Monday, May 14, 2012

Albert Hadley's Home Office Furnishings

When the late Albert Hadley closed his office as of November 1, 2010, and "officially retired" from his career as an interior design legend, he set up a home office in his Manhattan apartment.  He continued with just a few, select, last projects there until he joined his sister in Nashville last December.  Items from the apartment and his house in Southport, Connecticut, along with a cache of his famous sketches, were the subject of three sales recently on the on-line shopping venue One Kings Lane.  With the thought that readers of The Devoted Classicist would appreciate seeing some of these pieces up close, a selection follows.  Mr. Hadley followed Billy Baldwin's philosophy (paraphrased as "It's not what you have, but how you use it") for his personal decoration, not always using the most precious objects but rather some simple, inexpensive pieces (though premium priced on OKL) to achieve his fresh decor.
Mr. Hadley's desk in the East 63rd Street office during my tenure at Parish-Hadley was a large table of his own design with legs of scrolling straps of distressed gilt iron and a top painted to resemble squares of parchment.  But it is no surprise that he would end with this simple 1970s table with an H-stretcher and legs of white painted steel designed by Mark Scharillo.  Mr. Hadley often used wool felt intended to cover billiard tables as a table cloth for writing tables and that appears to be the case here, as a more usuable surface than the black lacquered top.
This standing lamp from the 1950s was a gift from his mentor Van Day Truex and among his favorite possessions.  Useful as well as stylish, it sometimes made an appearance in his often-changing Parish-Hadley office and was a favorite of mine as well.
To compliment the standing lamp, a set of six German ebonized sidechairs from the 1930s had their seats upholstered each in a different color of silk.  Variations on this model, a simplified verson of the classic klismos chair, were often chosen by Mr. Hadley for projects throughout his career.
I cannot related anything about the story behind his acquiring the bronze falcon by Geoffrey Dashwood on his desk, but I am sure he appreciated the Art Deco architectural form of it.

In contrast, he no doubt also appreciated the contemporary baroque decoration of the small vase used as a pencil holder.
Despite his great appreciation of the antique, Mr. Hadley was a great patron of young contemporary artists.  This abstract painting by Mark Scharillo from the 1980s had previously hung in Mister's Southport weekend home between a pair of windows.  When the artist later saw the installation, it was said that he had joked it was painted for that location.
Wood sunburst mirrors were an accent that often appeared in Parish-Hadely interiors and this contemporary version by Mark Scharillo held a place of honor in the apartment.
Perhaps only aspect of the collection that The Devoted Classicist failed to fully appreciate was Mr. Hadley's patronage of large photographs by Dennis Krukowski.  The photos from 1983 documented the urban artist Richard Hambleton's grafitti-like paintings on exterior walls of buildings in lower Manhattan.  This and another also in the sale had hung prominently but in the more private areas of the Parish-Hadley offices on East 63rd Street during my tenure.

"Personality" chairs were another favorite of Mr. Hadley that appeared in almost every project in some form or another.  This unique, sculptural Regency period hall chair was purchased from antiques dealer Barry Sainsbury in London.
This rendering is another favorite of The Devoted Classicist, a 1946 depiction of an interior by the legendary decorator Dorothy Draper by John Marsman.  In the East 63rd Street offices of Parish-Hadley during the 1980s, it had been part of the decor in the office of Mr. Hadley's talented assistant, the late Tice Alexander.
In this Elle Decor cover, the rendering is shown installed in the Guest/Sitting Room of the apartment mounted on the bulletin board.  Leaning below is a gouache on canvas profile portrait of another legendary decorator, Elsie de Wolfe, dated 1926.

The sadness of the dispersal is balanced by the joy that must have come to the buyers.  Surely all these furnishings have found much-appreciated new homes.

The photos of the furnishings are from the offering by the members-only site, One Kings Lane.  The photo of Mr. Hadley's home office previously appeared in a tribute written by Thomas Jayne.

21 comments:

  1. When will the day come that a museum like, let's say the Met, or the Cooper-Hewitt, buy or seek donation of, something like the Hadley apartment and furnishings---to add to their decorative arts/period room installations---

    I'm serious here---this apartment was one of the seminal design laboratories of the last century, deserving permanent preservation as surely as that tiresomely horizontal FLW room at the Met...

    But what do I know?

