Lot Essay
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FLEUR COWLES‘I’M A BORN IDEA MYSELF’Fleur Cowles shared two sets, as apartments are termed in Albany, London’s most prestigious address, with her fourth husband, the devoted Tom Montague Meyer. She had first become famous in the U.S. while married to her third husband, Mike Cowles, owner of Look magazine having made a name for herself as a gifted advertising copywriter and talented raiser of War Bond funds during the Second World War, during which she moved in the highest of Washington circles. She was a talented editor on the magazine, always on the look out for new writing talent, and then the creator of one of the most extravagant and innovative magazines every produced for the intellectual and monied elite, which she called Flair. With cut-out covers, different stocks and stories by W.H. Auden, Jean Cocteau, Tennessee Williams and illustrations by Picasso, Dali, Lucien Freud and even Winston Churchill, the twelve issues of the loss-making Flair, first published in l950, are now collectors’ items and have inspired generations of magazine editors.Fleur Cowles moved to London when she married Mr. Meyer in the mid l950’s, having been President Eisenhower’s special envoy at the Queen’s coronation. Her friend Cary Grant was the best man at their wedding. First in one set then in two, looking down over the central courtyard of Albany, she cultivated her friendships with royals, the rich and the famous, including American presidents, foreign heads of state, Queen Elizabeth II, the Queen Mother (described as her best friend) and film stars such as Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor at fabulous dinner parties. Joan Miro designed dresses for her. She decorated the first set in ‘50s Georgian’ as suited the architecture. This centred on a Wedgewood blue drawing room with white highlights (originally the mansion’s ballroom), off which was her tented bedroom. The second set, communicating with the first by a simple jib door, led into the ‘White Room’ a large drawing room where Fleur Cowles painted, and to her ‘yellow study’ a replica of which is in the Harry Ransom Centre for the Humanities in Austin, Texas.Fleur’s favorite flower was the rose and she painted it many times. Her exuberant paintings also featured jungle beasts, huge sprawling flowers, birds and objects of nature, often set in dreamlike sequences. Not content with painting she wrote several books, including one on her friend Salvador Dali. She was also a great collector, acquiring works by Picasso and Braque as well as assembling a much treasured collection of Naïf and Outsider art. An unforgettable figure, instantly recogniseable with her champagne pale blonde hair and emphatic black-framed glasses, as she is affectionately pictured in her portrait by Rene Gruau, one of the many artists who contributed to Flair and became her admirers and friends. The furnishings and highly decorative pieces in this sale encapsulate Fleur Cowles taste, occupations and hobbies, and give some idea of the mercurial woman who created these notable environments.‘I have an idea a minute’ Fleur Cowles once said. ‘I’m a born idea myself’. Meredith Etherington Smith
Frederico Ludwig von Berzeviczy Pallavicini (Swiss, 1909-1989)
Skyscraper 52nd Street, New York City; House interior; Chat I; and Chat bleu
Details
Frederico Ludwig von Berzeviczy Pallavicini (Swiss, 1909-1989)
Skyscraper 52nd Street, New York City; House interior; Chat I; and Chat bleu
the first and second signed 'Pallavicini' (lower right); the third signed with initials 'F.P' (lower left)
the first, pen and black ink heightened with white on grey paper; the second pen and black ink and yellow wash on paper; the third ink and metallic paint on metal; the fourth acrylic on wood, cat-shaped
29 ¾ x 10 in. (75.6 x 25.4 cm.); and smaller
(5)
Skyscraper 52nd Street, New York City; House interior; Chat I; and Chat bleu
the first and second signed 'Pallavicini' (lower right); the third signed with initials 'F.P' (lower left)
the first, pen and black ink heightened with white on grey paper; the second pen and black ink and yellow wash on paper; the third ink and metallic paint on metal; the fourth acrylic on wood, cat-shaped
29 ¾ x 10 in. (75.6 x 25.4 cm.); and smaller
(5)
Provenance
Acquired directly from the artist.