Le Style Frank: The House of Armani Revisited

Posted January 25, 2013. Filed in Giorgio Armani, Jean-Michel Frank, Minimalism, Peter Marino, Understated Luxury

In 1989 House and Garden magazine featured The House of Armani, Armani’s freshly remodeled and redesigned Milan pied-à-terre by architect and designer Peter Marino, in a four-hundred-year-old palazzo in the historic Brera section, which he moved into in 1982. When asked if he were pleased with the final outcome of the redesign of his rooms Armani remarked “I would like to have the time to fill them with personal objects, pictures, which can remove that aesthetically ‘too perfect’ look. And I would like as well to have the possibility of making some mistakes, thus bringing it closer to human nature”. Lucky for us, Armani’s grand apartment was recently featured in a special December, 2012, addition of World of Interiors, in a feature titled Designers by Themselves. Let’s see, for ourselves,  just how Armani embellished Peter Marino’s temple to the inventor of the Modern interior, Jean-Michel Frank.

 

The photograph of the book gallery, above, takes in a never before seen view of Armani’s palazzo apartment. Wouldn’t you love to be a guest and have the opportunity to explore his collection of books? The floor-to-ceiling French polished ebony book cases, table and floor create a dramatic backdrop to his collection.

The Armani architectural studio created the black metal staircase that unwinds towards a narrow vaulted ceiling. It leads to my favourite room: the third-floor study – my shelter within my shelter. The marble torso is an ancient Roman piece bought on one of my successful antiquing forays. — Giorgio Armani

I find it exhilarating to be given the opportunity of these additional glimpses into The House of Armani, but they are merely just a tease. How I would love to see more of these gleaming surfaces and mellowed, honeyed spaces.

Here, in the passageway or hall, not much has changed: gone is the bronze jaguar at the center. In it’s place is a black ebony cubic table. They pale wood X-tables against the wall remain, now each hosting a lamp. The half-height bookcases have been removed from the opposite wall and replaced with a growing collection of black-and-white photographs sitting on the floor, casually leaning against the wall, overlapping. I particularly find this form of art display attractive in minimalist environments, adding a sense of excitement, change and flexibility.

The finishes, furnishings and area rug remain as they were twenty-four years earlier, in 1989. The furniture layout has been changed, with the sofa moved under the window, and four over-scale lamps anchoring the four corners of the room like columns. The bases appear to be the same as photographed in 1989. Perhaps its the shades that have been enlarged. The half-height bookcases, which were in the hall, are now against the living room wall, at left. The same sense of order and calm prevails. There are no personal bibelots crowding tables in sight. But, in a gesture copacetic with le style Frank, Armani has exhibited restraint in selecting simply elegant decor to personalize his spaces.

The dining room displays the greatest noticeable decorative alteration since first photographed in 1989. In fact, all that remains is the parchment clad walls. Even the flooring material has been changed from ebonized wood to black granite tiles. I wonder what, exactly, inspired Armani to change the flooring material? Those lustrous ebonized wood floors are so warm and inviting, modern and luxurious. The granite tile feels cold, even a bit passe. Images of rooms from the nineteen-nineties are flooding my mind – those glamorous villas in the sky designed by Kalef Alaton, for one. Perhaps it was a necessary means to and end; or, perhaps Armani desired variety, or a way to delineate the dining room from the rest of the apartment on that level. Elements of the East inform the decoration: A Japanese-style dining table, whose base resembles chop-stick rests, is paired with modern chairs based on the Japanese yolk chair, all of which float on a simple area rug with a blue-scroll design border ; a pair of Japanese-style lamps from Armani Casa rest on the floor, their red-violet silk shades illuminating opposite corners of the room; out of shot are two bronze Buddhas from Thailand. What appears to be a fragment from a boat has a decidedly Asian design. The mysterious painting comes from an old cinema in Piacenza, the town where Armani was born and raised.

