The World of Interiors June 2022

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The meeting-room gallery, on the second floor of the Peter Marino Art Foundation, is dedicated to contemporary works from the architect’s own collection that rotate each summer. Top billing in this 2021 iteration goes to a portrait of Marino himself by Italian artist Francesco Clemente. Below it are works from American Tom Sachs, including Constantin Brâncus¸i-inspired sculptures crafted from plywood and screws MIX MASTER To display his hugely diverse collection, architect Peter Marino has turned a Long Island library into an art museum, filling its Gothic Revival space with compelling couplings, such as a 17th-century bronze seen alongside an Andy Warhol. Indeed, from ancient Greek artefacts to contemporary installations, ‘It’s all about interesting juxtapositions,’ he tells Stephen Wallis. Photography: Jason Schmidt T o sum up the idiosyncratic appeal of the private museum Opened last summer with minimum fanfare because of he created for his blue-chip art collection on the East Covid-19, the foundation occupies the former Rogers Memorial End of Long Island, architect Peter Marino likes to Library, a two-storey 1890s Gothic Revival building designed quote a journalist friend. ‘She said to me: “The only place in the by RH Robertson in Southampton village, near where Marino world you’re going to see a Tom Sachs Brâncu¸si-inspired big and his wife, the costume designer Jane Trapnell, have had a red cock next to a Ferdinando Tacca bronze owned by Louis summer home for nearly three decades. As the story goes, the XIV is at the Peter Marino Art Foundation,’” he recounts. ‘It couple were walking along Jobs Lane four years ago, lamenting happens to be true.’ the state of the historic building – then a branch of One Kings A&A JUNE 2022

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Right: late 19th-century Théodore Deck faience vessels perch on Carlo Bugatti tables in front of the Gold Room’s restored original windows. With leather-clad walls and oak parquet floors from Austria, Marino sought to create a period house museum feel. Below: a floor was taken out to create a double-height space to accommodate a painting of Alexander the Great by Warhol – one of his first clients – and a 17th-century bronze by Ferdinando Tacca Lane – when she suggested that he could be just the person to reinvigorate the red-brick landmark. Marino, best known for his seductive, often art-filled boutiques for brands such as Dior, Chanel and Fendi, agreed. ‘The best adaptive reuse we could think of for a beautiful old library building was turning it into an art museum,’ he says. Marino announced the acquisition of the building in 2018 at the summer gala for the Southampton Arts Center, during an exhibition of works from his collection at the Parrish Art Museum, now in nearby Water Mill. About a year later, work began to overhaul the 745sq m interior, a process delayed by the pan- demic. ‘The only thing preserved at all on the inside was the fireplace, which we restored to its original condition,’ says Marino. ‘Absolutely everything is new.’ The architect tailored it all to feel like a house museum, the first few galleries setting the tone with 18th-century oak parquet floors, English Arts and Crafts curtains and walls clad in stamped gold leather and black Wiener Werkstätte-style wainscotting. These domestically scaled spaces showcase a mix that spans cen- turies and takes in ancient Greek and Egyptian artefacts, Renaissance and Baroque sculptures, early Modern ceramics and contemporary artworks in multiple mediums. ‘You know you’re not in for a regular show here,’ Marino says. ‘It’s all about inter- esting juxtapositions.’ As you move through the foundation, so the spaces become larger, with mostly white walls, focusing on regularly changing displays of contemporary works. To be clear, none of the galler- ies is the boring white box Marino detests. Indeed, one features walls upholstered in black leather, a playful nod to his sartorial style, which his niece and spokesperson Catherine Philbin de- scribes as ‘very on brand’. Philbin is one of the guides who leads small group tours of the foundation, which took place twice daily on Fridays and A&A JUNE 2022

