Today everyone is a self-designer, a self-decorator, a style maven. HGTV and it's myriad of spin-offs, and copy cat shows, poses the question: "will there be any ugly houses left in America?" If ugliness is equated with cookie cutter interiors right out of big box stores, and off the pages of catalogs, then the answer is, yes.
So this huge volume on Tony Duquette is like fresh water being thrown onto a desert. It is excellent in all respects. It is a coffee table book you actually want to read. It offers biography, film history, Hollywood history, art & furniture history, fashion, travel, manners and social behavior, a glimpse of a major part of the 20th century that spanned Tony's (and his wife Elizabeth's) long and productive life. The book is gorgeous to look at, and wonderful to hold.
I would like more, maybe another book about the behind-the-scenes process, and the craftsmen and women who made Tony Duquette's visions into reality. I would like a book about his wife's Beegle's (Elizabeth's) paintings.
I would like a book about Tony and Elizabeth as a couple, and their long marriage of 46 years.
The optimistic thing is that if you have imagination you can consider the example of the Duquettes, and the possibility of going to the 99 cents store, or the dump of cast offs, to make something wonderful. The Duquettes were "green" way before their time. Granted they also shopped the antiques markets of the world, but they collected their treasures in the most refreshing and unilateral way.
The magic of Tony and Beegle was that their lives were fully lived, experienced, and realized.
Get (and give) this joyful book and be enchanted, inspired, and filled with the gift of possibilities.
amazon.com discounted at $47.
I've never heard of the Duquettes, but I'm dying to see this book. Thanks for another moment of enlightenment.
ReplyDeleteJust went to Amazon where I found the book you wrote about is still around and can be had for even a bit less now. BUT!!! Holy Highway Robbery, Batman! There are 3 used paperback copies of a book called Tony Duquette: A Personal Culture starting at $485!!! What's the deal on that? Wow.
ReplyDelete