2020-11-01 The World of Interiors

ET IN ARCADIA EGO is the title of two of Nicolas this farm owned by two elderly ladies. The two stone buildings,
lacking mains water and electricity, showed signs of neglect, but the
Poussin’s best-known paintings, each one depicting idealised views were stunning. For Matteo Spinola, a film promoter, the
shepherds gathered around a tombstone. ‘I am in arcadia’ is de- place, once theirs, represented a haven from his demanding career.
signer Federico Forquet’s motto too. His friend Debo, the late But for Federico, it marked a new beginning. In 1972, three years
Duchess of Devonshire, knew this all too well. When he visited her into the restoration of the property, he folded his atelier. ‘He was
at Chatsworth (WoI March 2016), she would have her precious a dreamer,’ explains Allegra Agnelli, his fashion muse and close
Poussin (the other one is at the Louvre) hung on the wall facing friend. ‘Money and success have never been his motor.’
his bed, so as to make her Italian friend feel instantly at home.
If he could no longer dress the planet’s most glamorous women
The 89-year-old Neapolitan who lit up haute couture in the (his list of clients read like the Almanach de Gotha and included
1960s with his toga dresses and nude look remembers the story
while pottering around his own private arca- divas such as Sophia Loren, Anita Ekberg and
dia on a secluded hill near Cetona in Tuscany. Faye Dunaway), then he would invent one-
Impeccable in linen trousers and a gardener’s of-a-kind homes and gardens for them. His
shirt, ‘Federico the Great’, as WWD magazine Cetona house, nestled amid rolling hills and
dubbed him, is adding some new touches oak forests, would become his laboratory.
to the home and garden he will bequeath to
Fondo Ambiente Italiano (FAI), the Italian For inspiration he tuned into the genius
National Trust. The gesture has a purpose: loci, embodied in the vernacular buildings
to encourage future visitors to the Federico shaped by the everyday necessities of the con-
Forquet home/museum to experience beauty tadini, or peasants. His aim was to salvage the
the way he has: as an act of imagination. structure and its materials. He left the small
windows unaltered. The ancient chestnut
In the late 1960s the designer and his long- beams supporting the roof were restored and
time partner, the late Matteo Spinola, would kept in full sight. For the floors, Forquet used
set off in their Triumph convertible to delve reclaimed terracotta tiles. Indulging his taste
into the areas north of Rome, where in 1961 for mural decorations, he covered the walls
Forquet opened his atelier. ‘We explored vil- with stencilled patterns characteristic of ‘gen-
las, gardens and Etruscan sites,’ Federico re- teel’ rural architecture – a trope he would later
calls. One spring day in 1969 they came upon elaborate in other projects.

Top: a not-for-export Chinese screen (and therefore especially rare according to its supplier, the antique dealer Christopher Gibbs) hangs in the Fern
Room. Above: laurel and box hedges are topiarised into architectural shapes in the garden. Opposite: the 19th-century collection of ferns tessellates
round bookshelves designed by Umberto Pasti and made in Rouhouna, Morocco. The grass rugs, here and throughout the house, are by Valli in Rome



Top: in the botanical library hang French architectural drawings of garden follies and, below them, sit 18th-century Neapolitan fruit cornucopias in wax.
Above left: the portrait of Forquet as an ancient Pompeian (see Vesuvius erupting) is by his great friend the Surrealist Enrico d’Assia. Above right: the
ziggurat-like cushion cover is a Renzo Mongiardino design. Opposite:the Indian enamelled pumpkin is a present from writer and collector Niall Hobhouse



His friend the garden designer Russell Page became his mentor sure’, tending to the family’s dwindling fortunes. Naples, however,
outdoors. It was his idea to unite the two buildings using an en- remained a defining inf luence. Not Naples as we know it, but rather
closed garden filled with rare irises and aromatic plants. As a the nostalgic dream of what the city had been at the height of its
thank-you, Forquet made him a long coat in double-face wool: dark economic power in the early 18th century – its archaeological sites
chocolate on one side and navy blue on the other. Indoors, the de- freshly uncovered, its Baroque splendours intact and its grandeur
signer created rooms conducive to intellectual pursuits and emo- as Europe’s most beautiful, cultivated and fun city unparalleled.
tional connections. A dining table, in Forquet’s eyes, is an inviting
workspace at every hour of the day, while a good bedroom is one In the late afternoon, Federico Forquet heads out to his favour-
that doubles as a sitting room for intimate conversations. Family ite shady spot under the monumental linden tree he planted with
heirlooms from his ancestors’ palatial abodes in Naples stand next Matteo Spinola over 50 years ago. It’s the ideal vantage point, he
to flea-market finds. He recycled old doors says, from which to take in the terraced gardens, filled with roses,
and windows and made new ones to match.
He designed furniture and commissioned and the landscape beyond. Asked what his
Zumsteg in Zurich, who had provided the approach to interior decoration is in a nut-
fabric for his haute-couture collections, to shell, Federico explains that just ‘looking’ is
produce a line for the home that he dreamed never enough: one needs to feel a space with
up with his friend Marella Agnelli. The over- one’s imagination. ‘When I enter a home, my
all effect underlines his ability to turn a set of intuition is alert; I am like a diviner in search
rooms into a three-dimensional narrative. of water.’ The secret, he muses, is to infuse life
in every room by blurring definitions. This
Forquet’s own story started in Naples, sprezzatura for labels derives from the time-
where he studied at the music conservatory honed habit of treating homes as open-ended
– he was a child-prodigy pianist – and where structures subject to changes of seasons or
he lived until a fateful encounter, in the sum- mood. ‘Ultimately, it’s all about harmony,’
mer of 1954, with Cristóbal Balenciaga. The Federico Forquet reflects, ‘and the essence
Basque couturier whisked him off to Paris of harmony, as the ancients knew so well, is
to work by his side, essentially jump-starting being in tune with life’s small pleasures’ $
his career in fashion. That, in turn, meant he ‘The World of Federico Forquet: Italian Fashion,
could flee his destiny as a ‘gentleman of lei- Interiors, Gardens’, by Hamish Bowles et al, is
published by Rizzoli, rrp £65