In this space I have pieces that represent memorable moments and places in my life …. pieces reveal touches of the Far East, which, along with Art Deco and Modern art, is my greatest source of inspiration. — Giorgio Armani

A rare glimpse into Armani’s creative space: Lining the walls of his study are paintings, sketches, and photos given to him by friends and artists, such as Antonio Lopez, Francesco Clemente, Herb Ritts, Bruce Weber and Richard Gere. Are you old enough to remember American Gigolo?! The perfectly draped suits Armani fitted the rising star Richard Gere that sky-rocketed his fashion career?

I think, in the end, both Jean-Michel Frank and Peter Marino would agree that these rooms that comprise chez Armani have not only aged as gracefully and tastefully as the designer himself, but also continue the spirit of le style Frank, retaining their classical-based modernism infused with tactile sensuality.

Content for this post derived from Designers by Themselves, World of Interiors, December 2012. Photography by Gionata Xerra.

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Le Style Frank: The House of Armani

Posted January 22, 2013. Filed in Giorgio Armani, Jean-Michel Frank, Minimalism, Peter Marino, Understated Luxury

No other interiors project, in my humble opinion, exemplifies le style Frank more than the Milan apartment created by architect and interior designer Peter Marino for Giorgio Armani in the early nineteen-nineties. The same disciplined aesthetic that has guided the fashion designer’s long career is evidenced in the quietly tasteful and luxuriously simple rooms crafted by Marino. Armani provided one specific directive: “… a period in the past as a point of reference, since the structure of the house was suitable for that kind of atmosphere.” The period in the past that Armani suggested was Paris in the thirties. One need not look further than Jean-Michel Frank’s own Paris apartment from the thirties to make the connection.

The Smoking Room in Jean-Michel Franks’s Paris apartment, circa 1938.

Walls lined with meticulously crafted wood veneers or parchment tiles, upholstered furniture with simple lines covered in natural materials such as cotton, linen, silk or leather, and low-slung tables dressed in matchstick-patterned oak, parchment or lacquer, are le Style Frank hallmarks.

Photography by Oberto Gili for House and Garden

Armani’s salon contains an enviable collection of Jean-Michel Frank originals. The games table is a reductive example in the Louis XVI-style, covered in parchment with chairs of ceruse oak, straw and leather. The cubic sofa is covered in  raw silk woven in Connecticut by James Gould. The Frank armchairs are slip-covered in linen. The soft palette shifts from ivory to sand. The only pattern is that of the Japanese link design of the area rug. Simple cubic silver boxes, picture frames and a fluted bowl, and a quartz plate provide restrained yet luxurious accents.

Photography by Oberto Gili

A view from the salon into the hall showcases lustrous French-polished ebony doors and casements. The oak screen that wraps the sofa frame could be the very same used forty years prior in the de Noailles Paris townhouse.

Salon of the de Noailles in the Hotel Bischoffsheim, Paris.

It’s not about color, pattern, or decoration. It’s a game of texture and finishes — Peter Marino

Photography by Oberto Gili for House and Garden.

The grid-pattern of the walls in Armani’s library was hand-painted by artist Kimiko Fujimura. The inspiration for the custom walnut-and-goatskin cabinets flanking the Minnesota limestone fireplace came from Frank. The straw chairs, plaster and parchment lamp, and oak ceruse desk are by Frank. For all the right angles this room possesses it manages to convey luxe, calme et volupté by means of luxurious, sensual materials and a warm, glowing palette.

Photography by Oberto Gili

Honey-toned furniture designed by JM-Frank floats over an ebonized floor covered with a natural fiber area rug. The bronze jaguar, attributed to Atelier Primavera, takes pride of place at the center of a parchment JM-Frank low table.  An S-turned metal staircase adds graphic interest.

Photography by Oberto Gili

An alternate view of the hall must have been photographed at a later time. Personal bibelots – a somewhat provincial topiary of dried flowers, a model of a vintage auto, and a Chinese ginger jar – were added by Armani (feline notwithstanding).

Photography by Oberto Gili

The parchment-walled dining room is minimally furnished with a bleached oak pedestal table by Peter Marino and oak ceruse chairs by Jean-Michel Frank. A pair of oak ceruse consoles and lamps with parchment shades flank a door casement framed in French-polished ebony.

