Art for Interiors

One of the fastest-growing arts in the U.S. is interior decoration. Before World War II, it was mostly the rich who employed decorators to do their homes, and most American women would no more ask a stranger to tell them how to fix the living room than they would ask for outside advice on how to keep a husband happy. But in the last decade, the U.S. has become home-conscious as never before.*Decorators report that more and more of their clients are middle-income families, switching to modern homes or trying to spruce up traditional homes with new styles. Last week at the Fifth Annual Homefurnishings Show in Manhattan’s Grand Central Palace, a group of the East’s best-known decorators showed off their newest ideas.

On view were 25 rooms, ranging from a simple dining patio in white and yellow to a palatial black and green foyer. The decorators seemed as much concerned with fun as functionalism. Some of the ideas were clearly impractical, e.g., a dining-room floor made of tooled blue leather, but most were bound to set housewives thinking. The colors seemed to come from a painter’s palette—sparkling topaz yellow, lime green, burnt orange, cocoa brown, wine red. Decorators drew their materials from all over the world, combined Philippine rattan with American brass, mixed 19th century antiques with 20th century Egyptian coral sculpture, and thought nothing of flanking a modern sofa with a pair of smiling, five-foot Venetian blackamoors, carved in 1710. Among the more interesting experiments: ¶ A brass and wood Barbecue Room by Manhattan’s Melanie Kahane, which brings the outdoor barbecue indoors. Along one side ranges a long barbecue counter with roasting spit and charcoal grill; along the others, a bookcase, radio and record player, a long grey couch, a low table and comfortable chairs. <¶A startling white and orange-red Japanese Sunroom Bath by Designer John Wisner, which puts a huge white-tile tub smack into what otherwise looks like a pleasant, modern living room. ¶ A peaceful French provincial dining room by New Jersey Designer Lester Byock and his wife, who have an interesting idea for walls: plain pine panels washed with thin yellow varnish, then overlaid with a white rococo design. Most interesting feature: a white brick fireplace with a conical hood under which sits a copper brazier that can be used to cook an informal roast or light a formal dinner. ¶ A warm and woolly Explorer’s Study by William Pahlmann, which combines the comforts of a modern Manhattan flat with the old wood stove of a backwoods cabin. Among the features: a wall paneled in sturdy oak, a sleek, yellow lacquer desk.

The designers know that few of their experimental rooms will actually appear in U.S. houses, but they are sure that many of their ideas will get across: i.e., more color, more informality, more exotic materials. Still another notion was demonstrated in a Manhattan art gallery: furnishing a room around a piece of fine art, instead of hanging art in a finished room.

Designer Pahlmann put a colorful scene of Venice against an Oriental setting with green plants and a low mosaic table; an other took two semi-abstract paintings and a pair of bulky sculptures, used them for a swank office with an azure-blue leath er desk and a gay rug designed by Henri Matisse. Most startling idea in the show: a mazelike, circular boudoir by Architect Edward Stone where a body could relax on a brown fur couch while gazing at a muted abstract painting on the wall and at a sculpture of a tubby ceramic pig suspended from the ceiling.

-According to the 1950 census, 55% of U.S. families owned their homes as against 43.6% in 1940, and the rate is still climbing.