Left: a Joel Morrison bust stands sentry by lift doors wrapped in images taken by Peter Dayton in the garden of Marino’s Southampton home. Above: the architect replanted the beds with red roses and stewartia to complement the brickwork Saturdays last summer (it is closed most of the winter and spring). plaster. Nearby are pieces of gilded sculptural furniture by Although Marino plans to expand these to accommodate more Claude Lalanne (Marino owns one of the largest private collec- guests, his vision from the outset was for an intimate, engaging tions of works by her and her husband), fantastical ceramic ves- and informative museum, one without labels on walls. Attracting sels by Théodore Deck atop Carlo Bugatti tables, paintings by lots and lots of visitors was never the goal. Warhol and YZ Kami, as well as bronze cabinets with exqui- sitely patterned surfaces by the architect himself. ‘At first, we thought, will anybody come? But the word spread very quickly,’ the architect says. ‘And the response has While the first few galleries on the ground floor have been off the charts, especially in cultural circles. I’m thrilled be- changed only slightly from last season, the rest of the spaces are cause it’s people who are interested in art, not linen shoppers or installed with largely new selections. There are special installa- people buying a Carvel ice cream who maybe wander into this tions of Anselm Kiefer paintings from Marino’s extensive hold- art foundation to see what they’ve got.’ ings and a group of metal sculptures by Melvin Edwards. Upstairs, in a large gallery devoted to rotating displays, a presen- Marino can tick off a list of distinguished guests, among them tation of photo works by Vik Muniz will shortly be followed by New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art director Max Hollein, Sanford Biggers paintings and, later in the summer, sculptures as well as members of the Met board. One trustee remarked that by Jean-Michel Otoniel and Johan Cretan. the foundation was a new high point of culture on the East End; Hollein apparently replied: ‘Madam, this is a high point of cul- The opening of each exhibition is marked by one of the ture in the world.’ foundation’s Brunches with Bob – as in the writer Bob Colacello, a long-time friend of Marino’s who serves as the in- For his part, Marino says he never thought of the foundation stitution’s co-director – and a reception on the brick terrace, in such lofty terms. ‘It was just like, look, I got to get all this stuff renovated as part of improvements to the gardens. He has intro- out of the warehouse,’ he says with a laugh. All that stuff is the duced magnolia, holly, Hinoki cypress and arborvitaes (some result of more than 40 years of collecting, which began in the cultivated from his own Southampton plot) and replanted the late 1970s when Andy Warhol paid him for renovations to his beds in front of the museum with five varieties of red rose (the Upper East Side town house with artwork. The scale of his ac- official flower of Southampton) and red stewartia, which he quisitiveness is immediately apparent in the foundation’s recep- notes ‘look great against the red-brick building’. tion room, where visitors are greeted by his prized Tacca sculpture – a 17th-century work depicting Hercules wrestling a Asked to explain the thread that ties it all together, Marino stag – and a biblical scene by the Baroque Neapolitan painter points to the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, the diverse and Luca Giordano. Last year those were joined by several African deeply personal trove assembled by the chemist and businessman sculptures and works by Cy Twombly, Jean-Michel Basquiat Alfred C. Barnes. ‘I always tell people: If you bring together and Glenn Ligon set against walls of sumptuous green Venetian everything you love, it’s going to be you and look like nothing else.’ As Barnes himself would surely appreciate, the Peter Marino Art Foundation is certainly one of a kind $ 11968. For visit A&A JUNE 2022



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THE WORLD OF INTERIORS  PARTNERSHIP Gallery of the Greats WANT TO GET THE HANG OF THE FINEST ART AND ANTIQUE DEALERS, FURNISHING SUPPLIERS AND INTERIOR DESIGNERS? OUR SELECTION PROVIDES THE PERFECT PRIVATE VIEW FOSTER & GANE Foster & Gane sells a carefully curated collection of pieces from 20th-century design to antiquity, and span- ning the centuries between. The duo source intriguing, unpredictable combinations of furniture, art, textiles, rugs and objects to create a broad yet focused collec- tion. By buying only what they love, and always look- ing for the offbeat, they pride themselves on stock that can add character to any room. View the collection at its showroom in Oxfordshire or make contact online to discuss your wishlist. Visit fosterandgane.com AN EXCEPTIONAL EMPIRE GILTWOOD SALON ARMCHAIR BY JACOB-DESMALTER, c1810, IN FRONT OF A RARE AND LARGE ITALIAN BAROQUE SILK EMBROIDERY c1700

THE WORLD OF INTERIORS  PARTNERSHIP GODSON & COLES Godson & Coles has for many years specialised in the best of 18th-century English furniture and 20th-century Modern British art. As one of London’s leading art and antique galleries, long established in South Kensington, Godson & Coles has de- veloped an international reputation for dealing in the highest- quality antique furniture and Modern art; a combination that is particular to them. These two genres are not as disparate as they may seem and their creative energies reflect each other,creating a fascinating dynamic. For details, visit godsonandcoles.co.uk ENGLISH BURR-WALNUT GILTWOOD AND BRASS-MOUNTED BOMBE BUREAU CABINET, c1725. PATRICK HERON, HALSETOWN, 1945-46. PAIR OF ENGLISH CARVED MAHOGANY SIDE CHAIRS, c1745

THE WORLD OF INTERIORS  PARTNERSHIP EMBLEM Founded in 2015, the Emblem group today gathers four exceptional French houses under its umbrella: the Manufacture des Emaux de Longwy 1798, Taillardat, Vernaz & Filles and Craman Lagarde.Driven by the de- sire to preserve artisanal expertise and internationally recognised ‘made in France’ workmanship, Emblem aims to defend the excellence of the French art de vivre, which is brought to light in its Paris showroom.At this exclusive address, you will find the quintessence of extraordinary centuries-old savoir-faire for the finest interior-design projects. Visit taillardat.fr. Emblem, 122 Rue de Grenelle,75007 Paris.Ring 00 33 1 47 20 17 12, or email [email protected]. In the USA: Emblem, 171 Spring St, NewYork,NY 10012.Email [email protected] CYLINDER DESKWITH MOTHER-OF-PEARL MARQUETRY (AFTER RIESENER FOR MARIE-ANTOINETTE), TOPPED WITH A ‘LE NOUVEAU MONDE’ GLOBE VASE BY GUIVE KHOSRAVI FOR EMAUX DE LONGWY 1798

