I’d like you to imagine the lobby of the Dorchester Hotel in London after a World War II air raid. A beautiful woman in her late fifties with a magnolia complexion, black eyes and a neat, well-proportioned figure meets her ex-husband. She was about to sail to America to seek shelter. In an effort to enlist his attention and sympathy she said, “Oh Willie, I’m so afraid my ship will be torpedoed.” Willie, who was afflicted with a severe stammer, but true to his form, said, “I have only one piece of advice to offer you. Keep your mouth open, and sw-sw-swallow and you will drown the s-s-sooner.”
MEET WILLIE!
It was the dawn of the modern era and a new profession would unfold. Hovering off-stage, stood the first decorators. They were ready to tempt fate by offering their ideas for some cold, hard cash. And Gwendolyn Maud Syrie Bernardo Wellcome Maugham, the Mrs. William Somerset Maugham,* was one of them.
MEET SYRIE!
Syrie’s was an improbable childhood for someone who in her early thirties would live in expensive and fashionable Regent’s Park and be a member of the dazzling Mayfair smart set. That child, was far removed from the glamorous divorcee she would become.
The Bernardo family devoted their entire Sundays to reading the Bible. Smoking and drinking were never permitted and Syrie’s free time was occupied with playing the organ at her father’s London fund raisers. But at twenty-two, “Queenie,” as her family had called her, had grown into a bright, strikingly beautiful girl with jet black hair, brown eyes, ivory skin and an exquisite figure. Sent to journey on the Nile because of a broken heart, Syrie joined a group of English tourists where in the legendary city of Khartoum she met Henry Wellcome.
An American at birth, Henry had traveled to London to start a pharmaceutical company specializing in tropical diseases. He was in Khartoum to open a research institute. Henry was forty-seven, shy and reserved with few friends. He became so enamored with Syrie that he pursued Syrie to the point of taking lodgings in the Bernardo home.
It was not a successful marriage although they had wealth and traveled extensively. Henry was a jealous husband and wanted his home organized as a business. Syrie received a generous settlement of 2,400 pounds ($50,000.00) a year, a vast sum in 1909. Before Henry died, he had been Knighted by the Queen.**
When Syrie first entered business as a decorator her focus was on selling painted and pickled furniture. She apprenticed herself to Thornton-Smith, Antique Dealers of the prestigious Fortnum and Mason store to learn about the restoration of antique furniture. She traded her time by working without pay in their showroom, Syrie handled and pacified difficult clients. In return she spent mornings in the workshops watching painters mixing colors and applying them.
CENTER STAGE!
In 1926, it was time for Syrie to move to center stage with a visually stimulating all-white room created by exquisitely mixing different combinations of white and adding a multitude of shade and texture variations.* The rooms were impressive, gutsy and intelligent. Decorative arts historian, Martin Battersby, said, “Syrie’s all-white room is beyond doubt one of the two or three most famous and influential schemes of decoration of the century…it has been imitated for over fifty years.”
Her home at 213 King’s Road was her permanent residence where she entertained and lived. It was not the first of its kind, but the publicity it received was cause for celebration, particularly for Syrie. The low coffee table is in the style of Jean-Michel Frank as is the white lacquer folding screen which partially hides the dark piano. Minimal wall decorations consisted of a white plaster still life on the over-mantel with mirrors and wall sconces in white plaster rococo frames. Three Louis XV chairs were painted white and placed behind the long low sofa covered in beige satin. The carpet in two shades of cream was designed to Syrie’s specifications. Her favorite designs used variations of a Chinese Chippendale theme, usually in cut and uncut pile.
At night the changes were notable when the white walls caught and held soft candlelight to cast romantic shadows on glistening surfaces of satin, chrome, mirror, silver, rock crystal and lacquer. (The mirrored screen with its reflecting images was described by one visitor as being somewhat “hazardous”. It seems the glue holding the thin strips of mirror in place melted when the room became too warm. Pieces of glass would fall off without warning!)
The dining room had walls of stripped and highly waxed pine paneling where rock crystal sconces created dappled light. There were white-painted chairs around the table which was covered to the floor with an ivory lace tablecloth. Her knives and forks had white porcelain handles and in her centerpieces of white flowers, she sometimes hid small lights to shine flatteringly on the faces of her guests. Syrie learned this from the theater.
Those rooms have been described as modern, romantic and sophisticated; even as a stage upon which her guests would enter to become the stars.
Syrie was excellent copy for magazine editors. Her table settings as well as her rooms were always on display, and for sale. Entertainment was essential to her life and to her career. Her cooks were reputed to be among the best in London and at one of her dinner parties, Syrie is said to have entered with her hair powdered white, to match her decor!
Enormous publicity from the current fashion magazines created an international name for Syrie. The famous, the noteworthy, and the rich beckoned. She was ready.
An example of Syrie’s reigning and continuing popularity was a home decorated in the 1930’s that featured white upholstery, draperies, venetian blinds, wood tables, and an off-white carpet. The walls were covered in a stretched Swedish white linen embellished with an overall scroll pattern in two shades of green. This 1930 room was copied for several decades. Twenty-seven years later, here is an example of a 1957 rendition done by Michael Taylor, the California designer who revived and reinterpreted other Syrie Maugham room schemes.
1957 Rendition
While spending a weekend in the country, Syrie discovered The Pavillion on a Rothschild estate. It was a vast red-brick edifice variously described as “sheer Walt Disney ugliness.”
Syrie saw it one day and the following day, it was hers. One friend commented, “she converted it into a dream”. In 1934, Syrie abandoned the all-white look and used color overtly.
Beside her flair for using dynamic colors, she is credited with being the first to use the color “coral,” in decorating.
