Jacques Grange

Design legend Henri Samuel believed that a successful interior was one in which an observer never suspected that a decorator had been involved. This book takes the reader inside some of Samuel s groundbreaking and inspiring interiors, beginning with his first job assisting Stephane Boudin of Jansen in the 1920s through postwar Paris society and into the go-go 80s. During his illustrious career, Samuel created rarefied and beautiful environments for his jet-set clientele Doris Duke, Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, Susan and John Gutfreund, Valentino Garavani, and multiple Rothschilds and Vanderbilts. Such was his expertise that museums such as Versailles and the Metropolitan Museum of Art consulted him on the installation of period rooms. Samuel was a master at reproducing intimate spaces in various historic styles in addition to mixing those styles in an erudite way: modernist paintings were installed over Empire consoles, Louis XIII furniture shared space with Oriental objects, neoclassical chairs were placed beside tables of brass and Plexiglas. This book records Samuel s life, his career, and the luxurious interiors he created for his clients and himself rooms that look as fresh and alive today as they did when they were first arranged. It is a necessary addition to any design library.

Ce livre est la premiere etude d'ensemble parue depuis vingt ans sur l'oeuvre et la personnalite encore mal connues de Rudolf Borchardt (1877-1945). En s'appuyant sur une documentation souvent inedite, l'auteur precise les rapports que le poete a entretenus notamment avec St. George, H. von Hofmannsthal et R.A. Schroder. Il montre la diversite, mais surtout la coherence de l'entreprise de -restauration creatrice- voulue par le poete dans tous les domaines - moral, politique, social, linguistique et litteraire - sous le signe de la Poesie, -langue maternelle du genre humain-. Il dresse le bilan des echecs et des reussites du dramaturge, du romancier, de l'orateur, du philologue, du traducteur et du poete. Il precise enfin la place qui devrait revenir dans les lettres allemandes a R. Borchardt, ce -Dante germanique-, poeta doctus, maitre du verbe et du rythme, createur d'une oeuvre considerable, inhumaine a force d'etre trop humaine."