to become a writer, publisher and editor. But still, most magazines do it better in terms of aesthetics, content, advertorial and advertising than even the commercialized blogs I've seen. In the same way, YouTube does a brilliant job of showing that good video is actually hard (and usually expensive) to make, thereby proving it is no competition for TV. However engaging the umpteenth cute kitten video or Lady Gaga lip-sync, at a certain point one just wants to sit back and luxuriate in the professional production values of, say, True Blood.* And let's not forget that blogs also provide a proving ground for new talent that magazines are now beginning to cultivate.

Photos by Tim Street-Porter to accompany text written by Pilar Viladas for House and Garden, August 1989.

* June 13th, people!

Michael Greer

A few years ago, on vacation in Utah, I bought a book about Michael Greer in a second-hand bookstore: a book in which a fan had pasted newspaper and magazine clippings of his work, about his death and the dispersal of his estate. Underlined rather touchingly in a clipping about the sale was the line "... it was Michael Greer's last big event, but he was not there."

Clearly, the previous owner of the book had some sense of personal loss when Greer was murdered in 1976 and on rereading the book the other night I began to wonder how many of Michael Greer's interiors still exist. Naturally, the same question occurred about the work of the decorators I've written about over the last few weeks, Kalef Alaton's interiors in particular. I also wondered if interiors, like gardens, are as transitory as their creators?

As ever with Kalef Alaton, the list of furnishings is impressive: Charles II-style oyster walnut and black lacquer chest on stand; a Qing celadon bowl; Régence-style chairs and chandelier; Paul Storr silver; Louis XV textiles; an Indo-Portuguese mother-of-pearl cabinet; Chinese lacquer screens; a Cy Twombly painting; a drawing by Balthus; an Ellsworth Kelly and Roy Lichtenstein's Modular Painting with Four Panels No. 6 and a stair rail as temptingly slidey to a grown man as it would be to a six year old boy. All juxtaposed with white linen covered sofas and chairs, against simple, clean-lined white-painted architecture and bleached wooden floors.

The dining room, a beautiful room with lacquer panels, gilded chairs, black granite, silver, crystal, exotic flowers and softly dramatic lighting, is a close as a 20th century decorator came to the spirit of a Baroque interior without creating a feeble copy of an historic room. Who would not want to be in this room - men in correct evening attire, women in scroopy silk, diamonds aglitter?

Who would not want to experience what, for me, is one of Kalef Alaton's most delicious of combinations - the needlepointed chairs flanking a table skirted in what looks like the softest of glove leather? Who could not want to sit there?

Name of photographer forthcoming but photos are from Architectural Digest, February 1987.

A week off

I took last week off from blogging - it seemed almost that I'd reached the end of my search for material about what a friend called dead decorators yet I was able to find more about some I'd already mentioned, one I had never liked but was forced to reassess, and one whose name I remembered but had since his death dropped into obscurity. I have no doubt there will be more from thirty years ago who will tread again on this stage.

Thirty years - the very idea that what is so fresh in my memory can have happened so long ago, for some of you more than your lifetimes, is quite stupefying . Gazing unsteadily at my own mortality, I suppose. The men who I am writing about had to come to terms with their mortality more rapidly than they would today for they lived in what was for them uncaring and mean-spirited times, with society's leaders who, whether by intention, sin of omission, or indifference, judged them as being deserving of their fate and where research into the nature of their disease and a search for a cure had a resentful nascence.

Another reason I took time off last week was that I felt, rightly or wrongly, there was not much more to say about decorators of the calibre of Kalef Alaton that I had not already said. I realized too that my search had perforce become occidented, not in itself a bad thing, but there were designers on the east coast of whom I had, other than their names, little or no information.

Beyond mentioning that the bedroom and bathroom with their tart's knickers shades are appointed in what could be considered a more popular form of 1980s decorating - in complete contrast to the restraint of the formal rooms, I shall let the photos of Kalef Alaton's design of a house by Lake Washington speak for themselves.

Photos by Russell MacMasters from Architectural Digest, June 1984.

Sir Harry Lauder

wrote a song, perhaps at one time one of the most famous, when his son was killed in action in World War I - Keep Right on to the End of the Road - a stirring, brave and by our standards perhaps, maudlin anthem to the lost.

Would that our lost had their anthem: those decorators, those architects, those designers, those gay men and women, those fathers, those mothers, those brothers, those sisters, those sons, those daughters, those friends, those almost-forgotten, except when in an idle flick of a wrist something special leaps off a page of an old magazine, and we remember.

Kalef Alaton has been a very pleasurable rediscovery, of them all, my favourite. There is one more post to be written about him after this and then that's it. I'm almost there, at the end of the road, that is. There is nothing else till more research is completed and until then I shall be, in the slightly misquoted words of Sir Harry Lauder ...

Roamin' in the gloamin' wi' ma laddie by ma side,

When the sun has gone to rest, that's the time that I like best,

O, it's lovely roamin' in the gloamin'!

Photos by John Vaughn from Architectural Digest October, 1986.

Timeless

A quality common to the decorators' work featured this week and last, is that of timelessness. Many of the rooms, in their own ways, have seemed as contemporary today as they were when first published. And so it is with these rooms from the mid-1980s designed for himself by Kalef Alaton.

Mr Alaton bought a five-apartment building in West Hollywood, gutted and remodeled it into these bewitching rooms, spacious, light-filled, simple in form and finish - unarticulated white stucco walls, concrete and terra-cotta tile floor - all connected by an elegant spiral staircase, and filled with a resplendent and personal collection of fine and decorative arts.

It is a truism to say that space is a luxury, and here space is used lavishly and luxuriously. Not for Alaton, the filling of every corner, the layering of surfaces with bric-a-brac: rather a considered placement of well-curated objects and furniture, allowing the eloquence of negative space, and combining elements of theatre, display, scholarship and hospitality.

The list of valued and valuable objects in the living room is long: a 17th century Flemish painting Battle of Ostend; cane-backed Régence fauteuil; Régence giltwood mirror; needlepointed Régence bergere; a pair of signed Louis XV fauteuils; gilt Louis XV table with faux-marbre top; 19th century Baccarat chandelier; Regency armchairs; a lacquer and gilt Chinese table; famille-verte vase; Japanese lacquer table; 2nd century marble bust; an Apulian volute Krater; Sino-Tibetan deer, and a Qing ginger jar on a Portuguese chest-on-stand.

Alaton's bedroom, with two tester beds is, in its own quieter way, as curated at the living room: a Turkish carpet; a modern leather-clad chaise longue; a limestone fragment of a horse head backed by a Indian brass door; book-filled bookcases and a mahogany Regency table with a gilded winged-seahorse base on which stand pre-Columbian objects and Cypriot vases.

The master bathroom, below, as spacious as the rest of the house, has a sitting-area with a Russian armchair and two tufted chairs, a 19th century Italian carved marble mirror, Italian bronzes, Asian and European ivories and Roman glass bottles.

Often where there are many objects of history and pedigree there's an atmosphere of dusty suffocation but here in Kalef Alaton's home because of uncluttered space and freely-admitted light, that feeling is lacking.

A year after these pictures were published, Kalef Alaton died of complications of AIDS died at the age of 49.

For no reason other than I fancy it, today's cocktail is a Negroni - my aperitif before dinner with friends tonight at Atlanta's latest bistro.

1 1/2 oz sweet vermouth

1 1/2 oz Campari

1 1/2 oz gin

Put all in an old-fashioned glass with ice and stir. Garnish, if you must with an orange slice.

Photographs by John Vaughn from Architectural Digest, May 1988.

List of furniture, etc., quoted from text by Michael Webb.