THE WORLD OF INTERIORS  PARTNERSHIP DARWI N, S I N KE & VAN TONG E R E N In 2015, Damien Hirst bought these taxidermy artists’ entire first exhibition. Since then their 17th century-in- spired work has been sold worldwide to museums, col- lectors and investors. The remarkable poses of the ani- mals, which marks out the artists’ work, are created by handmaking individual mannequins. This means that every fine creation is one of a kind. Darwin, Sinke & Van Tongeren works only with ethically sourced animals that died of natural causes at breeders’ or in zoos. Instagram: @finetaxidermy, or visit finetaxidermy.com A FINE TAXIDERMY ARTWORK ENTITLED THE TOWER OF STRIGIFORMES: THREE PYGMY OWLS AND A SPOTTED EAGLE OWL ON AN ANTIQUE ORNAMENT FOUND IN LONDON

THE WORLD OF INTERIORS  PARTNERSHIP WI LL G R E E N AT R ON G R E E N Will is the fourth generation of the family antique-dealing busi- ness,Ron Green.He finds characterful pieces of good design,pati- na and charm that help to form interiors of a time-softened beauty. Recently, Will has been working with private clients and interior decorators to source pieces that help to create rooms with a relaxed and well-worn feel. To see Will’s collection, along with the full stock from Ron Green,visit rongreen.co.uk,or Instagram @willsssss AN 18th-CENTURY CHINESE EXPORT LACQUER TRIPOD TABLE, A 17th-CENTURY BARGELLO WOOLWORK OAK BACKSTOOL AND A LARGE CLASSICAL ALABASTER URN

THE WORLD OF INTERIORS  PARTNERSHIP ADAM BENTLEY A secret source for in-the-know decorators and others in the trade is why Adam is often re- ferred to as a ‘dealer’s dealer’. Adam is tireless in maintaining his Battersea emporium and res- toration workshop as a go-to source for both private individu- als and dealers alike. Stepping through the unassuming doors of his showroom is like entering an Aladdin’s cave, bursting with carefully chosen pieces that evoke the English country-house aesthetic but also an array of items that would add interest to more contemporary settings.His website is always kept up-to-date with new discoveries, meaning that his exciting treasures can be viewed both in person and on- line. Visit adamcalvertbentley.co.uk, or Instagram: @adamcbentley A LARGE 18th-CENTURY SILK WALL HANGING, ORIGINALLY A COVERLET FOR A GRAND BED, FORMS A BACKDROP FOR A CARVED ROCOCO GILTWOOD MIRROR THAT HANGS ABOVE A LOUIS XV GILTWOOD CONSOLE TABLE WITH FAUX-MARBLE TOP

THE WORLD OF INTERIORS  PARTNERSHIP BRONZINO Now in its 17th year, the Bronzino workshop is known for its classic planters and vases made by hand from solid sheets of cop- per, brass and zinc using traditional foundry finishes. The com- pany can adapt and change designs to fit clients’ individual pro- jects.Custom sizes and hidden wheels are optional.Its sculptural vases are beautiful in their own right and spectacular with large arrangements of spring blossom – they’re also handy for walking sticks and umbrellas. In particular, they’re ideal for locations where weight may be an issue, such as roof terraces, balconies and yachts.Bronzino works with architects and designers world- wide. Stock is always available. Ring 020 7370 4344, visit bronzino.co.uk or email [email protected] THE THREE JARS ON THE FLOOR ARE ALL HANDMADE IN COPPER ANDTHE ONE ONTHETABLE IS OXIDISED COPPER. MADETO ORDER

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network Sophia Toce chooses the best art and antiques worldwide Brownrigg has established a name for antiques and decorative pieces, from the 17th century to the mid-20th. Both in showroom and online, there’s invariably a fascinating mix of items, including this set of four 19th-century oak double doors and frames. Brownrigg, 14 Long St, Tetbury, Glos GL8 8AQ (01666 500887; brownrigg-interiors.co.uk). Foster & Gane draws together carefully curated, unusual pieces – spanning furniture, art, textiles and rugs – from antiquity to the 20th century. Above is a ‘PH’ patinated copper-and-glass table lamp, c1927, by Danish designer Poul Henningsen. Foster & Gane at Three Pigeons, London Rd, Milton Common, Oxon OX9 2JN (07714 269719; fosterandgane.com). Founded in 1911, Stephen Cavallo is a third-generation company. With more than a century’s trading, it specialises in bespoke interior glass and antique mirror work, often incorporating classical design, to create cast- glass mouldings and mirrored wall panels. Stephen Cavallo, 320 East 95th St, New York, NY 10128 (001 212 288 5050; stephencavallo.com). With a background in antique and fine-art conservation, Adam Bentley Julia Boston’s London shop is filled with the fruits of a quarter-century’s spent 15 years advising collectors, dealers and museums before establish- worth of expertise in French antiques and decoration. It’s a treasure ing his own company in 2016. This set of four Louis XV painted fau- trove of 18th- and 19th-century tapestries, paintings and prints, as well as teuils by Jean-Baptiste Lebas shows his eye for quality and love of the this large table lamp, converted from a delft vase. Julia Boston Antiques, unusual. Ring 07545 220052, or visit adamcalvertbentley.co.uk. 588 King’s Rd, London SW6 (020 7610 6783; juliaboston.com) $