Top: in Forquet’s private studio, the Diréctoire writing table is from Naples, while the 18th-century watercolours derive from an Egyptian grand tour
along the Nile. Above: the cushions on the Liberty-style sofa were made from an embroidered bed cover bought in Syria in 1966. The bookshelves,
fronted with pleated linen, are the owner’s design. Opposite: for the benefit of our photographer, Forquet strewed highlights from his extensive archive





KITH AND KILN

At a modest 18th-century farmhouse on a hillside near Barcelona, Josep Llorens
Artigas and Joan Miró collaborated to create a prolific and innovative range of
earthenware. To realise Miró’s more ambitious sculptural schemes, they enlisted
Artigas’s young son ‘Joanet’, who later established this foundation nearby in hom-
age to his father. Designed by a family friend, it includes studios for visiting artists.
Catherine de Montalembert gets all fired up. Photography: Jean Marie del Moral

Workshop No. 4, reserved for resident art-
ists, has stairs leading up to a floor dedicated
to lithography. The foundation was design-
ed by the American architect Bruce Graham

This page, clockwise from top left: an early 20th-century cast-iron stove found at the flea market in Saint-Ouen; glazes have been
tested on this white plate; a view of the foundation’s library; a colour palette of enamels. Each number refers to a dye. Opposite: in
the library hangs a portrait of Josep Llorens Artigas by a friend, Francesc Domingo. The two vases on the mantel are by Artigas



This page, clockwise from top: ceramic hams and a taxidermied bull’s head hang in the dining room; ‘Before, I used to do naked
women, but now I do fish,’ says Joan ‘Joanet’ Gardy Artigas; vases from the 1930s to the 70s on an antique chest. Opposite: the
entrance to the farmhouse, which dates from 1711. Visible are a bullfighter’s cape, a corset mould and an advert for an eye specialist



AT EL RACO, ahouseinthesmallCata­ of work: plaques, vases, plates, pebbles, tiles, sculptures. ‘These
are not decorated ceramics,’ Artigas stressed, ‘they are simply
lonian town of Gallifa, in the heart of a natural environment both ceramics which no longer let you see what is the work of the
harsh and luxuriant, Josep Llorens Artigas wrote a new page in the painter and what is the work of the ceramicist.’
history of 20th­century ceramics. Born in Barcelona in 1892, he
was an art critic and painter before turning to ceramics. From 1922 The most prolific period began in 1953 in Gallifa, some 30km
he began living in Paris, moving two years later to Charenton­le­ from Barcelona, in El Racó – an 18th­century farmhouse where
Pont, next to the Seine. Picasso was a friend, but never set foot in Artigas had settled with his Swiss wife, Violette Gardy, two years
his studio. ‘I am glad now that he didn’t come,’ he said. ‘A figure of earlier. This time Miró was keen to produce sculptures, but their
Picasso’s genius would probably have eclipsed my own and I would forms were so complex that Artigas considered the project impos­
have been nothing but a mere assistant.’ Raoul Dufy’s vases and sible to achieve in ceramics. This is when his son, Joan Gardy –
miniature ceramic gardens, and Albert Marquet’s tiles inspired by known as Joanet (‘little Joan’ in Catalan) – enters the scene. All of
Spain’s azulejos, made a lasting impression during these years. He 15 years old, he threw himself into making sculptures by finding
returned to Barcelona at the start of the civil war and in 1941 began solutions both technical and poetic. ‘My father had passed on his
working with Joan Miró (the two had first met as students). skills to me,’ he explains. ‘Miró had the idea, but he didn’t have the
hands. The thing would collapse. Besides, he liked the accidental.
In Artigas, Miró found not only a skilled craftsman but also Ceramics is full of accidents... In fact, his lack of skill helped. And
discovered a whole new world, in the forms of his vases with their we had fun,’ he continues. ‘During the long nights of firing, he
clean lines acknowledging universal popular traditions. ‘I am an would always bring along a herbal liqueur from Ibiza, and we
advocate of the primitive form,’ the ceramic artist would say. ‘The would sit around the wood­fired kiln enjoying a drink.’
form given by the wheel, which borrows from every country and
every civilisation; and for me, these forms have only to come out of In three years, 232 pieces were produced from stoneware or
my hands. My own invention lies in the glazes and colours. That’s fireclay, wood­fired at high temperature. In 1956, they were shown
where I look for new ideas.’ He would invent over 3,000 formulas in the Galerie Maeght in Paris, and the Pierre Matisse Gallery in
during his life without ever repeating himself. New York under the title Terres de Grand Feu (‘fire stones’). Vases,
plaques and plates seamlessly shared the space with sculptural as­
‘For me,’ said Miró, ‘working in ceramics is a little like becom­ semblages in a dazzling harmony of red, green, yellow, brilliant
ing an alchemist. I find it more alive than working with bronze.’ In black and immaculate white glazes contrasting with the brown
this metamorphosis by fire, so different from the spontaneity of clay. They also made large murals: for the Unesco headquarters
painting, he learned to play with glazes and to give his lines and in Paris, Barcelona airport, New York’s Guggenheim and the
marks the thickness and irregularities that became an integral Fondation Maeght in Saint­Paul­de­Vence, among others.
part of his vocabulary. There emerged a protean combined body
In 1962, Joanet married Mako Ishikawa, a textile designer he’d
met in Barcelona and herself a talented ceramic artist. The wed­
ding gave the older Artigas a chance to visit Japan and bring back
new ideas and experiences. The following year, he built a kiln in
Gallifa, using Korean technology that had been imported to the
archipelago in the 15th century. Miró and Artigas collaborated
until 1973, when Violette died. Joanet took over, working with art­
ists between Paris, Barcelona and Gallifa, and developing his own
artistic practice. ‘I have always sculpted and drawn, the medium
matters little. I use ceramics as a means, not as an end.’

