Billy Baldwin: The Great American Decorator Hardcover – October 26, 2010

A must for all lovers of design and decorative arts.

In 'Billy Baldwin: The Great American Decorator', decorator/scholar Adam Lewis and long-time Baldwin student,friend and business partner Albert Hadley use words and photos to create both a biography of Baldwin and an appreciation of his work. The book also includes Baldwin in his own words in a section containing transcripts of guest lectures on theoretical and practical aspects of running a design studio that he gave at the Parsons School of Design at the end of his fabled career. The book would have been larger but for the fact that many projects were not photographed and that Baldwin's papers, never in good order, were dispersed and disposed of between his death and the researching of this book.There are a generous amount of color plates of Balwin's interiors as photographed at the time by Horst van Horst, Howard Graff, William Grigsby and other top-line photographers of the day. Since a love of vibrant color was a key element of Baldwin's design aesthetic, it is especially important to see his work in color, wherever possible. The inclusion of some of Baldwin's design sketches and studies in watercolor add to the story. Black and white images of some of his interiors show Baldwin's interest in line and structure to good effect.For some readers, a great deal of the interest to be found in books like this involves the chance to see into the homes and tastes of the 'rich and famous.' Baldwin's clients included plenty of Fortune 500 names like CBS' Bill and Babe Paley and the social and financial elite of the New York City of his day, like Cole Porter. Lewis and Hadley use biographical information to highlight the importance of social networking and mentorship in pursuit of a successful decorating career.This book can also be read as the embracing of life and work by an openly gay man. We see Baldwin the man-about-town, the graceful dancer and partner to interesting women, the affectionate friend to other gay men. In this reading, any person can come to respect gay culture and we see Baldwin's acheivements as being independent of gender identification or sexual preference, which is as it should be.Motivated readers can enjoy this book from cover to cover in a concentrated afternoon. One will want to revisit its pages to look at the interiors again and again.

A great book about the famous decorator. Obviously, the author put a lot of heart and soul into this book. I also have the Billy Baldwin Decorates so this newer book is a lovely addition. After buying this book for myself, I liked it so much, I bought two others for gifts.

Much better images than those available in previous books. I will look at this book before any other the others. In fact, this will probably be the only Billy Baldwin book I eventually end up keeping in my library.

Come on Adam, did you really think we wouldn't recognize the majority of these photographs? Most likely anyone who will buy this book already own's Baldwin's originals that contain these photographs. While not a total disaster, there are some very nice portions, especally the sad, touching end of his life which I did not know about. And the lectures are sort of interesting. Nice cover, good effort, but why bother.

Billy Baldwin may be one of the great decorators of all time, not only in America but the world. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Well worth the investment.

Interesting to discover this American interior decorater

Gorgeous images and of particular interest is the speech Billy Baldwin gave at Cooper Hewitt. The watercolors, photographs, text -- everything was perfect. Really a delight to read and look through.

my wife loves it

Tantissime le foto e illustrazioni. Il libro è molto bello ed i testi interessantissimi. Lo consiglio veramente agli appassionati di architettura di interni, perchè permette di conoscere un grande architetto del passato. Buona lettura!!