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FIRING ALL CYLINDERS Almost 40 years ago we introduced readers to a brilliant potter called Magdalene Odundo in the very infancy of her career. And what a career. Much has happened in the decades since – including recognition in the honours – but those bulbous ceramics remain as sought-after as ever. Ahead of sundry shows, she talks to Hettie Judah. Photography: Oskar Proctor. Archive photography: Philip Sayer A&A JUNE 2022

Previous pages, from left: Magdalene Odundo in her studio; blackened works are made using wood to deplete oxygen in the kiln, carbonising the clay’s surface. This page: the artist started drawing works to record what she’d made. Today these ‘portraits’ are exhibited in their own right Magdalene Odundo stands before a Art, during which she developed the highly burnished, refined row of her glossy-skinned ceramic working style that has been sought after since the early 1980s. works in the upper part of her Farnham studio and appraises a As the art world has learned to love clay over the past decade, group of recent pieces. The vessels so Odundo’s star has risen. Following a retrospective at Hepworth rise up from her worktop at waist Wakefield in 2019, she has become a feature of exhibitions height – body and neck – and she celebrating the sculptural possibilities of ceramics. Newly returned studies them as though face to face. from a group show at the Thomas Dane Gallery in Naples, next ‘I start relating them to characters,’ she says, tracing the swoops week Odundo leaves to install works for the Venice Biennale. and angles of the spaces between the pieces with her finger. This autumn her work will appear alongside that of contemporary ‘They’re like members of a circus, or an ensemble.’ artists around the world at a major Hayward Gallery exhibition. The studio, which is connected to Odundo’s house, nestles within a garden of fleshy-leaved shrubs, at the margin where town Odundo’s studio extends from her home like the journey of an dissolves into agricultural landscape. After 12 years here, Odundo idea, travelling from inspiration to execution. First comes a warm cherishes the birdsong, the visits from silent deer, and the seed pods office lined with books and catalogues, then a studio of sketching and squash that the lush, tranquil location brings her. Born in and drawing, where she hangs out with newly fired works for a Nairobi in 1950, she has a long connection to Farnham: it was here while before they leave for a new home. This middle space is that she came in 1976, after an art foundation course in Cambridge, strung with vessels and containers of all kinds: a cabinet full of to study ceramics, printmaking and photography at West Surrey model boats belonging to her late partner; a basket of seed pods, College. It was from here, too, that she travelled to Uganda to dried squash and mermaids’ purses; sealed bundles of precious research traditional coiling and firing techniques for her magic objects; a tobacco pouch; and a wooden travel box. dissertation. Then followed a period teaching at the Commonwealth Institute in London, before, finally, an MA at the Royal College of Odundo pauses to admire a hide water carrier from Kenya with a satisfying forked wooden stopper: ‘Somebody has taken the trouble to sculpt it: it reminds me of an extension of the neck and the head of an animal, or gathered, braided hair. It has an elegant proud A&A JUNE 2022

Above left: a pair of vessels emerge from their first firing. Working without glazes, Odundo burnishes the ceramic surface to a silken sheen. Above right: she captures the sculptural forms of seed pods, gourds and egg cases in sketches from which she develops ideas for forms attitude, like it’s been dressed with necklaces, and then balloons out Odundo’s eureka moment at the Royal College of Art came with the realisation that she did not need glazes to bring like an operatic costume.’ The bulbous body and craning neck relate sophistication to her works; instead they become ‘sophisticated in the making: in poise and in movement, in creating static pieces to some of the forms she explores in her ceramic work, as does the that were sensual and sensuous and that play in the course of human drama’. Exploring that human drama, she looked to many attitude. Her sketchbooks reveal Odundo drawing inspiration, too, different ceramic traditions, including ancient works from Mesoamerica, the Fertile Crescent and East Asia, as well the from seed pods, birds and bodies. All inform her lexicon of curves. Staffordshire slipware of Thomas Toft and Ralph Simpson, vehicles for storytelling and satire in the 17th century. The final studio is the business end, home to a gas and an The firing of clay vessels was a transformational moment in electric kiln, great bins of red clay, sacks of wood shavings and human development, dating back some 20,000 years. For millennia, ceramics have been at the centre of daily and ritual traditions: this wiped-down tables of tools. After almost 40 years, she says, the is the edge along which Odundo’s work dances, speaking to the comfortable familiarity of pots and jars and to the otherworldly technical aspect of making is intuitive and cumulative, a resonance of sacred objects. Tall, straight-sided vessels, blackened in the kiln, relate to funerary forms placed on graves in East Africa: combination of ‘acquired knowledge and the knowledge that containers for the soul. She imagines that other pieces, ‘if we lived in Egyptian times, would go with their owner to the burial chamber continues to be acquired. It’s to do with the forms and getting the and be very comfortable in that context’. Has anyone been buried with one of her pots? ‘No!’ She laughs. ‘Not so far…’ $ finishes that complement the forms.’ Odundo fires her works many times to achieve the tone she feels best fits each piece. Many are wholly or partially carbonised, with an intense black lustre on the surface. Inside the kiln stand two wide- mouthed, round-bellied vessels, golden caramel red after their first firing. Their burnished skin is so flawless and silken they look childlike, like a pair of sisters, emerging into the light. ‘And then they get destroyed by age!’ she says with a laugh. ‘They need to age like I’m ageing!’ Transforming and expanding incrementally, her practice has remained remarkably consistent over almost four decades: the vessels pictured in a profile from June 1984 are very recognisable siblings to the ones Odundo is working on today. 27 Nov visit A&A JUNE 2022