Now aged 82, Joanet is a fount of knowledge and full of zest.
After his father’s death over 30 years ago, he wanted to create a
broader project to pay tribute to him. He set up a foundation at
Gallifa, to bring artists­in­residence to work and exhibit there,
and entrusted Bruce Graham, an American architect of the Chic­
ago School and friend of the family, with designing the project
close to the old house. There are too many stairs for Mako to man­
age now, so they have moved into the large former studio where
Miró worked, which is all on one level. Nearby, the kilns are still
working and are attracting a whole generation of young ceramic
artists. The farm has become a small hamlet, an artistic hotbed
tucked away among the holm oaks, poplars, maples and olive
trees. A labyrinth of studios sits among the terraces, pools and
garden. Joanet still paints and draws in what was his father’s studio
upstairs in the old house, which remains exactly as it was. Mako
has her own den, as does Isao Llorens Ishikawa, one of their two
sons, a versatile artist who lives and works here and is increasingly
involved in the life of the foundation. The Artigases are a distinc­
tive dynasty who will continue to fascinate us $
Artigas Foundation. Ring 00 34 93 866 23 20, or visit fundacio-artigas.com

The octogenarian Joanet sits in front of his own pencil drawings, pinned up to the wall of his father’s (unchanged) studio. ‘Today,
we potters come across as dinosaurs – but it’s a craft that will never disappear. There will always be a fool to make ceramics’

This page: Fontaine (1990) was made from
a jug broken in two and linked by a bronze
neck, the ceramic part created from an ori­
ginal mould by Joan Miró for Figurine (1956)



STRAIGHT FROM
THE HEARTH

At the turn of the last century, Mary Gibbs Shapter began creating an illustrated inventory of her Hyde Park Gardens
abode. She did so in five sketchbooks – now owned by the (newly named) Museum of the Home – intended for the
eyes of her household alone. Shapter’s intimate watercolours detail the family’s china, jewellery and artwork, alongside
floor plans and decorative upgrades, and notes on the well-to-do shops they patronised. Together, they offer a

revealing insider’s perspective on the lifestyle of an upper-middle-class Edwardian residence, as Charlotte Gere explains

Main picture: Mary Gibbs Shapter’s watercolour of the Clarendon Place drawing room in 1900, annotated with its dimensions and
furniture measurements. Opposite, bottom: another view of the same room in 1909, following its redecoration. A fashionable rococo

screen has replaced the typically Victorian example shielding the door in the earlier watercolour. The items arrayed on the desk in the
window also feature in Mary’s sketchbook devoted to family memorabilia and jewellery. They clearly had a special place in her records

From top: labelled ‘Front Drawing Room East Side’, this rendering has a lift-up flap revealing what Mary describes as a ‘three cornered chair
200 years old purchased by me Aug 1896 from Hills Ramsgate’; the china collection includes a Worcester cup and saucer with a butterfly

pattern on scale blue ground; family portraits and possessions include an ebony box given to Mary’s grandmother by the ‘Emperor of Russia’

From top: a labelled desktop view of the drawing-room writing table with detailed studies of writing implements and accessories, including
a novelty ‘pencil case’ from Samson & Mordan; ‘Old Chelsea’ animal figurines and Lowestoft china; a view into the drawing room,

‘East & South Side’, with the costly Erard grand piano in the window. A portrait of Mary’s grandfather, Harry Leeke Gibbs, faces the viewer

