STRONG AND MALLEABLE, NEW AND RECLAIMED, VERSATILE AND PURPOSEFUL. WOOD IS THE STURDIEST CHAMELEON IN THE MATERIAL WORLD, BLENDING NATURAL FORMS WITH MAN’S HAND IN A WAY THAT LINKS ORGANIC CREATION WITH INTENTIONAL CRAFTSMANSHIP, AND NATURAL TERRAIN WITH THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT.
WOOD
DECORATED SARCOPHAGUS THE EGYPTIAN MUSEUM — CAIRO, EGYPT THURSDAY, MARCH 17, 2022 11:06AM
ST CONAN'S KIRK LOCHAWE — ARGYLL AND BUTE, SCOTLAND WEDNESDAY, APRIL 13, 2022 4:27PM
224 THE CURRENT, VOL. 4 | WOOD
REX FLUSHMOUNT BLACK FINISH WITH POLISHED BRASS LACQUERED ACCENTS INTERIORS BY ML INTERIOR DESIGNS, PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANDREW FRASZ
ADAMS ANTIQUE BRASS FINISH CERUSED OAK WOOD INTERIORS BY BROOKE WAGNER DESIGN PHOTOGRAPHY BY PETER GIBEON
DOVER BALL ANTIQUE BRASS FINISH ETCHED PHOTOGRAPHYINTERIORSGLASSBYNICOLEHOLLISBYDOUGLAS FRIEDMAN EL PRADO HOTEL, PALO ALTO, CA
HAMILTON BLACKENED PEWTER FINISH BENJAMIN MOORE #1309 MOROCCAN RED INTERIOR FINISH CUSTOM FABRIC SHADES INTERIORS BY JAMES THOMAS PHOTOGRAPHY BY TREVOR TONDRO / OTTO
229THE CURRENT, VOL. 4 | WOOD
DOUBLE ARM BELDI BLACK FINISH WITH FARROW & BALL NO. 64 RED EARTH PAINTED SHADES WITH HEWN BRASS LACQUERED INTERIOR INTERIORS BY ANNE MCDONALD DESIGN, PHOTOGRAPHY BY HARIS KENJAR
CAPSE FLUSH ANTIQUE BRASS FINISH INTERIORS BY HEIDI CAILLIER DESIGN PHOTOGRAPHY BY HARIS KENJAR
BURL WALNUT STAIRWELL VILLA NECCHI CAMPIGLIO — MILAN, ITALY TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 2022 12:39PM
STORY BOARDS
PINE PLAINS, NEW YORK
At The Hudson Company’s custom mill in Pine Plains, New York, the past is always present. Every plank and beam has a history that carries with it the visual character and authenticity that design-forward residential projects and cultural institutions crave. Procuring and producing this sought-after building material to Hudson’s exacting standards can be a complex undertaking, but for Jamie Hammel and his team, who travel the world to source it, the end result is always worth the effort.
The rolling hillside outside of Hudson, New York.
he barn swallow flapping at the entrance of The Hudson Company’s headquarters in Pine Plains, New York, in northeastern Dutchess County, feels like a sign. The newly hatched creature, just fresh from the nest, doesn’t want to leave. His father and mother and siblings have all flown away. But he (or she) is content—and why not? As a repository of reclaimed and reprocessed wood, The Hudson Company is literally the perfect perch.
It wasn’t always this way. When Jamie Hammel launched the company in 2010, the inventory was a fraction of its current size and not the mountains of neatly stacked historic wood sorted by size and species that pepper the landscape today. The air was quieter, absent the chorus of buzz saws, humming machinery and the click-clack ping of nails being removed from a harvest of old timber dropping into glass jars (recycling isn’t limited to wood alone here.) Back then, the building that houses The Hudson Company was still the shell of an old public theater—which was itself the shell of Carvel’s former ice cream distribution center—and bore
THE HUDSON COMPANY'S WAREHOUSE FLOOR. JAMIE
T
THE CURRENT, VOL. 4 | WOOD 237
little resemblance to the beautifully rustic showplace of niche carpentry and sustainable design that it is today.