Photography by Oberto Gili.

If one didn’t know better, we could easily be looking at a color photograph of the de Noailles parchment clad dining room created by JM-Frank in 1929.

Vellum walls in a dining room designed by Jean-Michel Frank softly foil macassar ebony furniture and a Modernist carpet on parquet.

Photography by Oberto Gili

A spare aesthetic veering on monasticism prevails in Armani’s private quarters where his bedroom walls are lined with sycamore. The room is punctuated with an ebony and salamander campaign-style desk and parchment sheathed table lamps, all by Frank. The room’s inspiration could very well come from Frank’s own salon-cum-sleeping lounge.

Jean-Michel Frank’s salon dressed for rest and relaxation.

 

Photography by Oberto Gili

Armani’s perfectly tectonic dressing room with its sleek ebony floor and glowing sycamore and glass-fronted closets is a model of elegant restraint. What I would give to transform just one room in this vein! I could quite literally live here, in this space.

Photography by Oberto Gili

Armani chose to retain the gridded wall display in the master bath, a suitable reminder of the apartment’s last incarnation. The  back-lit gridded wall adds a glamorous glow over an otherwise masculine space. The sycamore X-bench with goatskin seat is by Frank.

Photography by Oberto Gili

What fashion designer’s city apartment would be complete without a personal lap pool? In Armani’s case the subterranean pool was preexisting.

The house of Armani aptly mirrors the designer’s own eye toward opulent ease. When asked if he were content with his new rooms, some twenty-odd years ago, Armani replied, “I would like to have the time to fill them with personal objects, pictures, which can remove that aesthetically ‘too perfect’ look. And I would like as well to have the possibility of making some mistakes, thus bringing it closer to human nature.” In my next post, Le Style Frank: The House of Armani Revisited, you will see just how much, or how little, Armani personalized his Milanese pied-à-terre.

Content for this post based on an article titled The House of Armani written by Charles Gandee for House and Garden magazine in 1989.

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Thirties Transposition

Posted January 17, 2013. Filed in Jean-Michel Frank, Understated Luxury

Nelson Rockefeller was not your ordinary, staid politician. By the late nineteen thirties he had amassed an enviable art collection of Modern masters – Braque, Picasso, Matisse, Gris, de Chirico, Leger, among many other examples, in addition to a primitive art collection. To house his collection of art and artifacts he called on no other than Jean-Michel Frank, the French interior designer who invented modern interiors.

Rockefeller was a deeply curious, modern man. John Loring wrote for Architectural Digest, “Of all the members of the family, Neslon Rockefeller, through a winning combination of imagination, impulsiveness, an eye for quality, a taste for adventure, and as he said, ‘fate’, amassed the most extraordinary collections..” When Rockefeller commissioned Frank to create interiors for his newly expanded Fifth Avenue deluxe apartment he was treasurer of the Museum of Modern Art. Frank’s vision for Rockefeller’s new apartment in 1937 would become not only the first example of his work in the U.S. but one of the most artistically important. Rockefeller was well-informed on le Style Frank, having visited the famous minimally luxe lair of the Victomte and Vicomtesse de Noailles in Paris, which Frank designed for them in 1926.

 

Neslon Rockefeller Apartment by J-M Frank, 1937. Photography by Richard Champion.

Fast forward to the early nineteen-nineties: Margaretta “Happy” Rockefeller, Nelson’s second wife, married in the sixties, is a widow. The apartment that Wallace Harrison and Raymond Hood (architect of Rockefeller Center and the Metropolitan Opera House) constructed and Jean-Michel Frank designed was still in tact, just as it was in 1937. It consisted of two expansive floors at 850 Fifth Avenue – much too large for Happy’s modern day lifestyle. Over lunch one day with Albert Hadley she asked if he would take a look at it. Happy explained, “I want a more do-able, cozier apartment for myself and my two sons. My only insecurity was to find myself with all those marvelous things and to want so much to know that Nelson would be proud of how I used them. The apartment had to keep the feeling of something we had done together.” No longer entertaining heads of state, Happy desired a more comfortable and private domain.

