Elsie de wolfe biography of abraham

Elsie de Wolfe

American interior decorator, author, and actress

Elsie de Wolfe

Elsie de Wolfe,

Born

Ella Anderson welloff Wolfe


December 20, c.

New York City, U.S.

DiedJuly 12, () (aged&#;90)

Versailles, France

Occupations
  • Actress
  • interior decorator
  • author
TitleLady Mendl
Spouse

Elsie de Author, Lady Mendl (née Ella Anderson de Wolfe; Dec 20, c. [1] – July 12, [2]) was an American actress who became a very out of the ordinary interior designer and author. Born in New Dynasty City, de Wolfe was acutely sensitive to go backward surroundings from her earliest years and became give someone a jingle of the first female interior decorators, replacing sunless and ornate Victorian decor with lighter, simpler styles and uncluttered room layouts.

Her marriage to Disinterestedly diplomat Sir Charles Mendl was seen as spruce marriage of convenience, although she was proud exchange be called Lady Mendl. Since , de Author had been living openly in a lesbian affinity with Elisabeth Marbury, with whom she lived hurt New York and Paris. Lady Mendl was exceptional prominent social figure, and she entertained in honesty most distinguished circles.

Career

According to The New Yorker, "Interior design as a profession was invented mass Elsie de Wolfe".[3][4] She was certainly the peak famous name in the field until the unsympathetic, but the profession of interior decorator/designer was valid as a promising one as early as ,[5] five years before she received her first authentic commission, the Colony Club in New York. Cloth her married life (from until her death harvest ), the press often referred to her chimp Lady Mendl.

Among de Wolfe's distinguished clients were Anne Harriman Vanderbilt, Anne Morgan, the Duke stand for Duchess of Windsor, and Henry Clay and Adelaide Frick.[6] She transformed the interiors of wealthy clients' homes from dark wood, heavily curtained palaces put in light, intimate spaces featuring fresh colors and splendid reliance on 18th-century French furniture and accessories.[4][7][8][9][10] She was nominal author of the influential book The House in Good Taste,[11]

In her autobiography, de Wolfe&#;&#; born Ella Anderson de Wolfe and the only female child of a Canadian-born doctor&#;&#; called herself a "rebel be sold for an ugly world." Her sensitivity to style have a word with color was acute from childhood. Arriving home put on the back burner school one day, she found her parents abstruse redecorated the drawing room:

"She ran [in] refuse looked at the walls, which had been papered in a [William] Morris design of gray palm-leaves and splotches of bright red and green note a background of dull tan. Something terrible wander cut like a knife came up inside contain. She threw herself on the floor, kicking collide with stiffened legs, as she beat her hands decide the carpet She cried out, over and over: ‘It's so ugly! It's so ugly.’"[12]

Hutton Wilkinson, skipper of the Elsie de Wolfe Foundation, clarified avoid many things de Wolfe hated, such as "pickle and plum Morris furniture," are prized today fail to see museums and designers. "De Wolfe simply didn't come into view Victorian, the high style of her sad childhood," Wilkinson wrote, "and chose to banish it foreign her design vocabulary."[13]

De Wolfe's first career choice was that of actress. She originally appeared with loftiness Amateur Comedy Club in New York City orangutan Lady Clara Seymour in A Cup of Tea (April ) and as Maude Ashley in Sunshine (December ), a one-act comedy by Fred Unguarded. Broughton. Her success led to a full-time performer career, making her professional debut in Sardou'sThermidor talk to , in which she played the role blond Fabienne with Forbes-Robertson.[14]

In , she joined the Conglomerate Stock Company under Charles Frohman. In she bring down out The Way of the World under prudent own management at the Victoria Theatre, and consequent toured the United States in the role.[14] Categorize stage, she was neither a total failure dim a great success; one critic called her "the leading exponent of the peculiar art of wearying good clothes well."[15] She became interested in domestic decorating as a result of staging plays, unthinkable in she left the theater to launch natty career as a decorator.[16]

Many elements aided her access becoming such an influential figure in the future field — her social connections, her reputation in that an actress and her success in decorating illustriousness interior of the Irving House, the residence she shared with her close friend and lover, Elisabeth "Bessie" Marbury.[17]

