Looking for Billy Baldwin

I always wanted to have an apartment like Billy Baldwin’s. Finally I got to live in a high-rise and have a little desk in my living room. Still don’t have the slipper chairs. I search the Internet for articles about him and for tips on where to purchase his best designs. (Shortcut: Ventry Limited, Bielecky Brothers.) His best work was his most contemporary. What I would have done for Si Newhouse’s white art-filled living room! As soon as Rizzoli published Billy Baldwin: The Great American Decorator, I ordered it. Many of the images are also in Baldwin’s earlier books, which took me to back to my late teens and early twenties, when I poured over those volumes fantasizing about living a bigger life in Manhattan.

Billy Baldwin's apartment with the famous slipper chair

Billy Baldwin's apartment

Kenneth Hair Salon
New York

In my first blog, I mentioned an early childhood memory of seeing Mrs. Gilbert Miller’s Mallorca house in the pages of House & Garden. The indoor/outdoor terrace confused my young mind, but I never forgot it. Several years later, as a teenager, I opened the heavy brass and glass door on Grant Avenue and walked down a few steps into Tiffany’s perfumed tranquility, designed by Billy Baldwin (with Tiffany’s design director, Van Day Truex.) I wanted to live there. Who would have thought that Tiffany’s San Francisco outpost occupied a windowless ground floor of a parking garage (that was once a great department store)? It was hushed and elegant, but not intimidating. The slip-covered sofas were small, complemented by black lacquer Parsons tables and Bielecky Brothers cane side chairs and just a little shiny brass. Even if all I could afford was a modest vase or drinking glass, I felt truly swell for those few minutes. I understood what Holly Golightly was up to.

Mr. and Mrs. Harding Lawrence Residence

Dallas, Texas

Cole Porter's apartment.  Rendering by Mark Hampton

Mr. and Mrs. William Paley's Apartment
St. Regis Hotel, New York

By high school, I knew all about Billy Baldwin and his slipper chair. His simple one-room apartment seemed like the epitome of an elegant New York life out of reach. One of the first design books I bought was Billy Baldwin Decorates, essentially reprints of articles he wrote for House & Garden. He wrote another book, Billy Baldwin Remembers. And then his heir, Michael Gardine, prepared an autobiography that was a bit more gossipy.…

Arango Apartment
Madrid Spain

Now there is Billy Baldwin: America’s Greatest Decorator, by Adam Lewis, who has written biographies of designers Van Day Truex and Albert Hadley. The good news is twofold. There are a few images that have not been seen in any of the previously published books. And the lectures Baldwin gave at the Cooper Hewitt in 1974 are published for the first time. The bad news is also twofold. Lewis’s text contains little new information, and the writing is as stilted as in his other two books. Perhaps worse, at least for a design book, is the uneven quality of the images. Some of the photographs are reproduced beautifully, as you expect from a Rizzoli book, while other images, many of them by the famous photographer Horst, appear to be scans from magazines. Jane Thompson’s recent book about Design Research (published by Chronicle) faced a similar challenge of uneven visuals, but the clever design by Pentagram fixed that. Not so here. The design does not mitigate the uneven reproduction quality. Some of the fuzzy pictures are full pages! When confronted with relatively few visuals, the designers of Lewis’s earlier volume on Van Day Truex resorted to a smaller format. That might have been a good choice here, although the subtitle wouldn’t have made sense. And small books don’t sell as well. I am not sure that Baldwin would want something that was not as tailored as his upholstered furniture.

Mrs. Clive Runnells Residence
Hobe Sound, Florida

Lewis interviewed several people, but many of the key folks are dead, including Michael Gardine and Way Bandy, who provided Baldwin with his final home on Nantucket. Baldwin retired in 1973 and died in 1983, apparently broke. The narrative isn’t compelling and doesn’t capture Baldwin in his time. Lewis writes about Baltimore’s upper middle class, which Baldwin grew up in, and then about the superwealthy that Baldwin catered to in New York and elsewhere. But Lewis provides little insight or analysis. And he adds little color or texture to the tale. (Odd, given Baldwin’s love for both.) Although Lewis says Baldwin lived as an out gay man, he rarely mentions Baldwin’s homosexuality, treating it as if it shouldn’t be discussed. While that might have been a hallmark of the time, I am not sure it was Baldwin’s way. Curiously, the author doesn’t connect Baldwin’s father’s disapproval to his initial false starts and his later ambition and incredible success. Unfortunately, Lewis doesn’t really place Baldwin in any larger context than the upper reaches of the Upper East Side.