The late, great Albert Hadley was a devout admirer of Jean-Michel Frank’s contribution to design: “It was a turning point in the decorative arts, a beginning of simplicity in form. All that incredible furniture, with its echoes of Louis XV and Louis XVI and Charles X, has great meaning, for many reasons. It would have been criminal to have gotten rid of any of it.”

The transposition of the original layout began with scaling down the size of the apartment, which would come to comprise primarily of a wing that had been added twenty years prior by Wallace Harrison. Albert Hadley’s sensitivity to Frank’s masterpiece and Happy’s desire for a more comfortable environment were realized, retaining most of the original custom designed Frank furniture.

What had originally been the master bedroom was reconfigured into the present living room by Albert Hadley. A ceiling cut-out design by Fernand Léger is original to the room. Recognizable from the original Frank wood-paneled living room  are a pair of gilt wood bergeres and ivory veneered tables by Frank in the foreground, and a pair of gold consoles and andirons by Giacometti on the far wall. The marble fireplace mantel also came from the original living room. The reproduction van Dongen painting over the fireplace is flanked by two small works by Paul Klee.

Happy Rockefeller’s bedroom before it was reconfigured as a living room by Albert Hadley. Other than the for the original cut-out design in the ceiling by Léger the room displays no signs of Frank’s work.

 

The scheme for the new living room was based on the colors of the Edo period Japanese screen that Mrs. Rockefeller admired, taken from their country house. Hadley assured Mrs. Rockefeller that he would endeavor to use as much of her diverse artworks as possible. The gold foil in the Japanese screen, the gilt finished lamps by Giacometti and gilt bergers and side tables by Frank contribute to what Hadley remarked is “the goldest room you’ve ever seen”.

The new living room exhibits a fondness by Mrs. Rockefeller for Asian decorative arts, as seen again her with the Japanese screen, polychrome porcelain figurines, lacquered cocktail table, glazed fish bowl and robes chest. The neutral upholstered furniture added by Hadley is perhaps too plump and over-scaled for today’s tastes but, nevertheless, contributes to a sense of ease and comfort in keeping with the scale of the space. A furniture layout comprising three distinct groupings lends the space a convivial spirit.

The first dining room mirrored the original paneled living room designed by Wallace Harrison and Jean-Michel Frank, a photo of which I have never seen. After Rockefeller expanded the apartment in the 1960’s after purchasing an entire floor of the building next door because it obscured their view he transformed the former dining room into a gallery, fashioning a new dining room from the original guest bedrooms.

The Rockefeller’s dining room in the 1960’s featured an abstract wall mural created by Fritz Glarner in 1964. Philip Johnson designed the black-lacquered and leather-upholstered chairs. Elaborate candelabra and candle sticks infuse the room with a sense of grandeur.

 

In the dining room’s third incarnation Hadley replaced the vibrant mural with glamorous, shimmering tea-paper. The original dining room’s dining chairs – which Fritz Glarner replaced with ones designed by Philip Johnson in the 1960’s – were reintroduced, still wearing their original petit-point upholstery by Christian Bérard. At left is an etching by Picasso. The painting is by Massimo Campigli. The alabaster jar on the pedestal is ancient Egyptian.

 

The library, above, retains its original cherrywood paneling in a darker finish. The painting duplicates a Picasso bequeathed to MOMA. A pair of Frank-designed arm chairs flank the fireplace in front of Giacometti floor lamps, which remain in situ, as seen in the photo of the same room, below, taken some time in the sixties.  A burnished Giacometti table lamp sits atop a books table at the far end of the room. African masks retain pride of place as they had years prior. Hadley successfully evoked le style Frank compared to the more happenstance decor illustrated in the photo below, with its pair of chintz covered armchairs that appear out of place.

The Rockefeller’s library as it appeared in the 1960’s. Early Asian and African art mixes with modern works, such as Giacometti’s lamps and Picasso’s Maisons Sur La Colline, Horta de Ebro, 1909.