This page, clockwise from top left: when WoI first visited Odundo 38 years ago, for a feature in June 1984, we got a real glimpse into her practice. The vessel in this archive image shows the range of tones produced by reduction firing; ‘that extra tomato colour’ she spoke about was the result of using two clays – one from Staffordshire and one from Suffolk; the tools of her trade; the strata-like bands here arose from experiments with packing the kiln. Opposite: Odundo shaped a dramatic angular spout with a chamois leather while the clay was wet A&A JUNE 2022

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M A NH AT TA N BROWN TONES In his apartment in a typical Upper East Side town house, antique dealer R. Louis Bofferding has gone against the grain by choosing ‘unfashionable’ dark furniture. And yet with its sophisticated palette, the place – like the pieces therein – couldn’t look more polished. Mitchell Owens takes a shine to it. Photography: Simon Upton Top: propped on a bookshelf in the bedroom is a feather from a peacock at Houghton Hall. The black sculpture is an aluminium maquette by artist Rosemarie Castoro. Opposite: crowned by a 19th-century fan – a make-do lunette that the owner calls ‘poor man’s Palladio’ – the living-room closet has been transformed into a bar. The Jean-Baptiste-Claude Séné giltwood tabouret came from the estate of Henry Ford II. Sittings editor: Hamish Bowles