MARY GIBBS Shapter’s five shabby, portrait, a miniature of Prince Galitzine and other Russian mem-
orabilia in the first and most substantial of Mary’s sketchbooks,
much-repaired ‘school drawing books’, priced ninepence apiece, which is largely a record of family jewellery.
are the unlikely repository of a great treasure of domestic history.
They were acquired by London’s Geffrye Museum – soon to re- Bloomsbury was convenient for Mary’s barrister father, being
open as the Museum of the Home – in 2013, and patient research within walking distance of Lincoln’s Inn, but as his career pros-
has gradually revealed their secrets. pered the family moved, first to Devonshire Place and then on-
wards and upwards to Clarendon Place, their grandest house, in
In 1900, when she was in late middle age, Mary embarked on an affluent modern development of squares, crescents and ter-
a pictorial inventory of the large end-of-terrace town house just races on the Hyde Park estate. Each relocation required more
off Hyde Park that her family had occupied since 1863. Variously ambitious furnishing and decorating. They were a well-to-do
labelled on the front cover (‘M. G. Shapter property’, or ‘Miss family with conventional tastes, buying from the best shops and
Shapter 7 Clarendon Place Hyde Park Gardens … Furniture & following the decorating enthusiasms of the time. Whether or
Prices given’), her sketchbooks are crammed with drawings in not consciously following a trend, they chose to furnish with
pencil, ink and watercolour that cast a fascinating light on the antiques quite early on. Their collecting interests, too, are typi-
management, furnishing and lifestyle of an upper-middle-class cal of their period and social class, including old prints, Georgian
professional’s household. Interior views are accompanied by silver and Sheffield plate, Battersea enamels, antique fans and
floor plans, while sketches of individual pieces of furniture are Japanese curiosities. The sketchbook devoted to china records
painstakingly annotated with lists of their measurements and a particular collecting taste for 18th-century English factories
prices paid for them. A host of ornaments, silver, porcelain, jewel- such as Chelsea, Worcester and Derby, largely purchased as a col-
lery, trinkets, paintings, miniatures, work boxes and memorabilia lection from a Mrs Borough in 1892; a cabinet for its display was
have extensive captions stating how they were acquired or handed
down, many as gifts from named in- acquired at the same time. The sketch-
dividuals, which provide clues to the book recording the silver and plate re-
Shapters’ history and social circle. The veals a deliberate pursuit of ‘ancestral’
life story of an interesting extended pieces bearing the family crest.
family is enshrined in the accumula-
tion and distribution of possessions. Mary’s notes tell us that the Shap-
ters patronised leading London firms:
Recording homes in watercolour, Jackson & Graham in Oxford Street,
both inside and out, had been popular Edwards & Roberts in Wardour Street
since the early 19th century, and de- and Spillman & Co. in St Martin’s Lane
velopments in photography brought a for furniture; D&J Welby in Covent
new dimension to the pursuit. Hand- Garden for silver; crown jewellers R&S
somely bound, the resulting grand vol- Garrard; Thomas Goode in South Au-
umes were showcases for wealth, taste dley Street for glass and porcelain. Ed-
and fashion, presenting rooms that had wards & Roberts, source in 1886 of the
been elaborately dressed or stage-set for the purpose. The Shapter 12-guinea ‘Chippendale writing table’ in the drawing room, sold
sketchbooks are entirely different: intimate, private, and clearly antiques as well as their own 18th-century-inspired fine furniture.
intended to be seen only by the artist and her family. The interior Druce’s auctions were another source for antiques. The Erard
views are quite artless, appearing almost as if the occupants have grand piano was unusually expensive, costing £120; acquired in
just left the room. While the copious notes show the primarily 1859 for the house at Devonshire Place, it suggests a socially am-
practical purpose of the inventory, it also served as a poignant bitious as well as musical family.
record of the family home for so many years, perhaps even in The sketchbook floor plans allow a rough reconstruction of
response to bereavement (Mary’s widowed mother, who lived the Clarendon Place house, long since demolished, with serv-
there with her, died the year after the project was begun). ants’ quarters on the top floor, a room and workroom for the
lady’s maid on the floor below, dressing room and bedrooms
Mary was a talented amateur, copying paintings, decorating with plenty of storage and a spacious drawing room on the first
a firescreen and recording her trips around the country, or the floor. It was a sizeable household, with seven live-in servants:
trees in nearby Hyde Park (her travel sketchbooks are in the col- butler, cook, ladies’ maid, two housemaids, a kitchen maid and a
lection of the Yale Center for British Art). Making a pictorial footman. The drawing room is depicted in detail and at different
inventory is no light undertaking, but Mary barely faltered. Her stages, such as after redecoration and rearrangement in 1909.
recording is very precise, with each piece of furniture, each bibe- After her mother’s death in 1901, Mary continued living in
lot, recognisable in form, construction and material; the char- Clarendon Place. Some more routine refurbishing was under-
acter of porcelain is particularly well conveyed. Only one of the taken – a new carpet, dining chairs reupholstered – but furniture
sketchbooks, devoted to the family’s collections of paintings, was sold too. Whether she was just tidying up or actually in need
drawings and prints, proves disappointingly uninformative. of money, she sold jewellery and silver in 1920, shortly before she
died in 1921. The house may have disappeared, but after nearly
Born in Bloomsbury in 1842, Mary was the daughter of John a century Mary lives again in her pictured possessions $
Shapter QC and Mary Ann Jane, née Gibbs. Mrs Shapter had The Mary Gibbs Shapter sketchbooks will be part of the permanent dis-
been born in St Petersburg in 1817, where her father Harry Leeke plays at the new Museum of the Home, scheduled to open in late 2020.
Gibbs was a physician employed by Tsar Alexander I and Prince Visit museumofthehome.org.uk for updates
Galitzine, governor of Moscow. Dr Gibbs’s medals of the orders
of Saint Anne and Saint Vladimir are featured along with his

This – the first of Mary’s five sketchbooks – features the most painted pages, filled with illustrations of jewellery and family memorabilia

From top: 18th-century chairs by Sheraton and Chippendale, and display cabinets; the china collection, bought from a Mrs Borough, with
‘Old Chelsea’ figures of Mercury and Juno on the top shelf, either side of the central group; facing a group of riding-whip and umbrella

handles, Harry Leeke Gibbs’s medals of the order of Saint Vladimir and Saint Anne are partnered by miniatures of family members



MAGNETIC
FIELDS

Mesmerised by the flora and wildlife of Britain’s
countryside, artist Mark Hearld also draws from the
fertile harvest of the English Neo-Romantic tradition.
His Georgian home in York buzzes with vernacular
art and objects, from corn dollies to a pub settle,
alongside the fruits of collaborations with sign-writers,

bookbinders and their ilk. Frances Spalding
surveys the lie of the land. Photography: Jan Baldwin

Left: in the upstairs sitting-room alcove, most of the small objects
were given to Hearld by his mentor, the architect John Hutchinson.