A comfortable mix of furniture upholstered in honeyed tones lends a luxurious warmth to Happy Rockefeller’s bedroom suite, with a sofa design by Frank and club chair by Hadley. The gilt lamp is by Giacometti; the green shagreen table by Frank (taken from the original living room); the small bronze is by Henry Moore.

The dramatically lighted gallery was originally the dining room. In the nineteen-sixties Nelson Rockefeller expanded the apartment by buying an entire floor of the building next door because it obscured their views from the dining room. Surrealist sconces by Giacometti and a chair by Frank. At the end of the hall is the Aubusson area rug by Christian Bérard used in the original living room nearest the mural by Léger.

Albert Hadley, considered by many “the dean of design”, developed a sympathetic design resolution by bringing together the diverse Rockefeller collections in a comfortably luxurious, seemless setting.  The sense of cutting edge glamour is somewhat lost on the reincarnation of Frank’s interiors by Hadley, (which perhaps is exactly what Happy Rockefeller wished for), as they convey a more conventional approach to assimilating past with present, especially in the living room. Yet, either way, any admirer of Jean-Michel Frank would be smitten at the off chance that they could live among such style-defining treasures as those appearing in these images. Sadly, every room, and every incarnation, is but a memory. They no longer exist as they once did. It’s a tragedy that the original Frank rooms were not removed and donated to an institution, such as the Met, for posterity, as were the Wrightsman rooms. As Nelson Rockefeller himself commented on these rooms, “It’s got  a warmth that is really quite exciting. It combines a lot of qualities of the past, but done in a contemporary way. There’s richness and quality with the simplicity of the modern, and these things mix together very well. It’s ideal.”

Content for this post taken from Jean-Michel Frank Remembered by Van Day Truex for Architectural Digest, and Thirties Transposition by John Loring for Architectural Digest.

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Frankly Classic

Posted January 15, 2013. Filed in Jean-Michel Frank, Understated Luxury

In my first two posts on the designer Jean-Michel Frank I covered one of his earliest commissions by the Vicomte and Vicomtesse de Noailles for their Paris townhouse in 1926. A decade later U.S. politician and philanthropist Nelson Rockefeller would hire Frank for the decoration of his newly expanded New York apartment on Fifth Avenue. Rockefeller’s directive was “to do something in the style of Louis XV, with its excitement and beauty, but done in a modern way.” Since the 1920’s Frank was the most publicized and imitated interior designer in the world, but his work was yet to be seen in the states. Rockefeller’s profound admiration for Frank led him to seek him out and bring le style Frank to U. S. shores.

Photography by Richard Champion.

Nelson “Wally” Rockefeller was interested in curves and color, not the monochromatic angular steel and glass “machines for living” espoused by the Modernists of the day. Frank’s approach to Modernism was sensual, with an affinity for texture and the hand-made.

The living room’s boiseries were punctuated by fluid, curving, matching door and window frames, simplified versions of the Louis XV-style on which they were based.

Photography by Horst

The spare elegance  which Frank intended for the de Noailles Paris salon, with its neutral palette and cubist forms, would give way to color and curvilinear forms in the Rockefeller project. Curvaceous creamy sofas based on Louis XV examples were reduced to their essential outlines, free of carving or superfluous decoration. Chairs in the foreground faintly echo the Louis-XVI examples they were based on. Flanking either side of the fireplace are pairs of gilt bergeres adapted from Louis XIII models. A traditional Aubusson was updated by Christian Bérard with stylized flowers on a mauve ground. Matisse’s exuberant mural La Poésie (a copy of the 1938 original) is set within another stylized Louis-XV boiserie frame. Matisse’s oil Collioure hangs above the sofa. To the right of the mural hangs his Italian Women, 1915.

The living room was conceived in the manor of a graceful Louis-XV-style salon without the formality, anchored at either end by fireplaces with mural surrounds. Rockefeller had a great taste for Matisse, one inherited from his mother, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. Matisse created one of the room’s two murals in Nice. The other mural was executed by Leger in New York. In the 1970’s Rockefeller donated the murals to the Museum of Modern Art, replacing the originals with copies.

