Indholdsfortegnelse for March 2021 i ELLE DECOR

AS WE PLANNED THIS ISSUE, THE FIRST I’VE OVERSEEN IN its entirety since taking the reins at ELLE DECOR last September, our conversations frequently returned to art: The museums and galleries we miss. The theaters and concert halls shuttered since last spring. The art-filled interiors we swoon over as they come across our desks, making us covetous—and hungrier than ever to travel. And swoon and covet we do: This month, we stop in on a Washington, D.C., couple with an art collection spanning blue-chip and avant-garde works, and visit a curator’s home in Connecticut, where the spirits of onetime guests like Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, and Alexander Calder have left a lasting impression. We knock on the doors of a young family living flat-out alongside a top-tier collection in Los…

IN MY FIRST APARTMENT, ON GRAND BOULEvard in Greenwood, Mississippi, I slept in a 1920s bed my great-grandmother Goggy bought with her first paycheck as an elementary school teacher for Black children in Tuskegee, Alabama. The bed was full-size. I had wanted a queen. It came with an old-fashioned vanity, complete with a curved mirror and cushioned stool. I had wanted something contemporary and lightweight. I learned to be grateful that I’d given up on the things I thought I wanted. Now I can say with pride and certainty that developing one’s “taste” in furniture means something different when you are sitting on, sleeping in, and surrounded by pieces purchased with newly freed hands reaching for a new way of being in America. When Goggy bought that bedroom set, she…

White Cube “This London gallery is really tapped into a number of incredible private collections. I return regularly for its exceptional selection of global artists.” —Nicole Fuller whitecube.com Jessica Silverman Gallery “She brings an admirable combination of art industry knowledge and a keen eye for aesthetics to her San Francisco practice; we love her personal style.” —Leann Conquer and Alexis Tompkins, Chroma SF jessicasilvermangallery.com Alma Zevi “In London, Alma has created a dynamic, cerebral program, with established and emerging artists as well as some amazing estates. Her approach is rigorous; I learn something new whenever I visit her.” —Adam Charlap Hyman almazevi.com Mariane Ibrahim “She showcases a highly talented stable of powerful Black female artists in her Chicago gallery. As a fellow art advisor, I always trust her eye.” —Cheryl…

STYLE, ACCORDING TO CLIFF FONG, IS ABOUT POSSESSING A SINGULAR SENSIBILITY. Having worked in fashion in a former life, the Los Angeles–based interior designer, who operates under the firm name Matt Blacke, takes an approach informed by the personal style of fashion icons: “They’re never head-to-toe in Saint Laurent or Gucci,” he says. “It’s about the mix.” In Fong’s latest project, a 1927 Mediterranean-style mansion in L.A.’s historic Hancock Park neighborhood, his fashion-forward philosophy resounds through the home’s various eras of art and design. In the dining room, where the original oak paneling is almost a century old, the dining table is a 21st-century work by Rick Owens, embodying the high-low ethos by combining petrified wood and plywood. The delicately wrought ceiling lamp is 1950s Serge Mouille, whose distinct graphic…

Lush Life An inky floral damask on sumptuous cotton velvet frames a riotous arrangement in rich and romantic shades of purple, blue, and green. FABRIC: Tarbana in Midnight by Designers Guild. HOW TO USE IT: Cover a chair or sofa in this sensational velvet for an instant zhuzh. FLOWERS BY: Taylor Patterson for Fox Fodder Farm. Red, White, and Bloom Orchids, palms, and anthuriums create their own divine symmetries against Jane Churchill’s Kantha quilt-inspired cotton blend. FABRIC: Imri in Red by Jane Churchill Fabrics for Cowtan & Tout. HOW TO USE IT: Upholster a headboard—or your entire bed frame. FLOWERS BY: Robin Rose Hilleary for Fleurotica. “The dehydrated, preserved materials are actively creating, still. What appears to be dead is very much alive.”LUTFI JANANIA Ritual Union Preserved botanicals in shades…