Nearby is a segment of Edward Bawden’s wallpaper ‘Pigeons
and Clocktower’ and a painting, Red Pony, by Sheila Robinson,
another Great Bardfield artist. Top: the table’s tree was made by
ceramicist Ann Stokes. Alongside sits John Piper’s book, British
Romantic Artists, above a decorative sheet of paper by J&J Jeffery

MARK HEARLD livesonwhatwasoriginallyaRoman historian who became Hearld’s ‘visual mentor’ after he settled in
York. In Hutchinson’s house, Hearld first experienced the kind of
Road and a royal route into York. His house contains a significant treasure trove that develops in a domestic setting when its owner
aspect of the Roman past, for in his cellar is found a listed sar- not only has an interest in art but allows aesthetic decisions to de-
cophagus containing a skull and some bones, all dating from that termine everything, from wallpaper and rugs to mugs and the
era. Notified of these details, the mortgage lender grew nervous cutlery you use. In this context, art is not separate from life but
and negotiations, momentarily, hit rocky ground. But Hearld, woven into its fabric. They become one thing, as Hearld also
being an artist with an omnivorous capacity for taking delight in learned on his visits to Jim Ede’s Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge and
visual things, has a wide-ranging outlook on life. It is somehow to Charleston, the Bloomsbury Group house at Firle in Sussex.
right that his Georgian house sits almost cheek by jowl with a ga-
rage displaying wobbly pillars made out of new tyres. Lettering of all kinds recurs throughout the Hearld house,
yet his versatile creativity is most vividly expressed here through
The house is one in a terrace of three, built in 1807. We stand on his passion for animals. On almost every wall, in wallpapers,
the pavement for a while, studying triplicates of fanlights and front prints, pictures, reliefs and amid a great deal of flora, some kind
doors, and working out which are original, at the same time ad- of fauna can be picked out. This connects with his childhood,
miring proportions and the restrained curve in the ground-floor
bay windows. Hearld remarks in passing for although he was born in York, his family
that we are looking at the most austere peri- moved to Heslington while he was still a
od of Georgian architecture. His admira- boy. Despite the uncomfortable jolt experi-
tion surprises me because I know that once enced by the move out of a Victorian house
inside the house, profusion will replace aus- into a new-build, he quickly took to country
terity. Good taste often depends on leaving life, helping out on farms in his teen years.
out, excluding clutter, the arbitrary or disso- Two things began to dominate his life: mak-
nant. But Hearld’s aesthetic is wonderfully ing things and animals. With hindsight, it
inclusive, visually noisy, with all types of ob- seems inevitable that he chose to study il-
jects talking to each other. lustration at Glasgow School of Art, then
took a masters degree at the Royal College
Immediately inside the front door one of Art, under distinguished natural-history
brushes past an ecclesiastical signboard, ori- illustrator John Norris Wood.
ginally commissioned by Newcastle cath-
edral, its elegant lettering and fine numerals ‘Is drawing relevant any more?’ Hearld
giving the times and order of daily services. overheard a tutor at Glasgow query. At that
Made redundant after a change in routine, time, conceptual art, more concerned with
it was presented to Hearld by its creator, John ideas than process, had turned its back on
Hutchinson, an architect and architectural traditional media. But at the RCA, students

Top: on the mantel, corn dollies known as Devonshire crosses flank a collage by EQ Nicholson, whose daughter, textile designer
Louise Creed, is a friend. Above: a bust of Shakespeare looks past the owner through Hearld’s bay window. Opposite: a Reddington

toy theatre made by Horatio Blood, a leading exponent of the craft, sits behind a Georgian-looking chair recently commissioned



Top: three of Denis Bowen’s platters hang on the back-parlour
wall on ‘Compton Verney’ wallpaper designed by Hearld. The
rabbit rag rug is by Lewis Creed. Above: in the kitchen, estuary
birds painted by Clifford Ellis hang behind a Victorian clothes-
drying rack. Right: this antique curved settle, draped with an
altar cloth, came from the estate of topographical writer Olive Cook



Top a palimpsest of torn wallpapers in the top-lit stairwell forms a backdrop for a John Piper lithograph of Santa Maria Zobenigo,
Venice, far right, while further up can be seen a design for Moving Picture House by the inimitable Jonny Hannah. Above left: in
the conservatory, a Philip Eglin plate showing the Man of Sorrows hangs just under the roof light. Above right: some people have
skeletons in the closet – Hearld has one in his cellar. In December 1820, a German prince, Hermann von Pückler-Muskau, visited
the house on his tour of Great Britain, noting the mysterious mortal remains in the sarcophagus. Opposite: the wooden swan
in the garden room was made by the sculptor Alex Malcolmson, at Hearld’s request, for The Magpie Eye exhibition in Scarborough



