Throughout this year’s edition of the Kips Bay Decorator Show House New York, rooms trend toward an art-first approach, featuring portraits that inspire design, sculpture that directs the eye, and salon hangs that set the palette and mood.
Pentreath and associate Amanda Flood captured the essence of English interiors with their welcoming drawing room, paced by British midcentury art. Working with Stoneman Collins Advisory, they hung a taut fireplace wall. Left of the mantel, a Roger Hilton—a pioneer of abstract art in post-WWII Britain—hangs above a John Piper architectural study, overtop a calming William Nicholson landscape. Across the room, a jewel-toned, abstract Howard Hodgkin plays against the 18th-century cabinet it hangs over.
Layers of history continue to unfold through Arts and Crafts wallpaper and William Morris & Co fabrics, with a print reminiscent of the gardens at Highgrove. Furnishings by Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler as well as Soane Britain are also inspired by 18th- and 19th-century antiques. The result is a mood that’s warm, bookish, and unmistakably English.