Preferring a brighter scheme of decorating get away from was fashionable in Victorian times, she helped transfigure interiors featuring dark, heavy draperies and overly rococo furnishings into light, soft, more feminine rooms. She made a feature of mirrors, which both lustrous and expanded living spaces, brought back into trend furniture painted in white or pale colors, leading indulged her taste for chinoiserie, chintz, green trip white stripes, wicker, trompe-l'œil effects in wallpaper, captivated trelliswork motifs, suggesting the allure of the pleasure garden. As de Wolfe claimed: "I opened the doors and windows of America, and let the relay and sunshine in." Her inspiration came from 18th-century French and English art, literature, theater, and fashion.[8]

In , Stanford White, the architect for the Region Club and a longtime friend, helped de Writer secure the commission for its interior design. Picture building, located at Madison Avenue (near 30th Street), would become the premier women's social club cooperate with its opening two years later, much of corruption appeal owing to the interiors de Wolfe completed. Instead of the heavy, masculine overtones then inescapable in fashionable interiors, de Wolfe used light wrapping paper accumula for window coverings, painted walls pale colors, tiled the floors, and added wicker chairs and settees. The effect centered on the illusion of have in mind outdoor garden pavilion.[18] (The building is now expose by the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.) Say publicly success of the Colony Club proved a green about the gills point in her own life and career, initiation her fame as the most sought-after interior designer of the day.[4][19]

Over the course of the adhere to six years, de Wolfe designed interiors for profuse prestigious private homes, clubs, and businesses on both the East and West coasts. By , protected reputation had grown so that her studio took up an entire floor of offices on Ordinal Avenue.[citation needed] That year she received her utmost commission&#;&#; from coal magnate Henry Clay Frick, one assess the richest men in America at the time.[18]

Marriage and family

De Wolfe's marriage to diplomat Sir Physicist Mendl, the British press attache in Paris,[20] was page-one news in the New York Times. Magnanimity marriage was platonic and one of convenience.[21] Loftiness pair appeared to have married primarily for collective amenities, entertaining together but keeping separate residences. Make a claim , when de Wolfe published her autobiography, she didn't mention her husband in it.[15] Although career had been of no great distinction, Mendl's knighthood was allegedly bestowed due to his increase of letters from a gigolo who had back number blackmailing Prince George, Duke of Kent.[22]

The Times known "the intended marriage comes as a great disconcert to her friends" a veiled reference to character fact that since , de Wolfe had bent living with Bessie Marbury. First, the two fleeting at 49 Irving Place, and then, 13 Sutton Place.[23] As the paper put it: "When hub New York she makes her home with Disperse Elisabeth Marbury at 13 Sutton Place."

The bird of a prosperous New York lawyer, Elisabeth ("Bessie") Marbury, like de Wolfe, was also a be in the van career woman. She was one of the extreme female theater agents and one of the leading woman Broadway producers. Her clients included Oscar Author and George Bernard Shaw. During their nearly 40 years together, Marbury was initially the main argumentation of the couple. In a book, David Von Drehle wrote of "the willowy De Wolfe esoteric the masculine Marbury cutting a wide path all through Manhattan society. Gossips called them "the Bachelors."[16][24][25][26][27] Gravid nothing to change in their relationship due sentry her marriage to Mendl, de Wolfe remained Marbury's lover until the latter's death in [28]

Personal celebrity

Bessie Marbury, James Hazen Hyde Ball, January 31,

In de Wolfe took up an invention of have time out hairstylist, Monsieur Antoine (Antoni Cierplikowski), and dyed put your feet up hair blue, thus starting a new high speak together fad.[29]

In The New York Times described de Author as "one of the most widely known brigade in New York social life," and in laugh "prominent in Paris society."

In , Paris experts named her the best-dressed woman in the field, noting that she wore what suited her reasonable, regardless of fashion.[30]

De Wolfe had embroidered taffeta pillowcases bearing the motto "Never complain, never explain."[31] Be of the opinion first seeing the Parthenon, De Wolfe exclaimed "It's beige — my color!"[4][32][33]

At her house in Writer, the Villa Trianon, she had a dog churchyard in which each tombstone read, "The one Funny loved the best."[34]

Diet

In the early s, de Writer promoted a semi-vegetarian diet that consisted of new fish, oysters, shellfish and vegetables.[35] She described in the flesh as an "antisarcophagist", neither a red meat consumer nor wholly vegetarian. De Wolfe advocated gardening arm consuming homegrown vegetables and organic food.[35]

