Title: In The Pink: Dorothy Draper, America's Most Fabulous Decorator
Author: Carleton Varney
Publisher: Pointed Leaf Press, 2006
Text by Carleton Varney; 216 pages, color and black and white illustrations
In the Pink is the first illustrated book on the legendary 20th century decorator, Dorothy Draper. Her life has been discussed biographically, and her work anthologized with the careers of other unforgettable figures, but never before has her work been presented comprehensively, chronologically, and with such attention to detail. Draper began her career in the 1930s with the decoration of her own homes, turning them into spaces that were so greatly admired that her friends and acquaintances began commissioning her expertise, and by the 1940s she was writing a monthly column for Good Housekeeping, publishing her own guides to decorating, and embellishing some of the most iconic interiors in the United States. Among her most celebrated spaces are the Hampshire House hotel apartment on Central Park South, the Mayflower Hotel in Washington D.C., the Arrowhead Springs Hotel in Hollywood, and the Greenbrier Resort in rural West Virginia. Edited by Draper’s protégé and successor, Carleton Varney, In the Pink was published concurrently with a traveling retrospective exhibition of her intricate fabrics, and color and black and white photographs of her domestic, public, airplane, and automobile interiors from the 1930s to the 1960s. Her fascination with pattern and her ability to amalgamate different elements of baroque ornamentation into a sophisticated, cohesive space continues to influence decorators and designers today, making Draper the one of the most influential figures in the history of the profession.