on Norris Wood’s Natural History Illustration and Ecological toy theatre are obvious signs of this, as is the high­backed pub set­
Studies course favoured drawing over what someone called ‘con­ tle bench, once owned by Olive Cook. A friend helped direct it to
ceptual bowls of vomit’. Norris Wood had been a regular visitor to Hearld, aware that Cook’s writing on miscellaneous pictures and
Cedric Morris and his house Benton End; had developed a lasting objects in The Saturday Book has been a major source of inspiration.
friendship with Edward Bawden; and had tutored at several art So too has been his friendship with Nigel and Iris Weaver, whose
schools before joining the staff at the RCA in 1971. Conversations vision and dedication lie behind the transformation of the Fry Art
with him became a major part of Hearld’s education, deepening Gallery, at Saffron Walden, into a centre of excellence for the work
his familiarity with the work of artists such as John Piper, Bawd­ of Bawden and Ravilious and other northwest Essex artists. He
en and Eric Ravilious, whose mark­making excited him. also remains good friends with the outstanding children’s illus­
trator Emily Sutton; they were partners when they moved into the
His ability to set up continuities with the past is one reason house, and she played a significant part in its making.
why Hearld has become a central figure within a revivalist move­
ment that looks back to the 1940s and beyond. Like Piper, he has But you cannot point to or pick up anything in this interior
also established relationships with specialists in other fields that without touching on a friendship, collaboration or an association.
have broadened his output. Angie and Simon Lewin at St Jude’s, The bookbinder invited to re­cover some Regency scrapbooks he
picking up on his interest in surface pattern,
gave him the opportunity to design screen­ had acquired now makes Hearld’s own, cov­
printed textiles and wallpaper. ering the boards with block­printed paste
paper, and also his leather­bound, beauti­
He has also accrued an impressive col­ fully embossed appointment diaries.
lection of slipware ceramics, learning much
from Terry Shone, with whom he has deco­ Often such work is gifted and repaid with
rated tiles and plates. Helped by a mould­ a present from the artist, the exchange resting
maker in Stoke­on­Trent and a production on an underlying respect for craftsmanship.
potter, Hearld has brought into existence Much of Hearld’s work makes use of collage,
multiples of a horse, the design of which com­ a medium that depends on unexpected vis­
bines his admiration for two Leeds pottery ual associations. Indeed, he regards his house
pearlware horses (c1800) in the York Mus­ as a three­dimensional collage. It is certainly
eums Trust collection with his love of a child’s festive, versatile, full of visual stimulation
old wooden horse on wheels, which he found and bursting with energy $
on a junk stall in Berlin. ‘Mark Hearld’s Menagerie’ runs at The Scottish
Gallery, 16 Dundas St, Edinburgh EH3 6HZ, 28 Nov-
The owner’s love of folk art is everywhere 23 Dec. For more information, ring 0131 558 1200,
visible in his house. Corn dollies, Windsor or visit scottish-gallery.co.uk. To contact Mark
chairs, rag pictures and rugs and a Pollock’s Hearld, ring 07957 947024, or visit @mark_hearld

Top left: the Siamese cat resting on the spare-room radiator is by Enid Marx, and the Coronation Mug linocut behind it is by Angie
Lewin. Top right: in the main bedroom, an Uzbek coat serves as a dressing gown. Above: in the bathroom, the dazzle-gilded sign was
made for Hearld’s Lumber Room show in York. Opposite: the sheet-metal cockerel was found in an antique shop in Pasadena, California



Works by Picasso (left) and Fernand Léger hang either side of
the living-room mantelpiece, from which a plaster bust by Alfred
Janniot gazes out. In the foreground a shagreen table, topped
with a Jean Dunand silver-gilt ovoid vase, is by Jean-Michel Frank

Nan Swid, a collector of important 20th-century art, fully understands the impulse to evolve and experiment.
The latest is architect Kazem Naderi, whose exacting eye for detail and quest for aesthetic perfection made

CHANGE PARTNERS

That’s reflected in the rollcall of big-name designers who have refined her Manhattan apartment over the years.

him the ideal choice. Carol Prisant reports on the duo’s simpatico relationship. Photography: Simon Upton

This page: viewed from the other end, the Giacometti bronze between the living-room windows feels heroic. Leleu armchairs face the sofa
and a Brian Hunt bronze.At the centre of the room is a coffee table by Maison Jansen. Opposite: on one wall in the living room, an Ellsworth
Kelly painting and a Jean-Charles Moreux rococo plaster table form a regal statement in white on white.The chandelier is Venetian



This page, clockwise from top left: in the sitting room, a Continental armchair stands before this doorway, flanked by three of Nan Swid’s
works on paper; set against an Adam-style marble mantel is a quintessential 1960s work by Roy Lichtenstein; a chalky blue silk sofa resonates
with Kenneth Noland’s vibrant bull’s-eye; a side view of the latticed Continental bergère. Below the David Smith painting is a Ruhlmann chair

This page, clockwise from top left: in the foyer, a large bronze by Andrew Lord plays against the white marble tables. To the left is a Franz Kline
painting; in the dining room are a Clyfford Still painting and delicate Italian armchairs by Fratelli Levaggi; flanking the door are two Mies ‘Bar­
celona’ stools, one beneath a Claes Oldenburg child’s dress; a stately Ellsworth Kelly work is offset by a 19th­century bronze Japanese crayfish

This page: above the bed in the master bedroom hangs a painting by Richard Serra. Opposite: in the dressing room, an urbane work on
paper by Nan Swid hangs above an elegant bronze-legged banquette designed by Kazem, with ‘Fox’ velvet upholstery. It is fronted by a
French metal Art Deco table, sourced by Annabelle Selldorf, on which stands a creamware candlestick. The lacquered side table is by Kazem



This page, clockwise from top left: on the grey-flecked white linoleum of the studio are vintage turquoise-painted work tables on castors;
works in progress await completion; an old cantilevered leather chair stands in the same room. Opposite: tablewares from the owner’s
former company, Swid Powell, are arranged on crisp shelving.The white chair is a Le Corbusier design, while the other one is repainted vintage