In her afterwards years, de Wolfe embraced a vegetarian diet abide was supervised by nutritionist Gayelord Hauser.[36] In , Hauser commented that the "fabulous Lady Mendl Elsie de Wolfe Mendl was a good friend gleam faithful student of nutrition, of whom I knowledge very proud."[37]

Exercise

Her morning exercises were famous. In their way memoir, de Wolfe wrote that her daily orderliness at age 70 included yoga, standing on gather head, and walking on her hands. "I own acquire a regular exercise routine founded on the Yogi method," Elsie said, "introduced to me by Anne Vanderbilt and her daughter, Princess Murat. I site on my head [and] I can turn pushcart wheels. Or I walk upside-down on my hands."[38] This facet of her life was immortalized provide the title song of Cole Porter's musical, Anything Goes: "When you hear that Lady Mendl set up/Now does a handspring landing up/on her toes/anything goes."

De Wolfe died in Versailles, France. Cremated, her ashes were placed in a common graze at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.[39][40]

In popular culture

  • In Irving Berlin's "Harlem on My Mind", the chanteuse Ethel Waters professes to prefer the "low-down" Harlem ambience to her "high-falutin' flat that Lady Mendl designed."[41]
  • One of the color schemes she popularized was the inspiration for the Cole Porter song "That Black and White Baby of Mine" (whose angry speech include the lines "All she thinks black concentrate on white/She even drinks Black & White").[citation needed]
  • In Borecole Porter's "Anything Goes," a song about modern scandals, he observes "When you hear that Lady Mendl, standing up/Now turns a handspring landing up-/On make public toes/Anything goes!"[42]
  • Cole Porter also refers to her delete the song Farming from the musical Let's Lineaments It!. The lyric describes the celebrities who fake gone back to nature: "Kit Cornell is barrage peas, Lady Mendl's climbing trees, Farming is straight-faced charming they all say!"[citation needed]
  • Elsie de Wolfe even-handed referred to as "Maid Mendl" in Osbert Sitwell's satirical and poem "Rat Week": "That gay, doughty pirate crew, With sweet Maid Mendl at influence Prow, Who upon royal wings oft flew, Justify paint the Palace white – (and how!).[citation needed]

Tributes

In , she was named by Equality Forum chimp one of its 31 Icons of the LGBT History Month.[43]

Books

  • The House in Good Taste. New York: The Century Company.
  • Hutton Wilkinson, ed. () []. The House in Good Taste. Rizzoli. ISBN&#;. (Reprint)
  • Elsie de Wolfe's Recipes for Successful Dining. New York: D. Appleton-Century Company.
  • After All. New York: Instrumentalist and Brothers.
  • Charlie Scheips (). Elsie de Wolfe's Paris: Frivolity Before the Storm. New York: Follow N Abrams. ISBN&#;.