PINE PLAINS, NEW YORK HAMMEL.
What’s more, in 2010, the practice of reclaiming and reinventing old wood barely even registered as an industry, and Jamie spent the first couple of years just teaching himself the ins and outs of his nascent operation. “I spent a lot of nights wondering what I—a guy who had worked for media companies like Condé Nast and NBC in New York City—had gotten myself into,” he says. “I had no experience with this world, just a passion for design, an interest in green building and a vague sense that this type of work could become important and in-demand after the recession. I’m also an entrepreneur at heart,” he continues, “but there were definitely hard times when I worried I had made a colossal mistake.”
A lucky break early on convinced him otherwise.
e had just launched into business,” Ja mie recounts. “We had enough expe rience to have outgrown our hubris, but we were still definitely driven by a desire to succeed. Anyway,” he con tinues, “I get a call one night and it’s for an order of wood for a big apartment in Tribeca. I say, ‘YES!’ without thinking, and then wonder how I’ll ever make it happen. But we stayed up all night—because it’s a rush job and we clearly weren’t the first in line—and we got it done.”
Aslong-term.”wordspread and the business grew, The Hudson Com pany’s approach came to represent something unique and, as it turned out, highly desirable. Today, the provenance of the company’s materials is as wide-ranging as the types of wood it sells, and his dedication to preserving the beams and boards of antique and historic structures—from Civil Warera industrial buildings and New York City water tanks to fossilized Southern Cypress prized for its wild coloration— lends a bespoke sheen to the business.
That’s not to say the journey has been easy. The market for reclaimed wood has evolved immeasurably over the past 12 years, and The Hudson Company marked a distinct shift away from the questionable standards and poor service that had come to be associated with the industry. Instead, Jamie embraced values more closely aligned with high-end design and design-adjacent businesses: quality, controls, unparalleled client support and an encyclopedic knowl edge of wood—insights he offers freely and often. A passing comment about a table or wall inside Jamie’s office, for instance, is more likely than not to result in a quick lesson on mushroom wood and its many attributes (“great for wall paneling”) or the merits of white vs. red oak.
W
a once-thriving factory located just south of Boston, was slated for demolition. Through the project foreman, Jamie got a jump on the scores of Antique Heart Pine encased within the massive building. What’s more, the site lead was the foreman’s son, so Jamie knew the wood would be handled and organized with care.
238 THE CURRENT, VOL. 4 | WOOD
...his dedication to preserving the beams and boards of antique and
The client—a very happy fellow whose myriad acting credits have made him a household name—took notice and became a return customer. “That project ended up being not only a big milestone professionally,” Jamie reflects, “but also the moment when I knew we had what it takes to survive
business.sheenlendsitsCypressfossilizedwaterandindustrialCivilstructures—fromhistoricWar-erabuildingsNewYorkCitytankstoSouthernprizedforwildcoloration—abespoketothe
When Jamie started out, The Hudson Company’s supply came mostly from old barns salvaged from the Hudson Val ley. Over time, other sourcing avenues opened up—largely due to the network of fellow purveyors, as well as construc tion crews, that Jamie has personally cultivated over the years. One of these mutually beneficial relationships bore fruit last summer when the decommissioned Draper Mill,
Draper Mill, a once-thriving textile manufacturing facility spanning over one million square feet located just south of Boston, under demolition. The Hudson Company is sustainably salvaging the wood.
An excavator at the Draper Mill demolition site.
CURRENT, VOL. 4 | WOOD
THE
CONSISTENT WITH THE TIME THE MILL WAS ORIGINALLY CONSTRUCTED, THE BEAMS ARE MORE THAN A CENTURY OLD.
241
(FROM TOP) ANTIQUE HEART PINE BEAMS SALVAGED FROM DRAPER MILL.