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Opposite: vintage photographs line the apartment’s central hall, which links the living room and the bedroom. Carvings in the manner of Grinling Gibbons are hung inside the yellow-painted closets. ‘They’re very cheering to see when I get dressed,’ says Bofferding ‘Brown furniture is not my thing, but I cannot weight, so it hangs better.’ By day, the windows are wells of natural resist if it’s something really good, fine or interesting in some way.’ That utterance light; by night, they are blanched recesses. helps to explain why R. Louis Bofferding – contemporary art dealer turned tastemaking Charcoal-dark paint transforms the cramped corridor into a purveyor of gratifyingly outré antiques and objets d’art – found himself the proud lessee mysterious promenade, while obliterating unsightly doors and of a storage unit stuffed with a cabinetmaker’s paradise of furnishings wrought from swarthy timbers. skirting boards. It also creates a complementary background for A portly Queen Anne cellarette of highly figured walnut that belonged to a Midwestern railroad heiress caught his exacting eye. dozens of vintage photographs snapped by past masters and So too a brawny 1928 sideboard of ebonised beech by Berlin architect Bruno Pau, and a sturdy Louis XVI walnut chaise percée depicting long-ago worthies. One is a 1939 Horst image of Mary formerly owned by a Rothschild. Puzzlingly, those furnishings’ manifest charms have largely failed to turn heads at Bofferding’s Boland, a star of the classic contemporaneous movie . cabinet of chic curiosities in Manhattan’s midtown antiques district, so they and their brunette brethren have been gradually Another is Cecil Beaton’s haunting 1960s portrait of Prince Felix shuffled off his commercial premises. Until, one day, not so long ago, the discerning dealer – who sets his morning croissant on a Felixovich Yusupov, one of mad monk Rasputin’s killers, the aged 1920s Danish porcelain plate with Elsie de Wolfe provenance – decided to furnish his Upper East Side flat with that fop’s face perfectly powdered and his eyes shadowed with mascara. underappreciated stock. ‘Brown furniture may not sell,’ he allows, ‘but browns do go well together.’ Surprisingly, Bofferding painted the interiors of the closets, as For five years, though, the scholar and gentleman barely took notice of his rooms, largely because he found the architecture well as the walls and ceilings in the kitchen and the bathroom, a dispiriting. It was a place for existing rather than living. Thus, Bofferding was content to confine himself to one room, sparsely brilliant citron-yellow. It is, he says, a ‘cheerful bright colour’ that outfitted with a bed, a nightstand and a lamp – all vintage, of course – and dining out in lieu of ever turning on the stove. ‘This is the makes the contents instantly readable, whether a triple-ply cashmere worst place I’ve ever lived,’ he candidly admits, with an amusedly resigned shrug, before correcting the record. ‘Actually, the worst sweater or a rare book from the research library that is smartly shelved was my dorm room at the University of Chicago graduate school, and that was because of the carpeting.’ behind the clothes. As for the living-room closet – happily aligned Occupying the top floor of an 1870s brownstone terraced house that had been scoured of most of its Italianate details after a gutting with the opposing central window but otherwise redundant – fire some decades ago, Bofferding’s domain is shaped like a dumbbell. The small living room faces the street, and a bedroom of Bofferding removed its double doors, painted the resulting maw a almost equal size is located at the rear of the building, overlooking neighbouring gardens. Linking the two is a long corridor that’s not shade of anthracite and installed a sheet of black opaline glass on a much wider than its occupant’s shoulders. Still, the flat is blessed with light – eastern, western and northern exposures – and its visual projecting shelf. Today, he utilises the space as a bar-cum-bookcase. ills (‘the mouldings were a problem’) could be minimised with a unifying palette of grey and white and an acre of sisal. That floor Above it, he mounted an unfurled 19th-century fan of black lace and covering textures the main spaces. Similarly toned cork tiles have been laid over the ceramic in the kitchen and bathroom, inspired by tortoiseshell, discovered on a trip to Minneapolis, his home town. the inlaid cork flooring that once graced an exhibition space at Manhattan’s Morgan Library and Museum. ‘As Jean-Michel Frank The Palladian positioning wittily suggests a fanlight. A designer of knew,’ Bofferding says, ‘the materials are what matter.’ Still, he admits: ‘The simplest solutions present their own whimsical furnishings such as pineapple-topped armoires as well as a complications.’ To reduce the profile of the projecting windowsills in the bedroom, the extrusions had to be painted the same colour nuanced rearranger of collector/clients’ interiors, Bofferding drafted as the surrounding walls – Benjamin Moore’s ‘Intense White’, the palest of all possible greys. The remaining portions of sill and all of the skeletal blackened steel bookcases – available on commission – the embrasures, on the other hand, were brushed with white and hung with coarse linen blinds to match. Why coarse? ‘It has real that shape the featureless living room like virtual pilasters. Given the square footage of this garço ière, there isn’t that much brown furniture, but what there is is unquestionably choice. Both of the main spaces are centred on French Empire daybeds, since Bofferding finds reclining more comfortable than sitting upright when he opens a book. ‘Why not have a bed in both rooms?’ he wonders aloud. ‘It adds a pleasant symmetry.’ The one in which he slumbers nightly is swathed with ‘the most beautiful bedspread in the world’, for which he recycled golden silk-damask curtains that graced the Chicago castle of millionaire hotelier Potter Palmer in the 1920s. In the living room, a dignified Baltic commode – ‘kind of Swedish, kind of Russian, kind of German’ – hosts an 1850s Baron Carlo Marochetti bronze bust of Prince Albert, provocatively bare-chested, and a scattering of superlative Japanese lacquerware. Facing the commode is a c1700 French oak gateleg dining table. For symmetry’s sake, though, the rectilinear Baltic treasure just doesn’t work. As Bofferding explains, the table’s rounded form requires an echo: ‘Maybe the perfect George III inlaid demilune commode will present itself in the future.’ Bofferding may ponder brown furniture’s lack of popularity, but a few of his sepia belongings – notably a sinuous Biedermeier guéridon – have found new homes since they were photographed a few months ago for this edition of . ‘Perhaps I have been too rash in my assumptions of the marketplace,’ the dealer says, upon reflection. If that turns out to be the case, there is more in storage where all this came from $ R. Louis Bofferdi g: Decorative & Fi e Art, 232 East 59th St, New York, NY 10021 (001 212 744 6727; A&A JUNE 2022

Above: a Justen Ladda work called ‘Bubbles’ surmounts an 18th- century Baltic commode in the living room. The bronze bust of Prince Albert is by Baron Carlo Marochetti. Opposite: the room is centred on a French Empire daybed – one of two in the apartment – above which hangs a c1900 rock-crystal chandelier by Maison Baguès

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Above: the dealer sits in a Louis Philippe rosewood chair in his sisal-floored living room. Beside him is a low marble table that once belonged to a maharaja of Bikaner and, on top of that, a French Empire furniture mount fashioned of gilt bronze. Opposite: a Spanish Colonial portrait peers over a 1920s bust by Giovanni Nicolini

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Bofferding himself designed the iron-framed bookshelves, which allow his bedroom to accommodate much of his research library – a good many of the tomes within arm’s reach of his French Empire walnut day bed. A pair of 1970s faux-bois pedestals either side of that serve as nightstands

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HOW VERY MODERN The society portraitist Glyn Philpot was the model of respectability and Catholic devoutness in buttoned-up Edwardian Britain. But then he moved into a Bauhaus studio in Paris, took up with the gay crowd and as good as came out on canvas. The subject of a new exhibition and monograph, his work from that time – portraits of young Black men and still lives of fashionable Breuer furniture – still exudes an exhilarating sense of freedom. Text: Simon Martin A&A JUNE 2022