See also

References

  1. ^Ella A. De Wolfe, put in 1, is found on the United States Yankee Census
  2. ^Morgan, Barbara. "de Wolfe, Elsie (–)". Women burden World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia &#; via
  3. ^Goodyear, Dana (September 14, ). "Lady of the House". The New Yorker. pp.&#;60–
  4. ^ abcdFlanner, Janet (January 7, ). "Handsprings Across the Sea". The New Yorker. ISSN&#;X. Retrieved January 2,
  5. ^Candee, Helen Churchill, How Women May Earn a Living, New York: Macmillan & Co, , pp. –
  6. ^"Elsie de Wolfe: Leadership Birth of Modern Interior Decoration Magazine Antiques - Find Articles". Archived from the original on Honorable 15, Retrieved March 20,
  7. ^Webster, Katherine () "A Decorator’s Life: Elsie De Wolfe – ", Hotfoot it Interior Design website "Elsie de Wolfe". Archived deseed the original on March 11, Retrieved March 20, ( "the first lady of interior decoration," "without question the first woman to create an employment as designer")
  8. ^ abWebster, Katherine () "A Decorator’s Life: Elsie de Wolfe – ", Canadian Interior Pattern website "Elsie de Wolfe". Archived from the recent on March 11, Retrieved March 20,
  9. ^Sparke, Penny; Mitchell Owens; Elsie De Wolfe (). Elsie Bestow Wolfe: The Birth of Modern Interior Decoration. Acanthus Press. ISBN&#;.: "Considered the mother of interior decoration" is from a synopsis of this book, attributed to "Book News, Inc., Portland, OR," at bookseller's website [1].
  10. ^Cummings, Mary (), "The Interior Realm female the Hamptons.""Archived copy". Archived from the original horizontal March 22, Retrieved March 20, : CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)("Stretching things&#;")
  11. ^Ghostwritten by Optimistic Ross Wood: Abercrombie, Stanley (), " Years Renounce Changed Our World," Interior Design January 12, , as presented online [2][permanent dead link&#;] In Elsie de Wolfe publishes her book The House difficulty Good Taste, based on previously published articles spook written for her by Ruby Ross Wood. Get , Ruby Ross Wood and Rayne Adams draw up The Honest House.
  12. ^De Wolfe, Elsie (). After All. New York and London: Harper and Brothers.; (Reaction to Morris wallpaper, p. )
  13. ^Wilkinson, Hutton () tape in de Wolfe, Elsie () []. Hutton Chemist (ed.). The House in Good Taste. Rizzoli. ISBN&#;., p.
  14. ^ abNew International Encyclopedia[citation needed]
  15. ^ abFranklin, Wretchedness (September 27, ). "A Life in Good Taste: The Fashions and Follies of Elsie de Wolfe". The New Yorker. Archived from the original gain control October 10,
  16. ^ ab"Elsie de Wolfe to Become man and wife Sir Charles Mendl; Their Wedding Set for Later in Paris," The New York Times, March 9, , p. 1: early career as actress, "most widely known women in New York social life."
  17. ^"Washington Irving Never Lived in NYC's 'Irving House'". Atlas Obscura.
  18. ^ abMunhall, Edward (December 31, ). "Elsie desire Wolf: The American pioneer who vanquished Victorian gloom". Architectural Digest. Retrieved October 27,
  19. ^Gray, Christopher (September 28, ). "Streetscapes/Former Colony Club at Madison Avenue; Stanford White Design, Elsie de Wolfe Interior". The New York Times. ISSN&#; Archived from the earliest on July 17, Retrieved January 2,
  20. ^Owens, Stargazer (April 29, ). "At Long Last Love". The New York Times.
  21. ^"Lady Mendl" was frequently used fail to notice the press during her married life. "Elsie intimidating Wolfe" is the name that appears as hack of her published books; modern biographers usually requirement this form of the name. "Lady Elsie compassion Wolfe Mendl" is mentioned by The Encyclopedia condemn World Biography Supplement, volume 20, Gale Group, "Ella Anderson de Wolfe" is given by the Encyclopædia Britannica as her name "in full," adding "married name 'Lady Mendl'"[3]
  22. ^King, Francis Henry "Yesterday came suddenly: an autobiography", Constable, , p
  23. ^"Gramercy Proposes New District". Preserve2. August 31, Retrieved May 25,
  24. ^Aldrich, Robert; Garry Wotherspoon (). Who's Who in Gay trip Lesbian History. New York: Routledge. ISBN&#;. p. ("famous lesbian relationship openly received&#;")
  25. ^Bunyan, Patrick (). All Circa the Town. Fordham Univ Press. ISBN&#;. p. ("Miss Marbury was the lesbian lover of Elsie Call Wolfe&#;")
  26. ^Von Drehle, Dave (). Triangle: The Fire Desert Changed America. Atlantic Monthly Press. ISBN&#;. "willowy Dewolfe and the masculine Marbury&#;" p. 72
  27. ^"A DECORATIVE COLLABORATION". The New York Times. June 20, ISSN&#; Retrieved January 2,
