Stephen Calloway is conservator schilderijen bij het Victoria and Albert Museum in Londen. Zijn expertise ligt op het gebied van 19e-eeuwse kunst, met een bijzondere focus op de decadente en dandycultuur van de fin de siècle. Hij heeft belangrijke tentoonstellingen gecureerd en geeft veel lezingen over de geschiedenis van smaak. Calloway heeft ook zijn kennis van periode-stijl en manieren ingebracht als consultant voor film.
"Nearly a century after his death, the wit of Oscar Wilde remains as fresh and barbed as ever. This collection of his works, letters, reviews, anecdotes and repartee is ample proof of this iconoclast's enduring place in the world of arts and letters." --Descripción del editor
Charles Ricketts, subtle and fantastic decorator
These extraordinary images provide a systematic guide to the features appropriate for every part of a building, from the major components such as doors, windows, walls, floors, ceilings, and staircases to the small but important embellishments such as moldings and door hardware.
Now available for the first time in paperback, this extraordinary book examines the 'culture of excess' in all its twentieth-century manifestations. Fashion, film, photography, design and interior decoration - all feature in Stephen Calloway's meticulous coverage of the colourful, the opulent and the theatrical. The author examines early examples of Baroque excess - by the Sitwells, Cecil Beaton, Angus McBean and others - as well as the darker Baroque spirit of the wartime Neo-Romantics and film-makers such as Fellini and Jarman. Tracing the Baroque tendency all the way into the 1990s, he shows how ideas have been cross-fertilized, providing links between such unlikely bedfellows as Leon Bakst and Luis Buñuel, Coco Chanel and Nigel Coates, Liberace and Lacroix. Illustrated with a wealth of photographs, this book provides a celebration that is truly Baroque in substance and in spirit.
Oscar Wilde was without question the central literary figure of the fin de siecle, and, in his own words, 'a man who stood in symbolic relation to his times'. Celebrated first as a poet and writer of brilliant essays and charming fables, he was also a perceptive critic and an incisive moral and political thinker. Today, however, his fame rests mainly on his novel of artistic decadence, 'The Picture of Dorian Gray', and the ever-popular 'The Importance of Being Earnest'. From his first notoriety in the 1880s when he carried the message of the aesthetic movement to America, and through to the height of his fame as a wit raconteur in the dizzy social whirl of London in the early 1890s, he had the world at his feet. But then it all went tragically wrong: following his love-affair with 'Bosie', the young and aristocratic Lord Alfred Douglas, Wilde was persecuted by Douglas's, father, the Marquess of Queensberry, was put on trial for homosexual offences, and sentenced to two years imprisonment in Reading Gaol. He spent the last, tragic years of his life in France, supported by a handful of loyal friends, but shunned by those who had courted him in the days of his glory. Bibliographical note: Although the front cover states, 'Oscar Wilde an exquisite life' the title page states 'The exquisite Life of Oscar Wilde' and that is how it is catalogued above.
In the world of furniture and design the name Tim Gosling is synonymous with sophistication, excellence, and craftsmanship. This beautifully produced, generously illustrated volume displays these qualities, which have earned Gosling high praise as well as important public and private commissions. Renowned for his ability to tailor-make a room and its elements to meet the client's individual tastes and needs, Gosling is one of the few designers who involves himself with every aspect of a project. Irresistibly classic and elegant, Gosling's designs have graced yachts, corporate boardrooms, country homes and city apartments. Stephen Calloway introduces readers to Gosling's signature design concepts and reviews the design process, Jean Gomm and Juergen Huber highlight the quality materials that make Gosling's pieces so sought after and timeless. Fans of classic interior design, as well as designers themselves, will find much to inspire and ignite their imaginations.
Dekadenz ist wieder im Schwange. Stephen Calloway widmet sich in diesem Bildband dem schillernden Phönomen auf höchst originelle Weise: Er schreibt eine kleine Geschichte der Dekadenz und dekliniert diese anhand der berühmten sieben Todsünden der christlichen Morallehre durch. So wie „Dekadenz“ seit etwa Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts auch eine besondere Empfindsamkeit als einen positiven Aspekt unserer Kultur bezeichnet, wurden allmählich die sieben Todsünden milder betrachtet, denn Habgier und Eitelkeit dienen ja auch dem Streben nach Schönheit, Neid fördert den Hang zur Nachahmnung, und Trägheit findet ihren Ausdruck im Verlangen nach Bequemlichkeit und Muße. So wird Dekadenz zum Synonym für einen Dandyismus der Sinne. Zu Calloways „Theorie“ der Dekadenz tritt die „Praxis“ dekadenten Lebensstils heute: exzentrische, bizarre, anspielungsreiche Einrichtungen moderner 'décadents' in aller Welt, von Deidi von Schaewen in prachtvollen Fotos dargeboten. Da wird ein ausgestopfter Mops mit Ketten behängt oder eine streng blickende Marmorbüste mit einem Gazellengehörn gekrönt.