Opposite: Philpot’s painting Lilac and Black Iris (1931-2) was the first still life of his career and shows an almost monochrome arrangement of flowers in his Paris studio, perhaps informed by the ‘solarised’ photographs of Man Ray. This page: M. Julien Zaïre (Tom Whiskey) (1931-2) features one of Philpot’s Parisian models from the French Caribbean island of Martinique, probably a performer in a local club A&A JUNE 2022

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Opposite: 101st Afternoon with Penelope (c1932) reimagines the story of Ulysses’s wife awaiting her husband’s return in the setting of Philpot’s Paris apartment. This page: the interior of his studio at 216 Boulevard Raspail, designed by Polish architect Bruno Elkouken T oday Glyn Philpot is not exactly a house­ end of the 1920s, he came to question himself as seemingly hold name, but during the 1910s and irreconcilable tensions emerged in his life and work. Although 1920s he was one of the most successful elected president of the Guild of Catholic Painters and Craftsmen, and sought­after painters in Britain. With his religious paintings featured not the Virgin Mary but an eye­ bravura touches, sumptuous ‘Venetian’ raising cast of handsome young men as angels, saints and devotees. glazes and playful nods to the works of Velázquez and Titian, his elegant portraits In September 1930, Philpot travelled to New York on the rms could hang comfortably alongside the with Henri Matisse, whom he described in a letter old masters in his sitters’ ancestral homes. His subjects included a who’s who of British society – from Bright Young Things such as home as ‘fairly nice not very, and rather dry’. They were judges of Loelia, Duchess of Westminster, and the prime minister, Stanley that year’s Carnegie Institute Prize, which they awarded to Pablo Baldwin, to war poet Siegfried Sassoon, soprano Dame Nellie Picasso for the Neoclassical portrait of his wife, Olga. After this Melba and even King Fuad I of Egypt. close contact with the international avant­garde, and a trip to Harlem – then in the midst of a Black cultural renaissance – International recognition came early when one of his works Philpot felt inspired to make his own break with tradition. was acquired by the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam straight from its showing at the 1910 Venice Biennale. Then, after On his return to London, he painted an extraordinary Art Deco winning first prize at the Carnegie International exhibition in mural scheme on silver foil­covered walls for Lady Melchett’s Pittsburgh in 1913, he spent several months in Chicago painting town house in Smith Square, featuring modern interpretations of society hostesses. On his election as a Royal Academician in 1923, Greek myths, which arguably enabled him to express his queer he was by far the youngest of his generation: the future hope of the identity under the cloak of classicism. Within a few months, he old guard. With such success came a life of champagne and caviar, had moved to Paris, writing to the painter Eliot Hodgkin: ‘The chauffeurs, servants, a country house and a breathless sequence of sense of freedom I get here is something I can’t find in London.’ trips to the French Riviera, Venice and North Africa. But by the He took a Modernist studio at 216 Boulevard Raspail in Mont­ parnasse, designed by the Polish/Jewish architect Bruno Elkouken for the cosmetics entrepreneur Helena Rubinstein, who kept the A&A JUNE 2022

Above left: Philpot’s St Sebastian (1932) shows his friend Karl-Heinz Müller (missing two fingers) seemingly strapped to the window frame of the Paris studio. It was discovered in his studio after his death. Above right: Müller (left – known as ‘Tommy’) with Philpot at Berlin Zoo in 1931. Opposite: the Jamaican Henry Thomas was an unconventional muse to Philpot and the subject of numerous works from 1929 penthouse for herself, with artists’ studios, apartments and a cinema both stylistically and metaphorically the artist’s emotional and below. ‘I am trying to attain some degree of purity of expression in artistic liberation. When was exhibited at the Royal painting,’ he wrote to the poet (and friend of Oscar Wilde) Father Academy, the critic of the newspaper declared it to be ‘a John Gray. ‘You would be amused if you could see my “setting” striking and powerful design in a modernist manner that argues here – a most relentlessly modern building, and a little furniture most that a studio in Paris among the wild men of art is disturbing to an made of glass and aluminium – not exactly cosy.’ This included Old-masterish painter’. Marcel Breuer’s ‘B9’ nesting table for Thonet and ‘S32’ cantilever Philpot relinquished the studio during the following summer chairs, designed at the Bauhaus, which formed the backdrop for a after months of problems with heating and plumbing, moving to series of paintings of French/Caribbean cabaret performers that another Modernist studio in Montparnasse at 5 bis Rue Schoelcher. evoke an atmosphere of Jazz Age sophistication. His subjects include It was a fitting location given that the newspaper headlines the a Martinican known as ‘Tom Whiskey’, whose real name was previous month had declared that he had ‘gone Picasso’ – for it Julien Zaïre, and Félix, the doorman of a nearby nightclub called was the Spaniard’s former studio. In the years before his early the Tagada-Biguine, who was memorialised in several paintings death in 1937, Philpot moved between Paris and London, no such as Profile with Hibiscus (Félix). longer painting society portraits for substantial sums, but instead During a trip to Berlin in September 1931, Philpot met a still-life and ‘subject’ pictures, and a moving series of paintings of young German called Karl-Heinz Müller (a lover of Christopher his Jamaican model Henry Thomas that revealed the deep impact Isherwood), who subsequently appeared in several paintings that of his encounter with the international avant-garde $ reflect the influence of the German Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) artists such as Otto Dix, Christian Schad and George Grosz. Müller appeared as Saint Sebastian, albeit tied to the studio uk), iv- ersity of Notti gham. graph windows (his two missing fingers providing a key to his identity), House Gallery Press (rrp £30) in a painting that was never exhibited during the artist’s lifetime. by A distributed by Yale The glazed window bars were to form a motif that represented A&A JUNE 2022