For a glimpse into Baldwin’s actual life, I would suggest an interview Baldwin gave to Francesco Scavullo in the 1970s for the book Scavullo Men. (There are also a lot of great interviews with leading cultural figures of the time, like Leo Castelli, Henry Geldzahler, Leo Lerman, and Sam Wagstaff.) This interview is not listed in Lewis’s bibliography, and I think that is a serious omission. When asked if he was spoiled, Baldwin refers to his mentor Ruby Ross Wood: “I really pity most rich people, and I don’t want to see very many of them. I think they’re boring. My old boss, Ruby Wood, said to me ‘Now, Billy Baldwin, you’re coming here from that nice town and you’re going to have a hard time because New York is very tough. But don’t forget one thing: you’re going to see an awful lot of rich people. You get as much of their money as you can. That’s all they’re worth—money—and we’re lucky because we’re going to get some of it.’” Baldwin is quite open about being “1000 percent homosexual” and about how he looks on serving the superrich and what it meant to be gay. When asked, “As a man, what were your feelings about becoming a decorator?” he replies, “Since the day I was born I’ve never had the slightest idea of being gay. It just seemed perfectly normal.”

With both of Baldwin’s volumes out of print, Lewis’s book provides a survey, if not a critical look, at the great decorator, who by the way loved being called a decorator. In the Scavullo interview, Baldwin responds to the question about the difference between a designer and decorator by saying, “Michael Greer, if you please, was the first person to call himself a designer so people wouldn’t think that he was gay. Designer is supposed to make a man of you. It’s perfect crap.” Despite its shortcomings, the volume is important for the library of future decorators—and designers too.

All images (unless otherwise noted) courtesy Rizzoli USA.

Related Links
www.ventryltd.com
bieleckybrothers.com
www.rizzoliusa.com
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO2vuOxz6YU

Handmade Portraits in the Modern Age

A Conversation with Leslie Williamson

Handcrafted Modern by Leslie Williamson

Every now and then, a book arrives which is not just a handsome presentation of information but also a completely satisfying aesthetic object. This was the case with Handcrafted Modern by Leslie Williamson, which was released a few weeks ago. Her photographs of modernist homes capture something of the inhabitant and his or her pattern of living. But they also reveal something more. Something of the life of the creator of the space.

The linen cover and the layout of the book complement the beautiful photos. Leslie’s informal and personal text adds another layer of witness. Leslie and I met at my office recently to talk about her work.

Q: How did you decide to become a photographer?

A: I grew up in San Jose, and I always did art. From the age of about 8, I wanted to be a fashion designer, but I hated to draw and hated to sew. This was a problem. Of course, this was before the entire world wanted to be a fashion designer. It was rather unusual then.

Out of high school, I was studying fashion illustration, a foundation year at art school, and I just decided to stop. I thought I would change my major to photography because taking pictures was faster than drawing. That was completely wrong, of course, but something about me and photography worked. It stuck.

Sink at Wharton Esherick Home

Q: When and where did you study photography?

A: I took my first photo class was when I was 21 at Foothill Junior College in Los Altos, California. After a year, I applied to Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and got my undergrad degree from there. I thought I was going to end up shooting fashion, but I quickly realized that I didn’t want to shoot fashion every day. I liked photographing real people.

Q: Did you intend to shoot architecture and interiors?

A: I have always been into design, but I never shot interiors in any serious way. Most of my work has been shooting people, portraits for magazines and advertising . The closest I got to shooting interiors was doing work for Travel + Leisure. I would shoot a story for them, and it always required a restaurant shot or an interior in a hotel, but that was completely different to my approach to shooting interiors for my book. I don’t consider myself an architectural photographer.

Q: How did the idea for the book come about?

A: I needed a break from photography, so I took a job at William Stout Architectural Books. I was in charge of interiors, photography, and furniture design books—all of my loves.

Q: You mean downstairs?

A: Yeah, downstairs was my domain. I still get emails from clients who ask me about photo books. I would still take interesting photo assignments when they came, but most of this time, I was at the bookstore full time.

I think the idea was already in my head before I worked there, but I visited Palm Springs and got a little obsessed with Albert Frey’s home. This was April 2005. I started asking around and found out that you could gain access to his house for architectural study and research. Frey had left his home to the Palm Springs Museum so that one of his buildings would be kept intact architecturally. I got the idea then, but I figured we would have a book like that at Stout.

Albert Frey's Home

So when I got back, I looked around at the bookstore thinking that this kind of book would exist. But it didn’t. There were a few books on architects’ homes. I like looking at those archival images, but I wanted something more. How do designers live with their own work? What sits on the bedside table? What books do they own? The images in my book are all portraits of people through their home. I shot the book that I wanted to buy.

