Ann Getty, Degas, the Divine Sarah & A TREE

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the prettiest tree-has to be in Ann Getty's  Music Room-
the prettiest book under the tree this year-Ann Getty Interior Style.

the Christmas tree in the Getty Music Room is filled with thirty years of ornaments collected and made reflecting the Getty's love for the opera

The beauty of what's inside the book is No Surprise. I've long followed the style and design elegance of Ann Getty. Her passion for Art-Design-& her Work is evident in the book's pages. Accompanying Getty on her opulent design journey is writer-Diane Dorrans Saeks- purveyor of all things beautiful-and beautifully distinctive to the West Coast and of far flung places beyond.

The book is a sliver of perfection-a exotic taste of  Getty Opulence. Attention to detail and understanding of Getty's style and her pursuits are handled by author Diane Dorrans Saeks with finesse.Both women know themselves and each other-that is what makes the book one of those you will want to reach for time and again. Saeks moves through the homes of the Gettys with golden tales of history-art and design-in a language that reflects the mood created by Ann Getty's assemblage of lavish textiles and furnishings.

The Getty home in San Francisco is inhabited by the great-Artists, as well as the famous names of their day:

tiered ormolu chandelier originally owned by the famed fashion maverick Daisy Fellowes

Read more: Dining Room Chinoiserie Panels - Pictures from Ann Getty's San Francisco Home - Harper's BAZAAR

tiered ormolu chandelier originally owned by the famed fashion maverick Daisy Fellowes

Read more: Dining Room Chinoiserie Panels - Pictures from Ann Getty's San Francisco Home - Harper's BAZAAR

Degas and Matisse paintings in the Getty Living Room

Moreau, Renoir & Pissaro make appearances here as well

A Chandelier in the Dining Room belonged to Daisy Fellowes
Chinoiserie Panels were designed for the King of Poland

the Dining Room table set for the Holidays

Ann Getty poses for Harper's Bazaar in her Russian inspired Music Room

(the color and textiles Getty used in this room are amongst my personal favorites)

Curtains in Patchwork are from Nureyev's Paris Apartment

Caneletto and his pupil's work hang on a raspberry damask wall

(another of my favorite things- Patchwork)

Jacques Emile Blanche paints Nijinsky, the painting hangs in the Living Room

(I adore the works of Blanche)

Getty's signature colors are reprised in Peter Getty's Music Room  

(the finish and walls in this room echo some of my own in a previous home)

A Lepage portrait of the Divine Sarah Bernhardt hangs in the peacock blue Living Room of the Getty's Temple of Wings estate

 ( Sarah Bernhardt and I share a birthday)

 The Temple of Wings is dedicated to the Aesthetic Movement Collection amassed by the Gettys

(another favorite of my own is the Aesthetic Movement)

 Frederick Leighton paintings hang in Temple Study

 & what's equally revealing and another thing I like is Getty's easy going style-it's obvious she is at home in her formal surroundings dressing simply & with ease.

I believe it's as easy to relax in a formal room as it is in any.

Ann Getty 

Personal Style

to Note: Getty in jeans-a white shirt-and could it be Minnetonka moccasins?
& the decrepit tufting on the cut crystal chair-(another of my favorite things "If...don't fix it.")


once again-I say-get this book-destined to be a page worn Classic.

The Style Saloniste-Diane Dorrans Saeks wonderful blog- HERE. Diane has her top ten book selections for the season published this week too.

Anne Getty Associates HERE

(thank you to Rizzoli for the beautiful collection of photographs given by permission to use- with principal photographs by Lisa Romerien)

teaching: Milton Gendel

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Milton Gendel Portrait on shoes with Milton Gendel by Alexander Calder

photograph by Milton Gendel

Looking through the lens must be a comfortable place for Milton Gendel- he has been putting his friends in front of the camera since the 1940's. His friends are comfortable there-whether on vacation, as with Babe Paley or feeding the dogs-as with Elizabeth, the Queen.

As a contributing editor to Artnews and Art in America for as many years- American expat Milton Gendel put down his roots in Italy. His images are recognized by their intimacy, their candor-and their subtlety.

He tells us stories. Stories in a whisper.
Who more fitting to ask than Milton Gendel- what teacher inspired you?

My earliest memory of a teacher who left his mark on me was my German teacher at Townsend Harris High School, New York. As an indelible lesson he brought his violin to class and played as we sang Die Lorelei,. The words are still with me after some eighty years.

 Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten,
Daß ich so traurig bin,
Ein Märchen aus uralten Zeiten,
Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn.
Die Luft ist kühl und es dunkelt,
Und ruhig fließt der Rhein;
Der Gipfel des Berges funkelt,
Im Abendsonnenschein.

Die schönste Jungfrau sitzet
Dort oben wunderbar,
Ihr gold'nes Geschmeide blitzet,
Sie kämmt ihr goldenes Haar,
Sie kämmt es mit goldenem Kamme,
Und singt ein Lied dabei;
Das hat eine wundersame,
Gewalt'ge Melodei.

Den Schiffer im kleinen Schiffe,
Ergreift es mit wildem Weh;
Er schaut nicht die Felsenriffe,
Er schaut nur hinauf in die Höh'.
Ich glaube, die Wellen verschlingen
Am Ende Schiffer und Kahn,
Und das hat mit ihrem Singen,
Die Loreley getan.

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I cannot determine the meaning
Of sorrow that fills my breast:
A fable of old, through it streaming,
Allows my mind no rest.
The air is cool in the gloaming
And gently flows the Rhine.
The crest of the mountain is gleaming
In fading rays of sunshine.
The loveliest maiden is sitting
Up there, so wondrously fair;
Her golden jewelry is glist'ning;
She combs her golden hair.
She combs with a gilded comb, preening,
And sings a song, passing time.
It has a most wondrous, appealing
And pow'rful melodic rhyme.

The boatman aboard his small skiff, -
Enraptured with a wild ache,
Has no eye for the jagged cliff, -
His thoughts on the heights fear forsake.
I think that the waves will devour
Both boat and man, by and by,
And that, with her dulcet-voiced power
Was done by the Loreley.

A later landmark teacher was Meyer Schapiro, the art historian at Columbia. I had the honor of being his assistant for two years, 1937, l938,  in graduate school. I took the third hour of his survey course for freshmen. If not for him I might have stayed in Academe, but he was such an unparalleled polymath - a height I felt I could never attain - that I went off in other directions.

The body of work Gendel offers us- the glimpses, the Art, the Beauty- those "other directions"- Astound.



read more about Milton's photographic library here
the story of the portrait by Calder here at the Guardian
& a recent article in Vanity Fair to coincide with“Milton Gendel: A Surreal Life” exhibition at Rome’s Museo Carlo Bilotti, on October 4,2011 and “Milton Gendel: Portraits” at the American Academy in Rome, on  here
photographs from the Vanity Fair article here


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REPRISE: LaVande

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last May,  We were talking about Lavender & its Kith & Kin-this year this vaporous  color is appearing on the Fashion Runways-especially in Paris with great substance &  soul.
Dusted Lavender.
Drenched Lilac.

at   ROCHAS                                                                                  

at NINA RICCI

BOLDINI.

at DEACON- Giles,

at  ETRO

such divine Mongiardino.

Giorgione Barbarelli

at CELINE

& at GALLIANO-

His VENUS.

there was  HASLAM'S "charred Violet" at NINA RICCI- 

&  again at ROCHAS.

& at
BALENCIAGA-

there was PENN.

Shades of  DEGAS, WHISTLER,

&  MENIL.

Whether Lavender, Lilac or- Violet I've long Adored this COLOR  in its moods
& past tenses.

Michael Pacher's Mary of Burgundy, image 1.
fashion images from DAZED, and from VOGUE.
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moving pictures: Midnight in Paris

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making appearances

  

"The best of America drifts to Paris. The American in Paris is the best American. It is more fun for an intelligent person to live in an intelligent country. France has the only two things toward which we drift as we grow older—intelligence and good manners."

Zelda & Scott

"If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast."

Hemingway,far left

 "Paris loves lovers, for lovers it's heaven above
Paris tells lovers, love is supreme, wake up your dream and make love
Only in Paris one discovers the urge to merge with the splurge of the spring
Paris loves lovers for lovers know that love is everything"

 Cole

Juan Belmonte

J’ai deux amours…..Mon pays et Paris.
(I have two loves…..my country and Paris.)

Josephine Baker

"America is my country and Paris is my hometown."

 

Gertrude & Alice 

Pablo

Djuna

Dali,2nd from l.seated. Buñuel,top far r.Man Ray, top far l.

T.S. Eliot

Matisse, seated

 

Leo Stein

Lautrec

Gauguin

Degas,at left

a must see-

Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris

Who’s going to come to this movie?”  “Nobody even knows Gertrude Stein anymore.” 

 

 “Woody felt that you didn’t really have to know those people to appreciate the film,

Nominated for Best Picture, Best Director & Best Screenplay

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