Syrie was traversing back and forth across the United States. She had her permanent shops in New York and Chicago and then opened temporary shops in Los Angeles, CA and Palm Beach, FL. This was still at the height of the all-white craze where the Paris collections showed white beachwear, white daytime and evening wear. Humorists had a field day with comments such as one regarding a trip to Calcutta with Lady Mendle: “Syrie Maugham has gone to paint the Black Hole of Calcutta white”. But, her clients wanted white rooms. (White worked because paints were developed with new bases that yellowed less rapidly and bleach whitened more effectively and with less damage to fabrics).
Change happened back in 1911 while Syrie was learning the art of refinishing and painting furniture. At a dinner/theater party, she met one of London’s best-known playwrights, William Somerset Maugham, who had four plays running simultaneously in the West End. Maugham had recently been rejected by an actress and was deeply hurt and humiliated. Syrie, who was pretty, popular, and socially acceptable restored an inordinate amount of confidence in him. They began an affair that was compatible until the outbreak of World War I when Willie volunteered to be an interpreter in France. Willie was too old (40), and too short (5’6″), to enlist and ended up driving an ambulance. Willie and Syrie were hoping to have a baby, but Syrie had still not filed for divorce from Henry Wellcome. While she filed for divorce, Willie was in France driving an ambulance, and there in France, Willie met the love of his life:
. Gerald Haxton: Willie’s Partner of 30 Years
Paul Fussel, who wrote The Great War and Modern Memory, said, “War was a situation in which two illegal activities were actually sanctioned…men killing men and men loving men”. Gerald became his secretary-companion and Willie profited from Gerald’s personality, because Willie was reserved. Willie was as an unhappy youth, shy and lonely. In middle age, he was despondent because of the unresolved social conflicts of his life and he spent his old age filled with guilts. His nephew, Robin Maugham wrote this quote from Somerset, “There’s no point in trying to change your essential nature. One hasn’t a hope. I tried to persuade myself that I was three-quarters normal and that only a quarter of me was queer…whereas really it was the other way round.” But Willie persevered to keep up his heterosexual pretense in public to the end of his life. Syrie could help fulfill that role. They were a content couple and he was agreeable until he met Gerald. Unfortunately, Gerald was alcoholic, dishonest, unfaithful, and violent. In the future, the partnership of Willie and Gerald was often filled with episodes of upheaval, with each one trying to make the other one suffer.
At the same time of Somerset’s meeting with Gerald, Syrie became pregnant. Because Syrie’s divorce was still not final, they went to Rome where Syrie gave birth to a daughter whom they christened Liza after the heroine of Maugham’s first successful novel. This also did not please Willie. He had hoped for a son.
Two years later, Willie married Syrie. He had been off on six-month-long jaunts with Gerald and by this time, he did not want to marry, but felt responsibility for Liza. But Willie bore Syrie a grudge until the end of his life. He felt it was her fault that he had to act honorably and marry. In return, Syrie truly was in love with Willie, “she loved him with a whole-hearted devotion that never died,” but the relationship became estranged with Gerald’s cruel comments about her also.
Syrie adored Liza and took her everywhere she traveled. Willie, was not so-good as a dad. In typical self-justification of himself, Willie wrote, “I have a notion that children are all the better for not being burdened with too much parental love.”
A profound bitterness prevented Maugham from realistically adjusting to the break-up of his marriage. His insecurity regarding his public image was overwhelming. He went so far as to pen an unkind portrait of Syrie, full of scandalous allegations. He made up many of his declarations and both his English publisher, Heinemann and his American publisher, Doubleday refused to publish his book.
For the most part, except for anger of Haxton, Syrie never returned Maugham’s vindictiveness. She took pride in his achievements, and never spoke badly of him.
The author, Beverly Nichols wrote his book, “A Case of Human Bondage”opposing and exposing Maugham for “unjustifiably attacking” Syrie with this foreword quote, “This book is not an attack upon a dead man: rather it is the refutation of libel upon a dead woman.”
Examples of some famous Syrie Maugham Decorative Rooms:
White Satin Drapes with scarlet trim. Chairs, upholstered in flame-colored velvet.
The Pavillion: “Georgian pink” walls, upholstery in apple green & dull red.
White Dining Room: Palm Beach, Florida 1932
White Rococco Fireplace with Nymphenberg Horse Statuettes on Brackets
Syrie died in 1955 at the age of seventy-five. Liza took care of Syrie when she became bed-ridden. At her death, close friends launched a fund to purchase a sculpture for the Victoria and Albert Museum in Syrie’s name. They bought a marble bust of Catherine the Great, by the Russian sculptor, Shubin. It is said, the elegant bust “bears an uncanny resemblance to the lady” they were honoring.
Richard B. Fischer,*** closed his biography of Syrie by saying, “Untutored, autocratic and self-assertive though she was, Syrie Maugham brought a breath of freshness and beauty into her world.” Ours also!
Sy’s Salient Points: One of Syrie’s romantic rooms was dominated by huge mirrors, strategically placed so the swans on the lake outside were constantly reflected in the mirrors inside. Her clients were the Prince of Wales and his future bride, Mrs. Wallis Warfield Simpson.
*Sheila Yates lecture/slide presentation: Syrie Maugham ASID National Yearly conference——Baltimore, MD.
**In 1880, Wellcome established a pharmaceutical company, Burroughs Wellcome & Company, with his colleague Silas Mainville Burroughs. Burroughs and Wellcome introduced direct marketing to doctors, giving them free samples. In 1924, Wellcome consolidated all his commercial and non-commercial activities in one holding company, The Wellcome Foundation Ltd. The Wellcome Trust is now one of the world’s largest private biomedical charities.
***R. Fischer: Syrie Maugham Biography 1978
HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY, DARLING BLAIRE