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f a i r sA R T A N D A N T I Q U E S An international roundup, chosen by Amy Sherlock 1 Modernity Stockholm at Masterpiece, 30 June-6 July. 2 Bronze oinochoe, Etruscan, mid-fifth century bc, Ariadne at Eye of the Collector, 12-24 May. 3 Hudinilson Jr, Narcissus, Exercise in Seeing Myself, 1982, performance documentation, Galeria Jaqueline Martins at 2 Frieze New York, 18-22 May. 1 4-8 MAY BATTERSEA PARK, LONDON SW11 THE DECORATIVE ANTIQUES AND TEXTILES FAIR. The spring edition of this thrice-annual gathering of dealers from across the UK. A favourite of interiors professionals and the design-curious, who come to find the intriguing and beautiful among stands selling everything from vintage watches to outdoor urns, Modernist chairs to Iznik ceramics. Details: decorativefair.com. 6-10 MAY PARK AVE ARMORY, NEW YORK, NY TEFAF NEW YORK. The New York edition of the venerable European Fine Art Fair returns to the Park Avenue Armory after a two-year Covid hiatus, showcasing museum-quality art, antiques and design. In addition to the treasures for sale, visitors will also be able to see an exquisite 13th- century Hebrew illuminated manuscript, the Montefiore Mainz Mahzor, on loan from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, which is the recipient of this year’s TEFAF Museum Restoration Fund. Details: tefaf.com. 12-24 MAY TWO TEMPLE PLACE, LONDON WC2 THE EYE OF THE COLLECTOR. In the richly 3 adorned Neo-Gothic interiors of Two Temple Place, built in the 1890s for Wil- liamWaldorf Astor, this alternative fair model has done away with booths. Instead, objects and artworks that span centuries and media, brought by some 30 galleries, are installed alongside one another – as though in the imagined,idiosyncratic col- lection of the fair’s titular connoisseur. Details: eyeofthecollector.com. 13-15 MAY VARIOUS LOCATIONS LONDON GALLERY WEEKEND. Ahead of its launch in 2021, there were mutterings about whether London, with its already saturated art- world schedule, needed a gallery weekend. But the event drew more than 40,000 visitors – a celebration of experiencing art in person after a year of intermittent lockdowns. This year’s edition has expanded to include more than 150 galleries across the city. Start central, where highlights include a collaborative show by four Indian galleries at Sadie Coles HQ and the brilliant French Pop artist Nicola L.’s British debut, at Alison Jacques. Details: londongalleryweekend.art. 4 18-22 MAY THE SHED, HUDSON YARDS, NEW YORK, NY FRIEZE NEW YORK. Scaled down since relocating last year to Manhattan from its former base on Randall’s Island, this boutique-sized fair presents a focused selection of the best international contemporary art galleries. Alongside presentations by familiar names, the Frame section is the place to discover emerging talent. Details: frieze.com. 26-29 MAY SOMERSET HOUSE, LONDON WC2 LONDON ORIGINAL PRINT FAIR. An extensive selection of prints – from old masters to leading contemporary artists such as David Hockney, Cornelia Parker, Grayson Perry and Paula Rego – celebrating the importance of the medium to art-making since the 15th century. 4 Stone 16-19 JUNE MESSEPLATZ, BASEL ART BASEL. The of modern and contem- Gorillas, Galerie Lefebvre at TEFAF New York, porary art fairs returns to its June slot on Messeplatz after last year’s Covid- 6-10 May. 5 Lamb of delayed September edition. With 289 galleries exhibiting – in addition to a Manchester ebonised chair, series of site-specific installations and performances throughout the Swiss city – it 19th-century, the Decorative Antiques and can feel overwhelming. Start in the cavernous Unlimited section, which stages Textiles Fair, 4-8 May dramatic large-scale individual artworks, such as a glowing sun-like orb by PHOTOGRAPHY: BEN FISHER (1) California Light and Space artist Helen Pashgian, presented in a pavilion designed by Kulapat Yantrasast for Lehman Maupin. Details: artbasel.com. 30 JUNE-6 JULY ROYAL HOSPITAL CHELSEA, LONDON SW3 MASTERPIECE. In the grounds of Christopher Wren’s Royal Hospital, elegant booths are filled with rare and pre- cious objects. Expect Robilant &Voena’s stand, dedicated to the dandy, to live up to the refined surroundings; ditto Philip Mould’s presentation of works focused 5 on 20th-century female glamour. Details: masterpiecefair.com $ 146

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