Syrie Maugham (20th Century Decorators Series)

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About Syrie Maugham

Product Description Trendsetter, fashion icon, and wife of an internationally renowned novelist, the interior designer Syrie Maugham (1879 1955) created an ultra-chic world that was as unique as it was influential. Her ethereal all-white rooms of the 1920s and 30s were echoed in high-style interiors around the world and translated into sets for movies and theatrical productions. Much of the look we associate with the Hollywood glamour of the 1930s owes its simple elegance to Maugham s pared-down aesthetic. Acanthus Press' September 2010 release of Syrie Maugham celebrates the work of this legendary British designer in the first comprehensive study of her dramatic life and meteoric career. Author Pauline C. Metcalf takes readers on a lively transatlantic voyage through Maugham's world, from the drawing rooms she decorated in London to the houses, villas, and apartments commissioned by clients in the United States and the Continent. With nearly three hundred photographs and illustrations, Syrie Maugham also profiles the designer's international clientele, a rarified group that included British royals, European aristocrats, American socialites, and Broadway stars. In Maugham's blend of traditional refinement and the Style Moderne, with occasional Surrealist flourish console tables floating on dolphin bases, fringed sleigh beds, sheepskin rugs, and miles of mirrored screens this cosmopolitan beau monde discovered a perfect expression of cafe-society chic. The book features preface by Camilla Chandon, Syrie Maugham's granddaughter. Review (the book)... makes the point that no pedestal was too high for the woman who popularized the all-white room, an icily moderne cocktail of mirrored screens and fireplaces, geometrically sculptured carpets, shagreen tables, satin slipcovers, towering plaster lamps in the form of palm trees and velvet velvet! lampshades...Metcalf's... research and command of detail is dazzling... --T Magazine, May 2, 2010 Fearless talent distinguished the life of Syrie Maugham, whose all-white interiors of the '20s and '30s remain iconic. Pauline C. Metcalf distills Maugham's brand of magic. -- --Veranda, September 2010 This remarkable book documents [Syrie Maugham s] life and her accomplishment with accuracy and style and numerous splendid photographs. A perfect way to experience a the magic touch, the beauty, the style, and the professional command of Syrie Maugham. --Albert Hadley This supremely elegant book soars on silver wings through Syrie Maugham s gossamer legacy ....To me, her skill in bringing humour, that all-important ingredient, into the pale voluptuous rooms that were her trademark, is paramount... and each of these fascinating photographs, many hitherto unseen, reveal her remoulding of tradition, her fearless creativity. --Nicky Haslam Pauline C. Metcalf's brilliant biography of Maugham contains hundreds of unfamiliar photographs and drawings that show why and how Maugham came to dominate her field on both sides of the Atlantic from the 1920s through the late 1940s... This book is truly a treasure... --Prof. Richard Guy Wilson, Fine Arts Connoisseur, March/April 2012 This supremely elegant book soars on silver wings through Syrie Maugham s gossamer legacy ....To me, her skill in bringing humour, that all-important ingredient, into the pale voluptuous rooms that were her trademark, is paramount... and each of these fascinating photographs, many hitherto unseen, reveal her remoulding of tradition, her fearless creativity. --Nicky Haslam About the Author Pauline C. Metcalf is an independent historian, author, lecturer, and restoration consultant specializing in 19-20th century interiors. Metcalf is a frequent contributing author to various shelter magazines and books including Recreating the Past: Essays on the Colonial Revival (2004), Designers on Designers (2003), David Adler, Architect: The Elements of Style (2002). In 1988 she authored Ogden Codman and the Decoration of Houses, and