Sometimes in life, and in design, you have to take on the big questions. And sometimes, you just need to ask yourself, "Who is that man break dancing in the middle of my table?"
Van Day Truex, The Man Who Defined Twentieth-Century Taste and Style, Adam Lewis, 2001.
These aren't men, of course, they are boys. And they aren't dancing, they're diving. And it's not my table, though I would gladly claim everything on it except that blush wine. This is the table of Van Day Truex and some of the classic items he created for Tiffany. Drabware plates, bamboo silver, Liverpool jug, dolphin candlesticks, All Purpose wine glasses. The striking Franzini "Diving Boys" sculptures were his own.
House and Garden, March, 1992.
My guess would be that these are the same sculptures here in Albert Hadley's apartment. They are not mentioned or credited in the article, but Hadley talks a great deal about enjoying "objects with associations."
Hadley was a student of Truex's and they were friends from the time Hadley enrolled in Parson's until Truex's death.
House and Garden, December, 1991.
Here Hadley and Gary Hagar, of Parish-Hadley, use very similar sculptures in the living room of Louise and Henry Grunwald. While these figures are striking, they are definitely accents in the room. Objets. You know, stuff.
Hadley was frustrated with clients who "have no possessions and bring nothing along, you feel that there has been no life before."
C.Z. Guest's library, House and Garden, October, 1988.
It takes a while to accumulate the kind of things that give a room dimension and it's easy to spend your energy on the paint and the rug and the curtains and the sofa.
This image and the one below, Mariette Himes Gomez, Houses: Inside and Out.
Just make sure at the end of the day when you are easing back into your favorite chair, that the glass that you set down on the table, or the thing that you nudge aside as you put your feet up on the table, make sure that it is something that is yours.
That there is a story behind it, even if the story is, "I saw it and I had to have it."
Not so much, "I got it on sale at Target."Labels: Artists, Designers