Likewise, he continues, the Whitney was a significant lo gistical undertaking. “The Whitney’s floors are the largest reclaimed floors in the United States. We milled over 30 tractor trailers of Antique Heart Pine timbers—each one 5" x 17" x 22'—from the Phillip Morris factory in Louisville, Kentucky. The finished product is also an inch and a half thick, which is very unusual; we have the flexibility to cus tom manufacture projects like this in line with an architect’s vision, no matter the scale.”
“People choose us because we care about aesthetics as much as sustainability, and we have the capabilities to take on challenging specifications,” Jamie says.
And underpinning it all, he notes, is the value of really great stories. “People care about history, and we think about that every time we reinvent something antique into something niche and modern. Narrative matters. Origins matter. Just ask the barn swallow,” he adds with a smile.
242 THE CURRENT, VOL. 4 | WOOD
“To do the High Line, my team traveled to Hyderabad, a city built in India in the 1600s, to reclaim teak, which is not a valuable species there because it’s so abundant. We salvaged the wood cold so we could take the joists, too. Then, we shipped it back here, milled it and turned it into decking and benches for the High Line.”
WOOD CURING OVEN IN THE HUDSON FACTORY.
T
his meticulousness extends to every project, regardless of the end-use: not just to floor boards, for example, but also to the original joists they were nailed to (which deepens the patina and integrity of the repurposed pieces); not just to siding, but also to spe cialized interior elements like ceiling beams. Indeed, The Hudson Company’s particular brand of old-new reinvention is on display everywhere from private residences to hospi tality properties, such as the 1 Hotel, to cultural institutions, like the Whitney Museum, and even public parks.
FRESHLY CUT WOOD PLANKS. HISTORIC DETAILS AND CHARACTER REMAIN.
Installation view of America Is Hard to See (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, May 1-September 27, 2015). From left to right: Susan Rothenberg, For the Light , 1978-79; Philip Guston, Cabal , 1977; Chuck Close, Phil , 1969; Jack Whitten, Sorcerer's Apprentice , 1974; Robert Reed, Plum Nellie, Sea Stone
The largest reclaimed floor in the country at the Whitney.
ONE OF HUDSON'S LONGEST-STANDING EMPLOYEES GROOMING AN EAGER UNDERSTUDY IN THE SAMPLE DEPARTMENT.
244 THE CURRENT, VOL. 4 | WOOD
(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) BABY BARN SWALLOW MUSTERING THE COURAGE TO FLY FOR THE FIRST TIME SITS AT THE HUDSON COMPANY'S MAIN ENTRANCE. ALL SALVAGED WOOD IS CLEARED OF NAILS AND OTHER HARDWARE. JAMIE'S OFFICE.
245THE CURRENT, VOL. 4 | WOOD
(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) INSIDE THE SAMPLE DEPARTMENT. PLANKING LUMBERJACKS. SHOWROOM WOOD TYPE AND FINISH SAMPLES. RECLAIMED BARN WOOD BEAM.
The Hudson Company High Falls European Oak herringbone floor in a SoHo loft in NYC. Interiors by Jesse Parris-Lamb. Photography by Nicole Franzen.
WINSTON ANTIQUE BRASS FINISH WITH CLEAR GLASS INTERIORS BY CAROLYN MILLER DESIGNS, PHOTOGRAPHY BY SAM FROST
248 THE CURRENT, VOL. 4 | WOOD
CHISHOLM CLEAN RAL #5013 COBALT BLUE POWDER COAT FINISH HEWN BRASS LACQUEREDCLEARACCENTSGLASS INTERIORS BY JENKINS INTERIORS PHOTOGRAPHY BY NATHAN SCHRODER
CHILTERN DOUBLE BRONZE FINISH HEWN BRASS LACQUERED ACCENTS WHITE SHADES WITH WHITE INTERIOR PHARMACY BRONZE FINISH WHITE SHADES WITH WHITE INTERIOR INTERIORS BY HARPER HOUSE DESIGN PHOTOGRAPHY BY KAYLA MCKENZIE
252 THE CURRENT, VOL. 4 | WOOD
WHITBY BRONZE FINISH WITH CUSTOM FABRIC SHADE INTERIORS BY WESLEY MOON, PHOTOGRAPHY BY WILLIAM WALDRON / OTTO
METRO VINTAGE FINISH WHITE GLASS SHADE
ARCHITECTURE BY MITCHELL STUDIO PHOTOGRAPHY BY JESSICA GLYNN
INTERIORS BY OLIVIA O'BRYAN
Cover illustration by Carlisle Burch.
