Holly and Horace Solomon’s Living Room
Some time in the mid 1970s, Holly Solomon, always a defiant arbiter of good taste, decided that her golden yellow sofa needed recovering. Instead of pursuing her goal in a traditional way, she invited Kim MacConnel, whose work she had been collecting along with my own, to paint on it instead. Kim created a true work of art, a touchstone for his further explorations in furniture re-purposing. To the left of the couch is a later MacConnel end-table-cum-lamp. I decorated the blue silk throw pillow with acrylic pastry tube extrusion to try to match the exuberance of Kim’s couch. Some time later, Holly and Horace acquired my acrylic on cotton painting, Happy Hour (acrylic on cotton, 1980), and soon thereafter completely redecorated their living room. Happy Hour on the wall (replacing three Roy Lichtenstein Cathedral paintings), the couch and lamp/table in front, and a marvelous Ken Price ceramic completed the ensemble. Voilà. Maximum impact for a New York drawing room.
Featured in New York Magazine‘s Spring Design 2015: “18 Architects and Interior Designers on Their Favorite Rooms of All Time,” April 20, 2015.