Early on, and through much of the process, I just called it the Book Project. I never sat down and made a plan. I am not sure I knew what “doing a book” really meant. If I had thought it out, I might have never finished it. But I just couldn’t stop shooting this once I started. It was a rather organic process. When I got a big job, I would shoot a house or two. I only had a publisher for the last year or so.

Q: After Frey’s, what was the second house you shot?

A: Gropius’s was next. That was when I realized that everything had to be in the house, as intact as possible. It is about the house and the stuff. Gropius’s daughter arranged the house just as it was on a day in the 60s. It is sublime in its detail.

Walter Gropius's desk

Q: How did you connect with Rizzoli?

A: I met Dung Ngo, one of the senior editors, at the bookstore. I told him I was working on a book, and he was very kind. He had just started at Rizzoli, I believe. Whenever he came back to San Francisco, he came into the store. I sent him contact sheets throughout the project, and he would encourage me to keep going.

Q: Did you know you were a writer as well as a photographer? I really enjoyed the text.

A: I knew I was an OK writer, but I had not done it since college. My writing the book was a matter of necessity. It turned out that the money for the writer would come out of my advance. I needed all of the advance for the photography expenses. I shot everything on film. Plus there was travel, shipping, and of course all the film processing. Most of the time I was working at Stout’s. I couldn’t afford to stop.

So I said I could write it and sent Dung a writing sample. I wrote four chapters in the third person and threw them all away. Luckily, I figured out I had to write in the first person for it to be any good.

Q: But the text doesn’t seem overly personal or self-centered.

A: That’s because I am a fan. I just love these people. I get choked up. And meeting them makes you love them more. Just being able to spend time in the houses and look at their life through their possessions and how they lived.

Even though I am not an expert or a historian, I realized that I had to be the one writing because no one else had my experience being in these homes for two days. Whatever I know is because I look and observe and wonder what the story is. If something piques my interest, I am like a dog with a bone.

Q: What were your criteria for including a house?

A: At the most basic level, I had to really love the house—how it looked, I mean—and the work of the designer who lived there. But other criteria formed as the project went on. Nothing crazy and rigorous…

Q: What kind of camera do you shoot with?

A: A medium format. Mamiya RZ67.

Q: Why do you still use film?

A: I think it’s richer. It’s more beautiful. But also, I started the book on film, so I was adamant that I had to finish that way.

Q: How did you get into all these incredible houses?

A: For the first few, I wrote formal letters. That would be Frey, Gropius, Esherick, Nakashima, and Russel Wright. Honestly, it wasn’t that difficult. And once I had those five, it got easier.

 George Nakashima's Home

Q: Some of the houses are relatively well known, like Eames’s or Gropius’s, but others are not.

A: After I had shot about seven houses, it started to get a bit harder. I had big names, but I wanted unknown gems that no one knew about. So I researched. Irving Harper I knew about, and he had not been seen that much. He has a computer, but he doesn’t use it. So I called him.

Once you start shooting, people start telling you about other houses. I would get a name and research them online, and of course I was spoiled at the bookstore. My friend Cathy Bailey at Heath recommended a couple of places.

 Irving Harper's Studio

Q: Were there some you didn’t get?

A: There are a lot I didn’t get. I wanted to do Oscar Niemeyer but couldn’t. I even got the OK to photograph Finn Juhl’s house. I was all set to go to Copenhagen, but the house got broken into. Then they were handing it over to the Danish Government and asked me to come on really short notice. So it didn’t happen. But it became clear that because of budgetary reasons, this book would focus on just North America.

Russel Wright's Home and Studio

Q: What links all of these houses and designers?

A: I guess the main thread is that I was in love with the house and the work. The interior told a story about the person. But also, there is a thread running through all of these designers—whether furniture or product design or architecture—in that most are from the same general era, except for Wharton Esherick.

Vladimir Kagan's Apartment

John Kapel's Home

Q: Where did the title come from?

A: I didn’t have a title for a long time. Of course the houses are not all handcrafted. The Eames house is basically prefab. The title is not about the structure of the house in every case, but about what you make of the interior of the house over time and how it evolves. There was talk of calling it Handmade Modern, but that didn’t feel right to me. These homes were more handcrafted over time. That title stuck. Handcrafted Modern.

The Eameses Living Room

Q: What about the outtakes, about what we don’t see?

A: I shot 250 to 300 images per house. That’s a lot of pictures! In doing the book, we edited it down to what gave the best idea of what it feels like to be in the house. I ordered it so it was a walk through the house, but there is only so much space in a chapter. I am putting some of the outtakes on my blog.

