Synopses & Reviews
Joseph Urban is a lavish celebration of this prolific artist, architect, and designer, whose accomplishments include magnificent Art Deco buildings, spectacular Ziegfeld Follies productions, and dramatic sets for the Metropolitan Opera. Joseph Urban (1872–1933) began his career as an architect and artist in Vienna before moving to America in 1911. In 1914 he moved to New York, where he ultimately signed on as set designer of the Metropolitan Opera. He also became immersed in an astonishing array of outside projects, designing nightclubs, hotel lounges, skyscrapers, theaters, stage and film sets, and even childrens books. Though his creative output was immense, little remains of his work except the Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, and the New School and the base of the Hearst Tower in New York.
Review
andldquo;Scheips utilizes 170 black-and-white and color imagesandmdash;some previously unpublishedandmdash;to visually illuminate his fascinating narrative of this peerless womanandrsquo;s life, one that intersected with some of the most colorful and important characters of the day on both sides of the Atlantic, including Elsa Maxwell, William Randolph Hearst, Cecil Beaton, Janet Flanner, Gertrude Stein, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. The tome culminates with de Wolfeandrsquo;s final grand fandecirc;te, the second Circus Ball, which defined the glamour and decadence of international society before the lights went out all over Europe.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;A treasure trove of close to two hundred unpublished photographs of Elsie de Wolfeandrsquo;s 1939 andlsquo;Circus Ball.andrsquo; [Scheips has] used these as the centerpiece of a book like no other, Elsie de Wolfeandrsquo;s Paris: Frivolity Before the Storm. On the surface, itandrsquo;s a voyeurandrsquo;s dream, a behind-the-scenes look at the high-water mark of a kind of entertaining that went extinct two months later, when Hitler invaded Poland. But more, itandrsquo;s a deep dive, an x-ray of an elite Society that took dinner parties and balls as seriously as we take our workandmdash;because it was their work.andrdquo;
Synopsis
The American decorator Elsie de Wolfe (1858andndash;1950) was the international setandrsquo;s preeminent hostess in Paris during the interwar years. She had a legendary villa in Versailles, where in the late 1930s she held two fabulous partiesandmdash;her Circus Ballsandmdash;that marked the end of the social scene that her friend Cole Porter perfectly captured in his songs, as the clouds of war swept through Europe. Charlie Scheips tells the story of these glamorous parties using a wealth of previously unpublished photographs and introducing a large cast of aristocrats, beauties, politicians, fashion designers, movie stars, moguls, artists, caterers, florists, party planners, and decorators. A landmark work of social history and a poignant vision of a vanished world, Scheipsandrsquo;s book belongs on the shelf with Abramsandrsquo; classics such as Slim Aarons: Once Upon A Time and Tony Duquette.
About the Author
Wendy Goodman is the Interior Design Editor of New York magazine, the Contributing Style Editor of Departures magazine, and a Contributing Editor at Elle Décor. She lives in New York City.Jewelry and interior designer Hutton Wilkinson is President of Tony Duquette, Inc. Wilkinson began working for Duquette while still a teenager. He is also president of the Elsie DeWolfe Foundation.Dominick Dunne is an author and contributing editor for Vanity Fair.