252
COCKTAIL h O u r ON AMANDA’s TE r r A CE. WHITE GLASS
1 METRO VINTAGE FINISH
INTERIORS BY OLIVIA O'BRYAN
ARCHITECTURE BY MITCHELL STUDIO PHOTOGRAPHY BY JESSICA GLYNN
SHADE
THE CURRENT, VOL. 4 | WOOD252 h O PE h I LL T h r O u G h T h E P ALM s 2
From wicker to rattan to straw to reeds and bamboo, Amanda has amassed an enormous archive of furniture, decorative objects, souvenirs, accessories, baskets, artwork, tableware and more—all woven from material native, or historically relevant, to this island paradise.
3 METRO VINTAGE FINISH WHITE GLASS SHADE
PHOTOGRAPHY BY JESSICA GLYNN
Amanda, an interior designer with an international roster of clients, has become synonymous with Hope Hill and the understatedly elegant island life she and her late husband, Orjan, created there. But more than any single residence, more than any house (and she has lived in and breathed life into more than a few local gems), it’s Lyford Cay, and the Bahamas, more broadly, that Amanda calls home.
INTERIORS BY OLIVIA O'BRYAN
ARCHITECTURE BY MITCHELL STUDIO
AMANDA LINDROTH LYFORD CAY
HOPE HILL, AMANDA LINDROTH’S MUCH-CHRONICLED HOUSE IN THE BAHAMIAN ENCLAVE OF LYFORD CAY, MORE THAN LIVES UP TO ITS NAME. IT’S A CHEERFUL SPOT, WHERE OPTIMISM AND INSPIRATION ABOUND, AS DO DELIGHTFUL SEA BREEZES. TUCKED INTO ITS NAMESAKE HILLSIDE, THE PERCH AFFORDS EVERY WINDOW AND PORCH A SWEEPING VIEW OF BLUE SKY AND LUSH VEGETATION. IT’S THE KIND OF PLACE THAT EVOKES DEEP SIGHS AND EVEN DEEPER BREATHS FROM ITS INHABITANTS, FOR THE BEAUTY IS LITERALLY BREATHTAKING.
As a girl growing up in Southern Florida, Amanda fell in love with the Bahamas early on, first as a visitor, later as a part-time resident and eventually as a local fixture whose retail endeavors, design firm and various preservation-minded projects cemented her as an expat with an abiding presence and investment in the culture and community.
“This is my home,” Amanda says from her open-air living room, where she sits beneath paintings by Bahamian masters and other artists whose work spans from the 1880s to 1970s. Hope Hill is a treasure trove of collections and mini-collections, from shell art to folk portraiture to Asian ceramic pagodas and tulipieres to art and architecture books to sailors’ valentines. But the crown jewel in her cache, both personally and professionally, is wood, specifically tropical wood.
Is LAND rO OTED
252
These traditional uses of tropical wood are more than decorative to Amanda— they are part of this place, inherent to this island identity, and she’s committed to preserving that. Amanda’s knowledge of Lyford Cay and the Bahamas permeates her conversations with local craftsmen and her support of artisans working to maintain these endangered Bahamian styles of weaving through the Straw Shack, a womenoriented trade collective founded by one of her firm’s designers, Celine Lotmore Jones.
CYP r E s s- P ANELED EN T r Y
ARCHITECTURE BY MITCHELL STUDIO PHOTOGRAPHY BY JESSICA GLYNN
ABOVE, F r O M LEFT: h A T s ON AMANDA’ s ANTIQ u E
OPPO s ITE : T h E M AIN TE r r A CE s E T FO r L u N C h
There are wicker animals fashioned as stools by the pool, rattan bar carts and sectional sofas that have inspired the silhouettes now offered through her eponymous collection of housewares. Plus there are baskets woven in the patterns unique to Lyford and the surrounding areas, as well as hats in various styles suspended from a bamboo hall tree whose French provenance recalls early aesthetic elements that became part of Bahamian style and culture.