Items pictured but not listed are from private collections. CONTENTS PAGE 14: Sculptures: Ivo Bisignano, ivobisignano.com. PAGE 16: Chandelier: Lindsey Adelman, lindseyadelman.com. Artwork: Kyle Staver, kylestaver.com. SHOWCASE PAGE 38: Fabrics: Dedar, dedar.com; Kravet, kravet.com. Bust: Lamps Plus, lampsplus.com. TOP SECRETS PAGES 44–46: Nicole Fuller, nicolefullerinteriors.com. Chroma SF, chromasf.com. Adam Charlap Hyman, ch-herrero.com. Cheryl R. Riley, cherylrriley.com. Shannon McLaren, prairiehomestyling.com. Stephanie Goto, stephaniegoto.com. Joe Nahem, foxnahem.com. Danielle Colding, dcdny.com. Robert Stilin, robertstilin.com. STUDIO VISIT Susan Barrett, barrettbarrera.com. Interior design: James Jamieson, jamiesondesign.com. PAGES 52–54: Artwork: Kehinde Wiley, kehindewiley.com. Wallpaper: de Gournay, degournay.com. Artwork: Kwame Brathwaite, kwamebrathwaite.com. Artwork: Mickalene Thomas, mickalenethomas.com. Chaise: Charles and Ray Eames, eamesoffice.com. Wallpaper: Gucci, gucci.com. WHAT BECOMES A LEGEND MOST? Interior design: Cliff Fong, mattblackeinc.com. Bathroom construction: Sarah Shetter Design, sarahshetterdesign.com. PAGES 70–71: Artwork: Kenneth Anger, kennethanger.com. Table:…

IN 1916, HENRI MATISSE PAINTED THE PIANO Lesson, which features his young son Pierre at the family piano. Part of a seminal series of intimate portraits, the work is a visual illusion that blurs the boundaries between inside and outside. Points of entry are unclear; the assumed safety of shelter feels precarious, even slightly threatened. The public display of our private spaces has a long history in art-making. From photographers to dancers and other creatives, many artists have attempted to engage with interiors—illuminating and recasting the banal spaces of everyday life as sites for the extraordinary. At a time when many of us are opening our homes to outsiders through the form of gridded squares and virtual gazes, the topic takes on a renewed relevance. In Inherent Distance (2018), the…

Beata Heuman hopes to help you find your voice with Every Room Should Sing (Rizzoli), the London designer’s debut. Something borrowed, something new: Designer Corey Damen Jenkins weds time-honored and contemporary styles in Design Remix: A New Spin on Traditional Rooms(Rizzoli). Juan Montoya’s Designing Paradise(Rizzoli) transports readers to pavilions, pools, and plush pads across the Americas created by the Colombia-born designer. Stay engaged with This Far and No Further (University of Texas Press), the veteran interiors photographer William Abranowicz’s enlightening chronicle of the struggle for voting rights in the American South. Explore the radical roots of the Michigan training ground of Eames, Saarinen, and other icons in With Eyes Opened: Cranbrook Academy of Art Since 1932 (Cranbrook Art Museum). Spend A Year at Clove Brook Farm (Rizzoli) and witness the…

WHILE EVERY BIT OF OUR HOMES HAS GOTTEN more usage during the past year in quarantine, never before have our humble sinks seemed quite so ho-hum. Even brass swan taps lovingly sourced from estate sales inevitably bear the brunt of so much handwashing—and hand-wringing. Woe, indeed, is the washbasin. But the hygienic realities of the half bath have historically been tempered, at least with euphemisms if not with a decorative flair that belies the room’s intended usage. (Did we mention the brass swan taps?) Our current chapter in domestic hygiene, blighted as it is by COVID-19, arrives in the wake of two centuries of engineering innovation alongside evolving social mores—the advent of indoor plumbing; a lavatory for guests’ use—while what we commonly call “powder rooms” came to prominence even earlier.…

