But no, despite a recent New York Times article titled "It's Curtains", it is not over for Albert Hadley, b. 1921, who closed his design office on November 1st of last year. Fortunately, the upcoming auctions represent a retirement sale rather than an estate sale. At Sotheby's Manhattan on March 30 and 31, and at Stair Galleries, Hudson, NY, on April 1, 2011, there will be an auction of property from his office and warehouse. While many treasures have already found good homes, even second tier furnishings with an Albert Hadley provenance will be worthy of attention. There is anticipation building to see the on-line catalogs as well as the exhibitions themselves.
The sketches shown here are not by Mr Hadley but my own. However, they clearly show his influence in both theory and rendering style. As Albert Hadley is referred to as the Dean of American Decorating, these drawings would fall into the category of "school of . .". For the top sketch, I have used as inspiration an A.H. design for a bathroom window treatment for Mrs. Jock Whitney at Greentree, the Manhasset estate that will be featured in a future post. For my project, the bathroom with a wainscot of slabs of marble was given stencilled decoration on the upper walls, and the window was treated with a half curtain, a roller shade (not shown), and a swagged valance with trailing jabots, adorned with a fringe of tiny silvered bells and wooden silverleafed tassels, and silvered rings held with glass head picture pins. The bottom sketch was for dining room windows at One Sutton Place, an apartment which will also be featured in a future post. Here the sketch shows the proposal for using different fabrics -- one for the valance, another for the panels, and a third for the lining which is visible as a border on the face. Currently there is a trend for more simple window treatments, but there are still circumstances where the curtains can provide just the right finishing touch.