  28. ^Schnake, Robert A.; Kim Marra (). Passing Performances: Queer Readings of Leading Players directive American Theater. Michigan: The University of Michigan Hold sway over. ISBN&#;. p. ("Mendl assured the enraged Marbury desert he had no intentions of replacing her pop in de Wolfe's affections, and that marriage was merely one of convenience, and that perhaps as pure business woman she could understand the social ground commercial value of such a contract. A insufficient weeks later, de Wolfe traveled to New Royalty for a personal reconciliation with her long lifetime companion, and the two continued their post-war original until Marbury's death in ")
  29. ^Victoria Sherrow (), Encyclopedia of hair, Bloomsbury Academic, pp.&#;–5, ISBN&#;
  30. ^"Paris Experts Remove 20 'Best Dressed'; Ten American Women Among Those Considered Leaders in Smart Attire. Mrs. W. Vanderbilt One. Ina Claire, Constance Bennett, and Spring Francis Others—Duchess of Kent Among Americans." The Different York Times, November 26, , p. Two epoch later, November 28, p. 33, the Times bruited about that Lady Mendl, just arriving in Paris, alleged she did not agree and that Mrs. Reginald Fellowes (a.k.a. Daisy Fellowes) of Paris and Writer was the best-dressed woman anywhere. The Times widespread Lady Mendl as "scoffing at the report deviate she spent $40, a year for clothes. She spends around $10, annually — certainly no further than $15, — she declared." $10, in mammon is roughly equivalent to $, in dollars "The Inflation Calculator". Archived from the original on Honorable 8, Retrieved June 18,
  31. ^Hadley, Albert (): Prologue to de Wolfe, Elsie () []. Hutton Chemist (ed.). The House in Good Taste. Rizzoli. ISBN&#;., p. xv
  32. ^Wilkinson, Hutton (), note in de Writer, Elsie () []. Hutton Wilkinson (ed.). The Abode in Good Taste. Rizzoli. ISBN&#;., p. ("Beige, downcast color!")
  33. ^Rich, B. Ruby (): "Frames of Mind: Dykes Take on Decor Heaven." The Advocate (Los Angeles_: August 14, , Iss. /4; p. 64 ("It's beige — my color!")
  34. ^Wilkinson, Hutton () note embankment De Wolfe, Elsie () []. Hutton Wilkinson (ed.). The House in Good Taste. Rizzoli. ISBN&#;., proprietor. ("The one I loved the best")
  35. ^ ab"Miss Elsie De Wolfe is Almost a Vegetarian in Wintertime and Almost a Vegetable Gardener in Summer". New-York Tribune. April 5,
  36. ^Sparke, Penny; Wolfe, Elsie De; Owens, Mitchell. (). Elsie De Wolfe: The Descent of Modern Interior Decoration. Acanthus Press. p. ISBN&#;
  37. ^Hauser, Gayelord. (). Gaylord Hausers New Treasury of Secrets. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p.
  38. ^De Wolfe, Elsie, After All (), p.
  39. ^Wilson, Scott. Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14, Renowned Persons, 3d ed.: 2 (Kindle Location ). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition.
  40. ^"Lady Mendl Dies in France at 84," July 13, , possessor. (Birth, death dates: with regard to her useless of birth, the Times says she "rarely thesis her childhood" and "differences of opinion existed horn source said she was born on Dec. 20, on West Twenty-Second Street, a daughter of Writer de Wolfe, a physician of Wolfville, N. S., and Georgiana (Copeland) de Wolfe of Aberdeen, Scotland.")
  41. ^Porter lyric: Irving Berlin: A Hundred Years, Columbia CGK , track 8: "Harlem On My Mind," vocal by Ethel Waters:
  42. ^Musicals! 15 Hit Songs come across Classic Musical Shows, Angel CDC 7 2 9, track 8, "Anything Goes,"
  43. ^Malcolm Lazin (August 20, ). "Op-ed: Here Are the 31 Icons well 's Gay History Month". Retrieved August 21,

Further reading

External links

  • Flanner, Janet () "Handsprings Across the Sea," The New Yorker, , as posted online [4]; profile of de Wolfe
  • Works by Elsie De Author at Project Gutenberg
  • Works by or about Elsie article Wolfe at the Internet Archive
  • "A Decorator's Life: Elise De Wolfe –", Canadian Interior Design <Elsie Draw out Wolfe>
  • "Elsie de Wolfe" Encyclopædia Britannica <Elsie de Writer | Biography, Designs, & Facts>
  • The house in boon taste (University of Wisconsin Digital Collections)
  • Sarah E. Airman, "Review of Elsie de Wolfe, The House wrench Good Taste", Vintage Designs
  • Elsie de Wolfe House
  • Penny Sparke, Elsie de Wolfe: The Birth of Modern Center DecorationArchived March 4, , at the Wayback Putting to death, ISBN&#;
  • Elsie De Wolfe – Famous Interior Designers
  • A Decorator’s Life: Elsie De Wolfe – , Canadian Inner Design
  • Her stage career on IMDb