F r E NC h BAMBOO h AL L T r E E ; h O PE h I LL’ s PECKY
INTERIORS BY OLIVIA O'BRYAN
METRO VINTAGE FINISH WHITE GLASS SHADE
5
Amanda can wax long about the origins of a certain rattan bistro chair, the history of Lyford’s rope-bound buoys or the best place for a panoramic view of the island from the locals’ perspective. And, yes, that knowledge and passion comes from the kind of appreciation an outsider brings to an adopted homeland, but it also springs forth from her love of design and its ability to impact its surroundings—be it the Messel green wash on a wooden shutter, or the way that an insight into the quality of the wood itself makes the difference between loving a place and living in it most fully.
THE CURRENT, VOL. 4 | WOOD252
T h E CON s u M MATE h O s T , AMANDA s s E EMINGLY ENDLE s s ENTE r T AINING COLLECTION CONTAIN s j us T T h E r I G h T PIECE s FO r EVE r Y OCCA s ION ( A ND TIME OF DAY ) , sur P r I s ING h E r G u E s T s w I T h F r E sh TABLE s C APE s T h r O u G h O u T T h E I r s T AY OPPO s ITE, CLOCK w I s E F r O M u P PE r LEFT: A CLEA r VIE w TO T h E O CEAN ; w I CKE r D ETAIL ; s E T FO r B r u N C h ABOVE, CLOCK w I s E F r O M u P PE r LEFT: POOL s IDE PEACOCK C h A I r ; A G r EEN E r Y D r APED LIG h T PINK, w O VEN C h A NDELIE r ; w I CKE r TEA s E T. METRO VINTAGE FINISH WHITE GLASS SHADE
INTERIORS BY OLIVIA O'BRYAN
PHOTOGRAPHY
ARCHITECTURE BY MITCHELL STUDIO BY JESSICA GLYNN
8
A C u r A TED COLLECTION OF BA h A MIAN A r T A ND EP h E ME r A
THE CURRENT, VOL. 4 | WOOD252
Bougainvillea-covered wooden chandelier.
METRO VINTAGE WHITE GLASS
FINISH
SHADE
INTERIORS BY OLIVIA O'BRYAN
ARCHITECTURE BY MITCHELL STUDIO PHOTOGRAPHY BY JESSICA GLYNN
WHITBY BRONZE FINISH WITH CUSTOM FABRIC SHADE INTERIORS BY WESLEY MOON, PHOTOGRAPHY BY WILLIAM WALDRON / OTTO
THE CURRENT, VOL. 4 | WOOD252
THE CURRENT, VOL.4
INTERIORS BY OLIVIA O'BRYAN
ARCHITECTURE BY MITCHELL STUDIO PHOTOGRAPHY BY JESSICA GLYNN
METRO VINTAGE FINISH WHITE GLASS SHADE
BRAMSHILL TARNISHED BRASS FINISH TARNISHED BRASS ACCENTS HANS HEIRLOOM FINISH BRONZE ACCENTS A CREATIVE COLLABORATION BETWEEN THE URBAN ELECTRIC CO., ALLISON ABNEY INTERIORS, DANIEL BECK ARCHITECTURE AND GROSSMAN BUILDING GROUP.
WOODEN CABINET ON DISPLAY AT LUCULLUS ANTIQUES NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2022 10:25AM
GERALD BLAND HEADED UP THE ENGLISH FURNITURE DEPARTMENT AT SOTHEBY’S BEFORE OPENING HIS OWN GALLERY 35 YEARS AGO. LIKE HIS BELOVED REGENCY PERIOD, HE EMBODIES CULTURE AND REFINEMENT. BUT HE IS A PURIST ONLY IN FORM. IN HIS GENTLEMANLY WAY, HE WELCOMES ALL COMERS, OBJECTS AND ACQUIRERS ALIKE. GERALD
258 THE CURRENT, VOL. 4 | WOOD WOOD Luminary
“GETTING PIECES BACK THAT WE SOLD TWENTY YEARS AGO IS REWARDING AND A REMINDER THAT GOOD WOOD ENDURES.”