Photography by Horst.

Leger’s Woman with a Book mural surrounds a fireplace in the living room. A Frank-designed gilt bronze table and lamp sits between leather and cane bergères based on Louis-XV models. In front of the fireplace sits a green snakeskin table by Frank.

As not only a designer, but a true artist, Frank most certainly must have been exhilarated by the new direction his work was taking. By staying true to his affair with simplicity of form, texture, and precious, if not exotic, materials, Frank’s vision for the Rockefeller’s was complete. It is known to have been a great success, not just in the U.S. but worldwide. Rockefeller aptly remarked that there was “a warmth to it that was exciting. It had elements of the past styled in a contemporary way, combining richness and quality with the simplicity of the modern. To me it was ideal.”

Archival photograph

 

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The Art of the Room Inaugural Post

Posted January 14, 2013. Filed in Cy Twombly, Jean-Michel Frank, Understated Luxury

Welcome to the inaugural edition of The Art of the Room: In Search of the Sublime in Design. For quite some time I have wanted to create a blog as a repository of the finest in interior design and decoration.

With so many blogging about interior design and decoration today my first challenge was to come up with a name for my blog. After much scrutiny and trial and error I decided on The Art of the Room: In Search of the Sublime in Design.

 art 1 |ärt|

noun

1 the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.

4 a skill at doing a specified thing, typically one acquired through practice: the art of the room.

sublime |səˈblīm|

adjective

of such excellence, grandeur, or beauty as to inspire great admiration or awe.

The Art of the Room blog’s raison d’être is to present rooms, in of all their manifestations, that capture the art of creating spaces that elicit a sense of awe, and transform our perceptions of beauty and style. You won’t find decorator tricks, DIY projects or the latest trends here. What you will find is the best in interior design and decoration – creative, awe-inspiring spaces that stand the test of time.

 

In Search of the Sublime in Design

 

The logo, in the form of an inspiration board, for the Art of the Room blog was inspired and conceived from what I consider two of the most arresting and iconic interiors of the twentieth-century: the grand salon designed by Jean-Michel Frank for Vicomte and Vicomtesse  de Noailles in the Hotel de Bischoffsheim in Paris, first photographed by Man Ray in 1929. The other rooms of influence are those of the late artist Cy Twombly, photographed by H. P. Horst in 1966, at Cy Twombly’s apartment in Rome.

 

illustration by Mark Hampton

The Paris salon of Vicomte and Vicomtesse de Noailles in the Hotel de Bischoffsheim, Paris, 1929.

 

Cy Twombly in his Roman palazzo as photographed by H. P. Horst, 1966.

On first inspection these two residences could not be more dissimilar. One is sleek and modern; the other, classically romantic.  Yet there is a spare elegance, simplicity and calm that both possess – a lack of superfluous decoration and sentimentality in favor of a rigorous expression of form and timeless beauty. As with many great interiors, it is what is not there that makes these rooms soar, as much as what is there.  I have often dreamed of experiencing these rooms – the vellum tile covered walls, the doors of bronze with ivory details, tables of matchstick patterned oak and white lacquer, cabinets of shagreen, a mica fire surround, and the pale upholstered minimalist furnishings of Jean-Michel Frank’s creation; and the elegant calm of Cy Twombly’s Italianate rooms with their mix of 18th-century painted and parcel gilt Italian, Empire, and Egyptian-revival furniture, swathed in a cocoon of muted pastels which appear to be barely there, floating over a graphic marble tile floor, the perfect foil for his poetic abstractions inspired by Classical Greek literature. These great and iconic spaces possess the epitome of style and chic. They will live on in my dreams and memory ever more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am not the first to post these photos by no mean. Connoisseurs of design and avid bloggers alike have viewed these images over the course of the past few years, as blogging took the Internet by storm. But they mean so much to me, personally, that I could not conceive of not including them in my very first post. Whether you are viewing them for the first time or encountering them yet again, I hope you enjoy their simple elegance and timeless beauty. For me, they define The Art of the Room.  Simply sublime!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Elsa Schiaparelli