DESIGNERS LIKE to joke about clients museum-quality art,’ he says. Luckily, Nan was more than ready
for a personal, really cosy, space, which made him take a second
so intimidated by the blinding perfection of their newly beauti- look at the dining room, a high-ceilinged, formal room with a
fied homes that they never move an ashtray. Or at least it used to splendid Morris Louis on one wall.
be an ashtray. Today, it’s probably a Batman candle by Basquiat.
Centring the space were a pair of circular tables and some per-
Nan Swid, architect Kazem Naderi’s client, has been a business fectly nice chairs but, like so many traditional dining rooms not
owner, an art collector and an impressive artist. As a fellow aes- in daily use, it had become a walkway between the foyer or the
thete, she’s totally fine with the concept of ‘everything on wheels’. living room and the kitchen. Kazem began its transformation
She’s also utterly fine with Kazem dropping by her Manhattan using a rectangular table with a black porcelain top that looks like
apartment to try out something new, and she perfectly under- slate but isn’t, because Nan’s a pragmatist and porcelain doesn’t
stands his precisionist urge – having given it a great deal of thought stain. He surrounded the table with delicate Italian chairs, not
– to move a faceted black glass vase an inch and a half to the left. self-important at all but practical. Then, true to his credo, he broke
She knows in her bones that art isn’t static, nor should it be – that conventional symmetry by moving the whole arrangement close
her ‘soulful’ designer feels compelled, now and then, just to stand to the room’s far wall, where it can be used for dining or as a luxuri-
in the bedroom and ponder the precise shade of green he needs
for the blanket on her bed. ant desk. To the windowed end wall, he
added a grey leather sofa, long enough
But Kazem is unorthodox too. He’s to sleep on but with a wonderful view
impatient with the obvious and stale not just of a handsome Adnet cabinet
in the relationships between furniture but of everything else in an unbroken,
and art and carpets and floors, and the now almost playful, space. Following
ultimate effect of his aesthetic process its makeover, the room beckoned se-
is something like Turner dropping in ductively, and soon enough, the sofa
on a gallery where his latest seascape became Nan’s favourite spot. ‘Now you
is already hanging and, with a small can put your feet up and relax,’ she says
brush, confidently adding a scarlet happily. ‘Kazem has created rooms
buoy to the waves. that sing, and the melody flows from
room to room.’
But what Kazem likes even better is
to ‘establish symmetry’, he says, ‘then Stephen, Nan’s late husband, was
break it’. It’s part of him giving serious passionate about art, and together they
thought to placement and scale, and chose the singular paintings and sculp-
you can imagine him lying awake de- tures that fill the apartment, each one
liberating about the ideal spot for an impeccably placed. Some years ago,
errant chair or a bronze crayfish. Then, when Swid Powell, Nan’s innovative
having decided, he acts – although now and highly successful line of table-
and then, he’ll tell Nan not to take pic- wares, closed, she began creating her
tures of this room or that ‘because I own works. Since that time, she’s been
may change it tomorrow’. Happily, she making art that begins, surprisingly,
understands this perfectionist who with thick vintage books, preferably
might never finish perfecting. nicely foxed. In her airy, light-filled upstairs studio, with the help
of friend and fellow artist Steven Thompson, these are recycled
They’re a team now, a team that met serendipitously. Kazem in coatings of poured resin and encaustic. Mounted on canvas,
was working on her daughter and son-in-law’s apartment when many of them are elegant and yet substantial, while others become
Mom dropped by, liked what she saw and asked if he would find lively collage. Kazem has encouraged her to hang her work among
her a lamp. He came up with an Italian Modernist example, a the Ellsworth Kellys, Franz Klines, and Andrew Lords, but Nan
mushroomy little lamp that today sits, meticulously placed, on feels it’s presumptuous. Still, she says, ‘Kazem has carte blanche
a side table in the ‘TV room’, where she never watches TV. She here.’ And he loves her art.
laughs as she remembers: ‘That lamp just snowballed. It became So stop me if you’ve heard this, but there’s an anecdote about a
like being on a treadmill that starts at zero and suddenly begins young Manhattan architect who was asked to visit his new client’s
going uphill so fast that you’re almost falling backward.’ apartment, and when he rang the bell, the door opened and he
was swept inside by his client, a tiny woman of a certain age, who
Nan has lived in this spacious flat for some 30 years, and over took his coat and, with a sweeping gesture to indicate the entire
those years she’s worked with several of the boldface names in flat, looked up at him and said: ‘I just want you to know that every-
design, among them Annabelle Selldorf, and Stephen Sills, who thing here is A Something.’
created, among other things, the hall floor and elegant doors, and Everything here is ‘a something’ too, especially the talented
chose the chandeliers. Little wonder, then, that when Kazem (who woman who’s opened her door $
worked for the latter for seven years) visited her apartment for the ‘New York Interiors: Simon Upton’ will be published by Vendome Press in
first time, it appeared to need merely ‘small, surgical tweaks’. But 2021. To contact NAD Projects, ring 001 212 420 6615
as the art and furnishings continued to accrue, as they inevitably
do when the inhabitant is a collector: ‘It becomes very hard to
make grand spaces look like a home when the walls are filled with

Above: a view looking down from the breakfast room into the newly redone dining room, where a painting by Nan Swid hangs above a
Josef Hoffmann chair. Opposite: in the middle of the breakfast room stands a Max Lamb table, which incorporates a terrazzo marble top.
It’s overlooked by one of Nan Swid’s own artworks. The imposing steel cabinetry, original to the flat, gives the space an industrial edge





LORE OF
THE LAND

When Jutta Fischer visited Katia and Jasiek’s cottage
at the foot of Poland’s Tatra Mountains, it still

brimmed with traditional artefacts. From folk art
to farming utensils and national heroes celebrated

in glass paintings, it spoke of a heritage still
very much a part of modern life, and the country’s

struggle for independence. Photography: Fritz
von der Schulenburg. First published: January 1984