BLAND
I
Like the “overnight sensation” actor who has in fact been plying his trade for decades, Gerald’s keen eye and instinct have been molded by years of looking and learning. They are what inform his discerning yet unpretentious approach to the furniture, objects and art he acquires for his Upper East Side gallery, where his daughter Georgiana works as Gallery Director and which he shares with his sister, decorator Connie Newberry, who first turned us onto Gerald’s talents.
When I was in school I worked summers on Nantucket Island. That was both enlightening—architecturally it’s such a perfectly preserved place—and fortuitous. Through meeting someone at the restaurant where I was working, I got a job at Sotheby’s which was a bit of a fluke, the classic story of someone saying, “look me up if you come to New York.”
decorators and to handle furnishing reconfigurations for private clients always in the midst of downsizing, upsizing and cross-sizing among their multiple residences.
Building arranged just haphazardly enough to feel residential, reveals treasure after treasure, from the obvious (a Grinling Gibbons limewood console) to the sly (steel tables of his own design). Gerald is a decorative arts DJ, a mixmaster of the antique and modern who makes bridging the two seamless and current. Just as he adores a fine Regency pair of benches by George Bullock, he embraces contemporary talent like Eve Kaplan, whose baroque ceramic pieces lend an exotic glamour.
AS TOLD TO THE URBAN ELECTRIC Co.
Gerald’s sharp sense of proportion and finish makes him a recombinant wizard with furniture, adding bases and tops to existing antique elements, tinkering with gilding to make it softer and more modern, lacquering a set of chairs in an unexpected color. Beyond the inventory, though, it’s his low-key manner—a charming blend of Southern heritage, muted erudition, curiosity and humor—that equip him to influence the influential, to provide the perfect missing piece for renowned
M
The gallery, a series of welcoming sunny rooms on the top floor of the Fine Arts
Among the cognoscenti, Gerald has been the go-to for one-of-a-kind furnishings for years. If he doesn’t have the right piece, he’ll find it, or adapt a different one or persuade you that something you’d never considered is in fact the exact thing you should have been looking for all along. If there is indeed such a thing as normative determinism, the theory that suggests the character of a name can be determinative of one’s professional path, he defies it, because his personality, his outlook and certainly his gallery is anything but bland.
260 THE CURRENT, VOL. 4 | WOOD
lived in Colonial Revival houses, furnished for the most part with reproduction colonial furniture. I remember being impressed by the furniture—an early encounter with good taste. I was six. By the time I was in high school in Wilmington, I was giving tours of the historic district, usually after a night out with friends. I spent time in the local library looking up the history of Wilmington and its early 19th century buildings that supplanted 18th century ones during the economic boom just before the Civil War. Once, I organized a keg party at Oakdale cemetery. It had great monuments and tombstones and the whole thing was atmospherically draped by live oak trees.
dentify what doesn’t belong: a Sheraton secretaire, a gilded ceramic pillow, a Lingam stone, a Chippendale chest of drawers, a contemporary monoprint. There is no right answer because there is no wrong thing. All of the above are embraced by Gerald Bland, a dealer and collector who cares about provenance but is guided above all else by quality, style and form.
y father’s side of the family were collectors, though I found out once I had educated myself that what they were collecting was junk. My ancestors moved to North Carolina, to a town called Turkey Swamp, from the northern neck of Virginia in 1711 and never left. My great uncle was a tobacco auctioneer who picked up antiques as he traveled around the South. He lived with his mother, and then alone after she died, in a good-sized Victorian house across the road from my grandparents. I would go over there and ramble around through mostly big empty rooms—one with a bed in it, another with just a piano. It was all really romantic—the rooms all connected by tall double doors, buckets of loose change scattered about. Over the mantle in the kitchen were water buffalo horns from the Philippines engraved with female nudes, the only thing I got from his estate. It sparked my I’veimagination.alwaysbeeninterested in history. I had two aunts who
GERALD BLAND
261THE CURRENT, VOL. 4 | WOOD
CARVED LINES BRANCH OFF ALONG THE WALNUT ARM OF A CHAIR.