Posted January 14, 2013. Filed in French Eclecticism, Jean-Michel Frank, Moderne, Understated Luxury

Elsa Schiaparelli, the infamous fashion designer who embraced Surrealism in her designs, shared a few things in common with interior designer Jean-Michel Frank: both designers collaborated with artists Diego Giacometti and Christian Bérard. When it came time for Schiaparelli  to decorate her Paris hôtel particulier Frank was who she called on. He would go on to help Schiaparelli decorate two more homes. While Schiaparelli was outgoing and Frank demure, they collaborated successfully and became lifelong friends.

Though form and texture, not color, are generally associated with J-M Frank interiors, he did occasionally introduce color in his work . In his own shop on the rue Faubourg Saint-Honoré some of the lamp shades were executed in transparent colors – apple green, lemon yellow, or cherry red – breaking his own rule that lamp shades should be simple and unseen. He felt that color worked best in all-white environments.

rue Barbet-de-Jouy

Around the same time that Frank had opened his new shop Schiaparelli had taken a large apartment on the rue Barbet-de-Jouy in 1931. The dining room, above, exuded the ambiance of a supper club, with banquettes and black lacquered Directoire-style chairs pulled up to square black lacquered tables. Van Day Truex wrote for Architectural Digest in his essay Jean-Michel Frank Remembered, that it was the first time he had seen banquettes, which were upholstered in quilted blue chintz.. The walls and chairs were white, the latter with white rubber cushions.

 

Blvd. Saint-Germain living room

For Schiaparelli’s living room (1934) on the boulevard Saint-Germain bold strokes of color played off a crisp envelope of white and almond-green plaster: an orange leather sofa, black rubber curtains, chairs slip-covered in canary yellow and white quilted chintz.

 

Elsa Schiaparelli’s Bedroom on Blvd. Saint-Germain

Schiaparelli’s bedroom featured the same bark fabric that she used for dresses. White walls and a polar bear rug set off lavender-blue fabric.

 

The salon at 22, rue de Berri

In 1937 Schiaparelli purchased an eighteen-room hôtel particulier at 22, rue de Berri, which was decorated over time by both Jean-Michel Frank and Maison Jansen. The walls were covered in a series of eighteenth-century chinoiserie tapestries, taken from Boucher cartoons, with bookcases in each corner, designed as white and gold pagodas. The sofa was purple, the chairs scarlet. The eclectic decor mirrored  Schiaparelli’s own sense of style and fantasy.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see these rooms today, in all their colorful glory? Knowing the  background of his work through articles written in the past opens up a new appreciation for Frank’s unlimited breadth of talent.

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Perfectly Frank

Posted January 10, 2013. Filed in French Moderne, Jean-Michel Frank, Understated Luxury

Welcome back – to my second post! It is my intention to, eventually, write a daily post. Well … maybe five per week, any way. It has already proven more difficult than I imagined: sourcing and researching material; uploading and downloading images; and organizing categories and writing content that will result in an informative, creative,  and attractive post. Fortunately, I’m quite organized, possess a plethora of design-related material – both hard copies and digitally, and, most importantly, am passionate about and dedicated to the best in interior design and decoration.

In my inaugural post I introduced you to the rooms of two residences that have had a profound impact on the development of my own aesthetic: the Paris salon of the Vicomtesse and Vicomte de Noailles in the Hôtel Bischoffsheim, decorated by Jean-Michel Frank circa 1926; and, the apartment of the late artist Cy Twombly situated within a converted palazzo in Rome. While the images of both residences convey a spare elegance, albeit dissimilar, my focus in this post is on the work of Jean-Michel Frank, who has over the decades informed and inspired countless interior designers and decorators.