J.B. Blunk Home at Sunrise

Q: Did you work closely with the graphic designer?

A: Dung knew I had to work with somebody here because I was going to be so hands on. I worked with Adam Brodsley and Eric Heiman of Volume Inc. They totally got the idea. They found this gorgeous typeface and came up with the concept that you are looking through a keyhole, which can be seen on the title page of each chapter. I thought it was perfect.

Q: Over the course of working on the book, what changed in you?

A: I feel like I really found my calling shooting this book. I have no doubt I will continue documenting and shooting homes in this way for the rest of my life as well as shooting these people’s portraits when I can. I think that the way I shoot makes these people more accessible and human. I hope the way I shoot shows these people’s humanity as well. I don’t want to shoot just designers and artisans either, although that is where my heart tends to go. I just like people who are passionate about what they do. Don’t get me wrong, it helps to have great furniture and a cool interior, and these homes I shot for Handcrafted Modern have that in spades. But there are other places I am dying to shoot that have nothing to do with design at all. I have a list started. It is getting pretty long.… I really want to shoot Winston Churchill’s Cabinet War Rooms in London. I literally dream about that place.

Self Portrait at Henry Varnum Poor's House

More info can be found at:

www.lesliewilliamson.com
www.lesliewilliamsonphoto.blogspot.com
www.rizzoliusa.com

All photos courtesy Leslie Williamson

Day Time

Celebrating Robin and Lucienne Day

courtesy of Design Onscreen

It’s time for Robin and Lucienne Day to have their moment in the light. Too-long regarded as the Charles and Ray Eames of the UK, their individuality and accomplishments will finally receive due credit with the release of a new film, “Contemporary Days,” followed by the opening of an exhibit next year at the Pallant House Gallery in the UK. Embarking on their prolific careers in furniture and textile design during the turmoil of post-World War II England, the young married couple found themselves in a challenging environment in which to promote design as social vision; the country had been heavily bombed and was without basic materials well into the mid-1950’s. But the Days shared, among other things, a deep optimism for modernism’s potential to help steer the war-torn country in a new direction.


Contemporary Days: The Designs of Lucienne & Robin Day from Design Onscreen on Vimeo.

The film, directed by Murray Grigor, tells the Day’s story in a straight-forward manner through several interviews with people who worked with them. There are more recordings of Lucienne Day, so her voice is more prevalent, but the viewer doesn’t sense that either she or Robin dominated. While the Eames’ collaboration was largely represented through Charles as the spokesperson, the Days pursued their own interests independently and had separate studios right next to each other. Despite this autonomy, Robin’s furniture and Lucienne’s fabrics work well together because of their shared vision rooted in the education (at the Royal College of Art) and wartime experience they shared. Both of them wanted to shape Britain’s modernity after the war.

Not surprisingly, in this post-war context, excess ornament seemed pointless, so Robin’s minimal furniture felt right for the moment. Many of his designs were successfully produced for the low-cost market, in particular his stacking wood, and later, plastic chairs. But when permitted a bit of luxury his work could be almost whimsical, like his some of his pieces for the Festival Hall in 1951. The wood arms feel like wings that might lift the chair into space.

Looking back at Lucienne’s textiles, many designed for Heal’s Department store, we find beautifully drawn and colored patterns. The repeats are subtle and the designs look timeless. Some of them have been reintroduced by Classic Textiles, and Unica Home carries modest, limited edition tea towels.

Calyx textile courtesy of Jill A. Wiltse and H. Kirk Brown III
Collection of British Textiles

The executive producers of the new film, Denver-based collectors H Kirk Brown and Jill A Wiltse, are also loaning their extensive collection for the Pallant Gallery exhibit next year. Their effort and commitment to celebrating the couple’s work have been instrumental in giving the Days this moment.

While the Days were a charismatic and successful couple – with their good looks, beautiful voices, and winning competition entries – they more importantly shared a profound talent and a desire to create change in a challenging time. They had faith in the future. In our own age, perhaps environmental awareness and more efficient technologies may renew the power of design to steer us in a more sustainable direction. The talented young optimists are somewhere among us.

Coda:
Robin Day passed away on November 9th at his home in Chichester, England.

More Information:

The movie:
www.designonscreen.org

The exhibit in 2011:
www.pallant.org.uk/exhibitions/forthcoming/main-galleries/robin-and-lucienne-day/robin-and-lucienne-day

The textiles:
http://www.classictextiles.com/day.html

The tea towels:
http://www.unicahome.com/p40106/limited-edition-tea-towels-designed-by-lucienne-day.html

The interview:
http://www.wallpaper.com/art/the-days-interview/2915

courtesy of Design Onscreen