THE CENTRAL CONNECTICUT TOWN OF FARMington is best known today—if it’s known much at all—as home to the Otis elevator company and the exclusive all-girls private school Miss Porter’s. But in the 1930s and ’40s, Alexander Calder, Joan Miró, and Salvador Dalí knew the town, which is just outside of Hartford, as the location of their friend James Soby’s country home. A critic, collector, and influential early champion of modern art, Soby regularly hosted his circle of art-world intimates at the stately Greek Revival house, which he purchased in 1935. Snapshots from the era (now in the archives of the Museum of Modern Art, along with most of his collection) depict Miró and Yves Tanguy smoking in the living room; Calder on the patio, dancing to an accordion; and Soby…

When multimedia artist Sanford Biggers was approached by the rug company Henzel Studio about a collaboration, he was no stranger to textiles, having previously used fabrics in his work. However, his design for Henzel marks the first time Biggers has ever treated a rug like a canvas. As the basis for this project, Biggers chose a drawing he made in the early 2000s, influenced by sumi-e ink-wash paintings and Buddhist thangkas, traditional paintings on fabric. “I thought the material might be able to catch the nuances of the original drawing,” he explains. The finished hand-knotted, Persian-weave rug, titled Ibeji (Duet), features twin carved figures from Yoruba culture that are thought to possess spiritual powers. As is the tradition with Henzel’s ongoing artist series, Biggers received creative carte blanche. “The invited…

I’LL ADMIT IT: I FLED NEW York for Florida’s empty beaches in the earliest days of the pandemic. My Brooklyn apartment is tiny. As an art writer and consultant, I am hardly ever home under normal circumstances. Going to galleries and museums is more than an aesthetic pursuit to me; they’re a place to meet friends, and where I go to be alone. They are the living room I do not have. Since last March, the art world has bent over backward to bring itself online, and this has caused all of us to ask what it is we really value from art. Struggling museums now rely on detailed photography and virtual tours to accompany their physical shows, sometimes charging a fee to viewers. Meanwhile, galleries—which are really just small,…

WE HAVE THE LIMITATIONS of Bronze Age fashion to thank for the advent of the brooch—the earliest examples were used to secure clothing around the body. The intervening millennia have led to simpler methods of fastening a frock, but nothing can supplant the brooch as one of the most adaptable adornments that can be worn virtually anywhere. Legendary French jeweler Van Cleef & Arpels has made its share of expressive brooches (or “clips,” as they’re referred to in the maison’s preferred parlance) since its 1906 inception. Each one is a painterly composition with texture, color, and radiant sparkle, often informed by other artistic disciplines. The Cristaux de Saphirs clip translates the image of a crystal cavern from Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth into an arresting form…

NEATLY SET BACK FROM THE SLOPING, REDBRICK SIDEWALKS THAT LINE THE STREETS OF GEORGETOWN, IN Washington, D.C., is a 19th-century house with enviable proportions, exquisite furnishings, and light that is just right. But first impressions leave little room for doubt: This is a home where art rules the roost. As you step through the front door, the monumental Sterling Ruby mixed-media piece in the foyer nearly overwhelms with its sheer size. A sight line from the entryway to the back of the house reveals a sliver of wall that hosts a looping digital animation by the British artist Julian Opie. Around a corner from the foyer, in the living room, a painting commissioned from the Englishman Richard Long serves as the confrontational centerpiece. One in a row of Italianate-style brick…

WHEN AN ANCIENT CAVE COLLAPSED IN A PARK OUTSIDE of Jerusalem, Italian artist Ivo Bisignano and his husband, architect Alex Meitlis, knew that meant at least one thing: They would be sharing their Tel Aviv loft with a collection of wooden roommates for a while longer. It was Meitlis who had convinced Bisignano to exhibit his sculptures in a Judaean-era grotto. But in the fall of 2019, before the pieces were installed, the cave collapsed. “For the next three months, we were sleeping with them,” says Bisignano, a former fashion director for Vogue Italia, of his towering figures. And then the pandemic hit, throwing the couple off their usual rhythm of three weeks in Tel Aviv and two in London, where Meitlis oversees the design of restaurants for his longtime…