ART DECOSCAPES
The Art of Displaying Yesterday Today
By Graham Abraham and Michael Wallace
Schiffer Publishing Ltd.
Price $39.95
This book is about bringing some individuality to your Art Deco collection by artfully displaying your most coveted and interesting pieces. Not exactly a ‘Show Me’ book but rather a "Show Off to The Best Advantage" book.
ART DECOSCAPES is an unusual book that does not follow the pattern of most books on collecting and display. The first half of the book is devoted to displays that the author arranges mostly with items from his vast collection. Each display covers two facing pages with a finely detailed photograph on the right page and description and layout diagram on the left. An identification of each piece and price guide is included. Michael Wallace’s photographs will make the reader return again and again to scan the page for details that can easily be missed with a cursory glance.
The second half of the book features home settings of existing and well known twentieth century collectors whose understanding of the basic principles of display allow them to proudly present their objects of passion. Away from a studio setting and placed in a home environment, the Art Deco artifacts take on a warm comfortable feeling whose emphasis is understated through Wallace’s excellent photography.
Graham Abraham has a flair for display and clearly shows the reader how to arrange pieces from their collections to show them off to their best advantage. Abraham and Wallace’s book should be an inspiration to all collectors who don’t know where or how to start a display. This especially true for the novice collector who is starting a collection and wants to do more that just place items on a shelf. Even if you have a dozen or more books on Art Deco, you would be remiss in not having this new publication, with its striking colorful cover, displayed on your coffee table.
Author Graham Abraham is a longtime collector/dealer who has a knack for creating vignettes and shares his talent through simple diagrams and exquisite photography by co-author Michael Wallace. His groupings are sometimes whimsical, sometimes reserved but never boring. Many of the groupings share a common bond (i.e. chrome, silver, copper, wood, Lucite, Bakelite, etc.) but not always. The author at times uses different objects with the same color accent to link a display together.
