Book Love: David Hicks Scrapbooks
I am currently on inspiration overload as I have arrived home from a dreamy trip north.
I visited NYC museums and showrooms, had great meals, visited friends. I then went to Millbrook to visit and tour some spectacular homes.
I am so inspired and this new book added to it…It is a design library must!
Edited by Ashley Hicks
“The books are a work of art, as was everything my father did. Every detail of his life was considered and consciously designed, none more so that these books.”
Ashley hicks—on his father’s scrapbooks
The most famous British designer of his day, David Hicks (1929–1998) wowed the English decorating world with his bold geometric prints, electrifying color combinations, and quirky mix of antique and contemporary furniture. Thanks to his prodigious talent, his gift—and penchant—for publicity, and his connection to the royal family through his marriage to Lady Pamela Mountbatten (cousin of Prince Philip), Hicks attracted an A-list clientele drawn from the aristocracy, media, and fashion.
For decades, Hicks documented every salient moment of his life in scrapbooks, amassing 24 volumes in all. They contain press clippings, party invitations, swatches of his signature textile patterns, sketches of interiors, magazine articles on his projects, and hundreds of photographs, mainly family snapshots but also his own photographs of people like Jackie Kennedy, Grace Kelly, and Andy Warhol. Many of the pages are laid out in a graphic collage style, now yellowed and stained, lending a patina of history. And many are embellished with drawings and notations, revealing Hicks’s turn of mind and sense of whimsy. For this volume his son, Ashley Hicks, has carefully chosen more than 325 of the best pages—providing a poignant window into the extraordinary world of David Hicks and a handmade time capsule of an era.
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