Jean-Michel Frank

Interior design buffs and aficionados may have already sensed familiarity with the title for this post: Perfectly Frank. Filed away, in one of my many binders, I found an article written by Stephen Calloway some time during the 1980’s for House and Garden magazine, titled “Perfectly Frank”. It reveals the human side of the designer, and that of his most influential client, the Vicomtess and Vicomte de Noailles.

The de Noailles’ eighteenth-century Beaux-Arts Paris townhouse, the Hôtel Bischoffsheim on the place des Unis (now the Musée Baccarat), was inherited from Marie-Laure’s grandfather. While some of the rooms were eighteenth-century with boiseries the elegantly cool rooms Frank would design for them would become the most important of his career.

The main salon of the de Noailles’ Paris hôtel particulier when first installed by Frank. Photographed by Man Ray in 1929.

Frank’s classic-modern rooms for the de Noailles’ exude understated luxury, where meticulous craftsmanship and exotic materials merge with exquisite restraint. Soaring vellum-sheathed walls and monumental bronze doors envelop oversize furniture covered in creamy white leather that mixes with low tables covered in leather, lacquer and hammered shagreen.

A contrasting view of the de Noailles parchment sheathed Paris salon.

The de Noailles were avid art collectors and considered among the haut monde of modern Paris. Jean-Michel Frank provided the artistic background and vision a patron of the arts such as Marie-Laure de Noailles expected. By 1932 Frank had a shop at 140 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, near the salon of his new friend, Coco Chanel, with a coterie of illustrious designers and artisans – the decorator Adolphe Chanaux, painter Christian Bérard , architect Emilio Terry, sculptor Alberto Giacometti, and his brother, Diego, the designer – all of whom made significant contributions to the evolving Jean-Michel Frank style.

The Vicomte and Vicomtesse de Noailles represented at the highest level this close association between patrons of strong personal taste and talented designers, the productive link that made Paris unique in the thirties. – Van Day Truex

As hostess, patron of the arts, sometimes muse, and artist herself, Marie-Laure de Noailles became known for her inimitable style and taste. Frank’s elegantly spare rooms would give way to walls hung with Modernist paintings suspended by gilt chain or thick rope – salon-style, collections and bibelots of all matter, stacked books and magazines, framed photos, and an English-style fireplace fender bench.

The main salon after Marie-Laure de Noailles added paintings and personal bibelots. Photograph by Cecil Beaton, circa late 1938.

The de Noailles Paris Salon, late 1930's

Another view of the drawing room de saloniste.

Frank subscribed to the dictum “you can most luxuriously install a room by un-furnishing it”. Marie-Laure de Noailles didn’t quite share this directive, turning their Beaux-Arts townhouse, with its luxurious modern rooms designed by Frank, into a laboratory of personal caprices, where the de Noailles held court with the Parisian avant-garde, centered around writer and film-maker Jean Cocteau and designer and painter Christain Bérard.

By circa 1938, when Cecil Beaton photographed Vicomtesse de Noailles in her salon with novelist Philip Toynbee and cellist Maurice Gendron, she and the Vicomte had emblellished Frank’s chaste design with antiques and avant-garde paintings. Above the mantel is a Balthus; at right a Bérard is suspended from gilt chains.

At her desk in her townhouse, Hotel Bisschofsheim in Paris, chairs, a desk and parchment tile wall covering reveal the hand of Jean-Michel Frank.

Old and new are mixed in the hall of the de Noailles Paris townhouse, Hotel Bischoffsheim. Photograph courtesy of Twentieth Century Decoration by Stephen Calloway, 1988. Originally featured in House and Garden, June, 1952.

While Frank was generally known to be testy by nature it has been questioned whether he reacted against the embellishments of his design made by the de Noailles, as some stories suggest. For myself, these rooms are awe-inspiring in either le style Frank or le style de Noailles. Frank’s vision speaks to the restrained classicist in me, while the salon de Noailles speaks to the artist in me. Either way, Frank’s scheme of extreme elegance and cool simplicity, employing unusual and precious materials, and the de Noailles intimate and eclectic salon des artistes, represents the rarefied passions of two exceptional visionaries.

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