Book Review: Regency Redux

I was so lucky to receive an advance press copy of the amazing new book "Regency Redux - High Style Interiors: Napoleonic, Classical Moderne, and Hollywood" by Emily Evans Eerdmans and published by Rizzoli. This is an amazing book! Filled with lucsious images and art plates - it's part historical text and reference book and part day dream fest.

The Regency Period derives its name from the period between 1811-1820 when George III of England was deemed unfit to rule and was repaced by his son, the Prince Regent. The French Empire period was roughly between 1804-1814 when Napoleon was in power and the French Empire dominated much of continental Europe. The Greek Revival period in America was introduced as early as 1803 and was the most popular style of architecture between the 1820-1850. It started as the new America began to build on its' sense of itself as the "new Athens" - a powerful and democratic society.

"A colorful enfilade looking through to the Victorian Writing room at the Greenbrier Hotel stays true to Dorothy Draper's original 1940's decoration under the sure hand of protege Carlton Varney."* Credit: The Greenbrier, White Sulphur Springs, WV.

Emily Eerdmans traces the historical antecedents of the original period back to Classical Greece and then forward through the 19th and 20th centuries. The books includes work by Dorothy Draper (whose Greenbriar Hotel is used as the cover art) and Elsie de Wolfe through the Hollywood of the Golden Era and into the 21st century with work by Kelly Wearstler (who provided the forward), Miles Redd and Thomas Pheasant.

Here are a few of the many amazing images in the book:

"The Clow residence by David Adler reflected Mrs. Clow's interest in the Swedish Grace style. The grey silk-hung living room, shown here in 1934, incorporates a pair of striking bergeres by Swedish designer Uno Ahren"*
Credit:Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division/Gottscho-Schleisner Collection.

"The 1936 Armstrong linoleum advertisement illustrates a "combination living and dining room" decorated in a Regency Moderne style complemented by a basket-weave flooring design for its Jaspé line. Syrie Maugham and Elsie de Wolfe would certainly have approved of the applied plaster palm fronds and white painted furniture"* Credit: Armstrong World Industries

"A theatrical vignette designed by William Pahlmann for the 1938 'Fantasy Show' at Lord & Taylor department store demonstates his trademark historical eclecticism."* Credit: Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, DE

"A pair of Classical Modern lamps by Jean-Michele Frank flanks the doorway into a collector's dressing room. A spectacular daybed paying homage to Empire precedents by Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann is in the foreground."* Credit: Bernd Goeckler Antiques, New York

" André Arbus's modern restyling of Neoclassicism inspired the design of this pair of console tables in this elegant dining room by Thomas Pheasant."* Credit:Thomas Pheasant

"Kelly Wearstler restyles traditional Regency furniture forms into something totally now an wow in the Goodman Café of the New York department store and purveyor of high style Bergdorf Goodman."* Credit:Kelly Wearstler Interior Design


"Visitors to the Viceroy Palm Springs Hotel stop into a stage set for glamour. Kelly Wearsler's bold use of color, pattern and scale displays her training in graphic design."* credit: Kelly Wearstler Interior Design

* quoted from the book "Regency Redux" by Emily Evans Eerdmans.

For more on the book, check out Jennifer Dwyers' post on The Peak of Chic.

For some fun additional Regency period info, check out my older posts here, here and here.

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