Left: the front of the couple’s rural dwelling near the town of
Zakopane. Surrounded by a copse of fir trees, it was built

as a peasant’s home in the 19th century. The roof is covered
with wooden shingles. Top: Katia and Jasiek seated in their

kitchen-cum-bedroom, one of only two rooms in the property

Top: religious images, family photos and household objects.
Above: among this miscellany is a plate bearing Hungary’s

coat of arms, a nod to a historic trade route here. Right: a carved
plate rack runs under the ceiling in the ‘good room’. The

couple still use the wooden milking bucket and spinning-wheel



The main living area. Paper flowers,
glass pictures, musical instruments, pottery

plates and mugs and a scythe share wall
space. The traditional carved seats feature

heart shapes and floral ornamentation



IN THE REGIONof once-fashionable Szymanska’s advice: ‘As it is no good to live alone, you must get
married.’ On her death, the old lady left the house and its collec-
Zakopane a small pocket of ancient Poland survives. Often called tion of Tatra folk art to Katia and Jasiek.
the ‘winter capital of Poland’, it lies at the foot of the Tatra Mount-
ains, some 100km south of Krakow. This charming village was Until his retirement in 1976, Jasiek had worked as a local bus
‘discovered’ at the end of the last century and became Central conductor. Now he occasionally helps neighbouring farmers at
Europe’s St Moritz – a position it held until World War II. During the harvest and still makes hay with the scythe to feed their two
this period, however, folk life was unaffected and now, although goats, kept at the back of the cottage. They have a small vegetable
Zakopane remains a popular skiing centre, the Tatra peasants garden with cabbages and potatoes and some parsley and chives.
carry on much as they always have done. Recently, I had an en- Katia bakes her own bread, makes delicious, small goat’s cheeses
counter with a remnant of the highlanders’ traditional way of life. and in her spare time makes paper flowers, which she sells.

Leaving town at dawn and walking beside a brook, I reach a Another source of income is Mrs Szymanska’s glass paint-
thicket of tall fir trees. The morning sun is just beginning to filter ings, which Katia will show to visitors for a small charge. This
through the heavy branches when there it is: a small mountain special kind of primitive painting came originally from Ruthenia
cottage, walls of rough-hewn logs with twisted ropes peeping in the east [then a part of Ukraine in the USSR]. They show mostly
through the gaps. Under the porch I am greeted by a picture of religious subjects, but the naive imagination of the individual
the pope, decorated with pine branches, ribbons and crêpe-paper artist was usually more inspired by details of everyday life and
roses. The door, studded with wooden nails, is ajar. human psychology than official church iconography.

The owner – a plump, sun-tanned woman with a friendly smile As I sit in the ‘good room’, I become aware of the spirit of peas-
– appears and invites me in. Making me welcome with some sour ant life in every corner: ornamental wooden utensils made by
goat’s milk poured from an enamelled pitcher, she introduces her- local craftsmen hanging on the wall by the stove; in the cupboard,
self as Katia. Leading me down the narrow hall dividing the house local pottery in dark glazes that is fired in home-made kilns;
into its two rooms, she begs me to go into the ‘good room’ on our beside the bed, a painted wedding chest; and, common to all such
right. In this room – radiating peace and harmony, full of lov- households, a spinning-wheel (the main source of income used
ingly preserved objects, furniture, religious pictures and deco- to be sheep). It is still used by Katia, as are the wooden buckets
rated household utensils – I feel surrounded by the magic spirit for milking and for processing milk and cheese from her two
of Tatra life, unchanged for generations. goats. Perhaps the only discordant note is the light from two
small, lantern-like objects – it is electric. Later, when Jasiek comes
Built in the 19th century as a peasant’s home, the cottage’s home from the fields, I follow him into the other room, which,
method of construction is both ancient (it resembles buildings identical in dimensions, is where the couple sleep, eat and work.
found in prehistoric excavations) and modern (they are still be- Along the wall on the right, next to the sink (running water is the
ing built in exactly the same way). In the late 1940s, it was bought other concession to modern life), is a display of iron stirrups, cow-
by a doctor’s widow, Janina Szymanska, who retired here and bells and chains. Prominent is the black-and-white wedding pho-
furnished it much as it is now, filling it with the Tatra folk art tograph of Katia and Jasiek in traditional costume.
that she assiduously collected. Katia – who lives there with her
husband, Jasiek – had worked for Mrs Szymanska for over 30 In this room there are more glass paintings, one of which de-
years, and never thought of marriage until the demands of her picts a horseman, with bow and arrows, wearing a tall Polish hat:
suitor became so pressing she had to give in. Still in doubt on the this is Jánošik, the ever-popular Tatra hero, a Robin Hood figure
morning of her wedding day, the faithful maid wisely took Mrs who robbed the rich and gave to the poor. Above it, on a repro-
duction of a Madonna and Child with distinct Byzantine traits, I
discover a reminder of another Polish hero: the caption ‘Madonna
of Kahlenberg, Sobieski – Chapel in Vienna’, which brings one of
the most exciting stories of my Viennese childhood rushing back
to me. Sobieski was the Polish king who, in 1683, swept down
with his army from a hill named Kahlenberg and freed Vienna
from the Turks. Along the wall at the back on the carved rack are
vases, elaborate jugs and plates, one of which bears the coat of
arms of Hungary. The old trade route from Hungary and Slovakia
to Poland passed through the area – on my way to the cottage
I noticed a road sign reading ‘Budapest 344km’.

In Poland, as elsewhere, peasant life, its native art, customs and
rituals, had become of interest to scholars and artists throughout
the 19th century. But for Poles, in particular, such things had a
special significance. In their passionate striving to reattain an
independent state of Poland (throughout the 19th century the
whole country had been divided by a triple partition under Rus-
sian, German and Austrian administrations), identification with
their roots had become fundamental. And modern Poland is
just as keen to protect its natural and cultural heritage. Any doubt
of this is immediately dispelled by the continuing existence of
cottages like Katia and Jasiek’s in the Tatra Mountains $
‘Young Poland: The Polish Arts and Crafts Movement, 1890-1918’, eds Julia
Griffin and Andrzej Szczerski, is published by Lund Humphries, rrp £40

Opposite: by the front door are a broom
made of twigs, a sign asking you to wipe

your feet and images of the pope and the
Madonna. This page: ceramic and wooden
vessels are stored in a hanging cupboard