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. 

In anticipation of a book

The photographs below are from a post I wrote about Geoffrey Bennison nearly five years ago. In the Topics list in the side bar I find I wrote about Mr Bennison ten times, making him one of my favorites. Were there any doubt that he should be one of the most esteemed decorators of the twentieth-century, the publication of this book early next year should leave no doubt at all. 

The author is Gillian Newberry and Sir John Richardson has written a Foreword. Of all the books in the publishing lists for the coming months this is the only one with any interest for me. Gillian Newberry who had worked as Bennison's assistant founded Bennison Fabrics together with her husband in 1985 after Geoffrey Bennison's death. 

Published forty years ago these rooms remain to my eye remarkably undated. Greenery in baskets, even a plant in the summer fireplace date the photographs to the 1970s. That era's equivalent of today's clump of white phalaenopsis, ferns, ficus, etc, always looked a little self-conscious, as well they might given their role as swank purchases from the newly-established fancy garden centres. They didn't last long of course, those tropical parvenues, for the decidedly chilly air of social decline soon saw them off, their places cleared for the amaranthine qualities of silk plants and flowers. Even silk as a designation in this context has declined, I fear, for now we must say permanent. As a nomenclature permanent can cover a multitude of sins – from what once may even have been silk at its genesis, to what might well be its very worrisome end, resin. 

And that brings me in a very roundabout way to the subject of my next post but one – something that has been worrying at me for a while. This link to one of my favorite websites will give you a clue. 

Photography by Derry Moore from Architectural Digest November/December 1976

The book will be published by Rizzoli on March 24th 2015 – a long time to wait, I know, but I'm like a kid waiting for Christmas morning.  

George Stacey and the Creation of American Chic

A while back I read that a book about George Stacey was soon to be published and I must say I looked forward to learning more about the man I'd first read about in Mark Hampton's Legendary Decorators of the Twentieth Century. Charmed, over twenty years ago, as I was by Hampton's watercolor of Stacey's living room at Le Poulailler in France, and impressed by what he wrote about Stacey, then ninety, I'm even more charmed and impressed by the new book, the first, about George Stacey – George Stacey and the Creation of American Chic. In a time when, generally speaking, indiscipline and ignorance of history holds sway it is good to read a well-illustrated book showing why George Stacey was considered a "legendary" decorator by another of that ilk.

"A short while ago I went to see a house in East Hampton decorated by George Stacey nearly thirty years ago for Mrs. William Lord, a woman who has bee his friend and client for many years and who lives there all year round now. Its rooms still bear the Stacey stamp of boldly stylized chic that, paradoxically, has aged to a mellowness one rarely finds in fashionable statements from the past. One reason we redecorate so often is to erase the trendy flaws that reflect the unconscious mistakes we make trying to be in style. Twenty-five years or so ago, when this lovely East Hampton house was being done up, there were a lot of popular trends now almost impossible to remember, they've been buried so deep. George Stacey, however, never embraced Mylar wallpaper or chrome and plastic tables. He relied on strong color schemes and carefully selected and arranged pieces of furniture, each one beautiful on its own. Because he is a classicist of sorts, as well as the possessor of a fine and highly trained eye, his choices have survived the years, carrying their beauty with them." [Mark Hampton]

"One of the requisites of a competent decorator is real knowledge of period furniture of any country. It is, in general, a fairly complicated study involving research, comparisons, and a liking for both art and history. With this knowledge, and with a knowledge of color, any young decorator is, I feel sure, well on his way." [George Stacey]

"In answer to the questions most often put to me  about decorating, I would say the following. My favorite classic styles are eighteenth-century French, Italian, and English – in that order. I prefer painted French and Italian furniture to plain wood, and simple rather than elaborate design. I definitely believe in mixing different styles of furniture both in a house and in a room. One of the most common errors people make in decorating is trying to make a room perfect in all the details of a single given period, which inevitably results in a stiff and impersonal background." [George Stacey]

George Stacey and the Creation of American Chic, by Maureen Footer, with a foreword by Mario Buatta, is to be released by Rizzoli International Publications, Inc. of New York on April 1st. It is a book to read and learn from, is well-designed and though it will add a certain currency to a cocktail table or to a modish stack, it is really – and I repeat – a book to read and learn from.

A brilliant stroke, in my opinion, on the part of the book designer – and it is a well-designed book – was to repeat the bright shiny red of the lampshade in the book jacket photograph as bright shiny red end papers.

If I were you and I lived in New York I'd go to the Rizzoli bookstore on 31 West 57th Street, buy the book and sign the petition to save what is one of New York's finest bookstores from demolition.

Photos of George Stacey rooms taken from the book.