BELLAS ARTES

A wide-ranging book on the timeless, elegant interiors of the versatile Frances Elkins, the grande dame of early twentieth-century design who influenced so many important designers of our time. Called “the most creative designer we have ever had” by Billy Baldwin, Frances Elkins has been revered for her classic, erudite, and multidimensional decor. Ahead of her time, Elkins became a successful decorator who by the early 1930s had reached the top of her profession and was considered the only rival to Elsie de Wolfe. Working throughout the United States, Elkins brought an international perspective and architectural sensibility to her work. Elkins traveled widely with her architect brother David Adler, educated at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, and he was a strong influence on her. Her social circle included interior designer Jean-Michel Frank, couturière Coco Chanel, aesthete Charles de Beistegui, arts patron Misia Sert and painter Salvador Dali, For her clients, she brought a modern European chic as well as a melding of the best of American, English, French,, Asian and Mexican traditions. A talented furniture and fabric designer as well as interior designer, she collaborated with many luminaries, including Frank; architects Adler, Gardner Dailey, and William Wurster; weaver Dorothy Liebes; decorator Syrie Maugham; the artist Bruton sisters; and furniture maker Myron Oliver. Her carefully planned interiors were known for their distinctive sophistication and polish, and an inviting sense of comfort.

Treating architecture, landscape, and interior design as complementary endeavors, Brian Sawyer and John Berson have been ahead of their time and influential in the world of design since the founding of their eponymous partnership in 1999. SawyerBerson’s prodigious use of traditional and modern vocabularies has gained the firm widespread recognition and many notable clients. Meticulous attention to detail and versatility combine to create a wide variety of projects.

India in Fashion explores the beautiful and sophisticated history and aesthetics of traditional Indian fashion, dress, and textiles and their profound impact on European and American fashion from the eighteenth century to today. This intoxicating and visually rich volume—with texts by experts from India, Europe, and North America—is published to accompany a major exhibition that celebrates the long historical contributions that Indian dress, textiles, and embroidery have had on Western fashion. From the introduction of chintz dressmaking fabrics in the eighteenth century to the early nineteenth-century vogue for light Indian fabrics, paisleys, and chikan embroideries to larger realities of empire and cultural appropriation, this volume features paintings, fashion magazine editorials, and portraits of influential people who championed Indian style throughout history.

Cotton presents rooms that mix historical and modern influences, resulting in luxuriously sleek interiors for casual, yet sophisticated, living. The glam-orous spaces—many designed for art-world clients, including Cindy Sherman and Lisa Yuskavage—are anchored in tradition but reflect the relaxed sensibili-ties of our time. Cotton shares his multiscaled approach to design—successful turns with his varied collections, which are often included in his interior projects. Furniture, lighting, wallpaper, tableware, and terra-cotta planters are part of his repertoire. Cotton’s industrial designs—like his interiors—embody an intelligence and under-standing of design history. This book, the designer’s first, documents the groundbreaking work of a rising and notable talent and should be in the libraries of designers and connoisseurs of fine living.

One hundred miles north of San Francisco, the Sonoma County coast meets the Pacific Ocean in a magnificent display of nature. This is the location of the Sea Ranch, an area covering several thousand acres of large, open meadows and forested natural settings and interspersed with award-winning architecture. The ecologically inspired plan drawn up for the Sea Ranch in the mid-1960s caused a quiet revolution in architecture. Renowned landscape designer Lawrence Halprin's master plan incorporated a set of building guidelines that structured the visual, as well as physical, impact upon the landscape. Subsequent buildings by architects such as Joseph Esherick, Charles Willard Moore, Donlyn Lyndon, and William Turnbull have been recognized worldwide for their remarkable environmental sensitivity. This revised and updated edition of the now-classic monograph, the only one on the Sea Ranch, contains eleven additional projects and an updated account of the ongoing development process and land-management issues.