Being liberated from selling only 18th century pieces made
be required to stand on top of a desk in the middle of the furniture department and describe what I had seen. There was no visual documentation—I think Polaroids were just coming in then—it was in our notes and visual recollections. It was excellent training.
I worked in New York from January to June and then transferred to Sotheby’s London where I stayed for a year and a half. This was an enormous eye-opener because I was seeing major things for the first time. We were appraising the contents of grand houses such as Petworth, where we found JMW Turner sketches strewn all over the attic floor which had been his studio.
For the longest time I was devoted to true antiques, particularly Early Georgian furniture. It was while handling the estate of Evangeline Bruce that I realized for the first time that I didn't have to be a pure antique dealer selling only a perfectly formed chair from 1770. It could be a piece from 1930 if it had been owned by Nancy Lancaster. Several years later, Albert Hadley asked me to handle his estate. We organized an online sale and sold all of his drawings, everything, down to the pencil cup holders. This furthered the notion that again, not everything had to be pure but appropriate to its situation.
Sotheby’s was a true apprenticeship. Each of us in the furniture department would be assigned an area of London and sent off with nothing but a notebook. I would take notes about what I was seeing, then once back at the office would
I’d never heard of Sotheby’s, but when I got to New York, I did look him up though it was someone else who hired me. Another person I’d met on Nantucket offered me a place to stay, and I think telling Sotheby’s that my address was 1020 Fifth Avenue may have worked in my favor. They probably thought I had great contacts with things to sell.
So we started trying to make the antiques we were selling more relevant to that market. By putting a bit of contemporary art over a Chippendale chest of drawers, it all became more appealing to this younger generation. And then I discovered an amazing talent in our own stable. Eve Kaplan, our gilder, was making striking ceramic pieces. Now we have a full collection of her extraordinary work—mirrors, chandeliers, tables, torchères, chenet, mobiles—along with the work of many other contemporary artists.
for a softer landing when the bottom fell out of the market in 2008. I was free to mix things up, and it all became livelier and more interesting. Mid-century modern furniture was coming into vogue, which wasn’t exactly to my taste, but I found things to like, such as pieces in the Swedish Grace style. Its classical forms were compatible with the 18th century, which was our prevailing aesthetic.
With the pandemic, our designer clients have become more comfortable buying items only seen online. Although many still feel the need to see in situ, so the gallery remains more than relevant. The past few years have also seen many old clients relocating. Getting pieces back for resale that we sold twenty years ago is also rewarding and a reminder that good wood endures.
262 THE CURRENT, VOL. 4 | WOOD 0201 03
Gerald reflected in a Georgian walnut and parcel gilt mirror, c. 1740.
A corner office in Gerald’s gallery.
04
07 A crazy quilt of fine marquetry.
03 The stylized arm of a regency mahogany bench attributed to George Bullock, c. 1810.
02 A tulipwood table designed and produced by Gerald.
In Gerald’s charmingly residential gallery, his curatorial eye reveals itself in ingenious juxtapositions of modern and antique, curvilinear and rectilinear, restrained and exuberant.
05 Sheraton Crocodile Mahogany Pembroke Table, c. 1780, with gilded garniture by Eve Kaplan.
05
265
06 Sinuous curves of a Rococo walnut armchair, c. 1750.
06 07
01 A detail of a Chinoiserie cabinet, with gilt bronze hardware, c. 1685.
IN THE DETAILS
04 A robust lion’s paw foot of a pedestal table.
CHAPEL OF ROBERT THE BRUCE ST CONAN'S KIRK — LOCHAWE, ARGYLL AND BUTE, SCOTLAND WEDNESDAY, APRIL 13, 2022 4:43PM
BEHIND THE SCENES
$75 USD