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    1. D.E.D., you know a lot. But all my museum friends contend that "period room" installations are a thing of the past. (That said, a recreation of the eccentric gallery of the Barnes Collection has just been replicated in Philadelphia). I am trying very hard to get the local museum here to display simple vignette groupings of, for example, a chest flanked by a pair of sidechairs grouped with a set of framed engravings; all I hear are reasons why that is not an acceptable practice today. I am afraid that too many museum employees - and trustees - lack the connoisseurship to fully appreciate the talent of the Albert Hadleys of our culture who could not just select but put it all together.

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  2. Wonderful post! I'm reading the book "Sister" right now and keep thinking how wonderful it must have been to work with these two geniuses. What wonderful memories you must have.

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    1. H.Y., it was a wonderful - and remarkably educational - experience.

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    2. How many times can I say wonderful in one comment?? :) Check out my post today - you will love it. And you might want to visit it - totally worth the trip!

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  3. John, the Portland Museum of Art here in Maine expensively and carefully restored the Federal era McLellan mansion, the original building of its campus. They did it up full fig in c. 2001 'authentic' style. It is unfurnished, presented as an 'exhibit' itself. All good and well. In the adjacent gallery in the middle building of the museum, the superb collection of Federal era decorative arts that once furnished the house are presented separately. It's all so pretentiously high concept stupid that the end effect is to make my teeth hurt. Sometimes context is everything.

    Call me old fashioned---fluff though they may be in art museums, I still love the old period room installations...

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    1. Slowly, there is a trend of improvement in period room installations, I think. Despite the frequent misinterpretations, I do love them, too.

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  4. Sorry---didn't mean to wander so far from the subject---the wonderful eye of Albert Hadley---but truly, it is a pity that epoch making interiors and possessions can't be preserved...

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    1. Many can recognize a beautiful fabric or piece of furniture, but very few have the talent to know how to put them together, room after room. D.E.D., your comments are always welcome.

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  5. Highly enjoyable, this post and its discussion between the Dilettante and the
    Devoted Classicist. Good point about the trend away from so called period
    rooms and the bluntly exhibited fragments that have taken their place in museums.
    Everyone (though not I) was presumably enraptured by David Mlinaric's redesign of the British galleries at the Victoria & Albert in the late 1990s. That approach became an
    instant trend, for better or worse. Period rooms may be old fashioned, but they establish
    mood and atmosphere-- elusive things that are sacrificed when the contents are dispersed or isolated.

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    1. T.W., I am fortunate to have such a high caliber of commenters as you, D.E.D., and many others (including those who e-mail directly). A blog has the unique opportunity to have a conversation in almost-real-time and it is great when that advantage can be taken. Thank you, Toby, and all you Devoted Readers.

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  6. Great post John!

    Thanks too for mentioning dear Tice, I still miss him and enjoyed your inclusive text.

    Dean Farris, Naples

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  7. As we know from the OKL sale, putting together the room for any museum or even a well heeled patron-or designer would have been relatively easy and "inexpensive." As I commented when I was posting on the EdW portrait from this sale, though a wonderful opportunity to own a "Hadley"-it was more than a bit sad to see that brilliance of his mind to assemble a collection go -Puff. It takes the likes of a Daphne Guinness who purchased Isabella BLow's clothing collection to keep the genius of the thing from being lost. A beautifully put together post in his memory. pgt

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    1. PGT, thank you for commenting. Mister's archives were donated to institutions so they will be preserved for study, so maybe it's better for these furnishings to be continued to be used and admired rather than possibly gathering dust in the basement storeroom of a museum. It is sad to see the end of an era, but what a model we have as inspiration to go forward.

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  8. ...("paraphrased as "It's not what you have, but how you use it") for his personal decoration, not always using the most precious objects but rather some simple, inexpensive pieces... so absultely true, and the distinction between someone who can decorate and someone who has innate style.

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    1. C., I appreciate your commenting. Innate style aside, education is critical for design professionals and helpful for amateurs as well. We can all learn from the Legends.

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  9. The German ebonized sidechairs I really like. Would like to have them in my home also.

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  10. This is a great post. I love the personality chair. Hadley = simple one of the best there ever will be.

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  11. This is awe-inspiring and the points you and your readers raised on museums housing some interior design creations are totally wonderful. We hope this will push through sooner and not later.

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  12. Its amazing pictures collection you have shared in this post. I really like to read this type of nice post.

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