Paul Gorman

Furniture

TON: Dave Baby’s Temple of Desire

The new interiors magazine TON – the first issue is out now –  has two pieces by me on very different but equally extraordinary homes.

TON’s founder and editor-in-chief Jermaine Gallacher – who works with art director Rory Gleeson and editorial director Ted Stansfield – commissioned me to write about Dave Baby’s apartment close to where we both live, in south London’s Stockwell.

As I write, ‘this otherworldly space represents a bewitching realm of desires, sexuality and esoterica with Dave at the maelstrom’s centre, a still figure dispensing wily wit and charm’.

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“Feeling his way”: Francis Bacon’s modernist furniture

Rug c.1929 by Francis Bacon 1909-1992
//Rug c.1929 by Francis Bacon. 212 x 126 x 1.5cm. Private collection currently on loan to Tate Britain. © The Estate Of Francis Bacon//
bacon - stool
//Stool, c. 1930. Painted and laminated wood 40.5 x 51.5 x 38cm. This appeared on Antiques Roadshow in 2013 – the owner explained that her  grandparents bought it from Bacon after he was featured in The Studio magazine//
index copy
//Invitation to 1929 selling exhibition, from Richard Shone’s article on Bacon the furniture designer in The Burlington magazine, 1996//

I’m fascinated by the modernist furniture and interiors produced by Francis Bacon before his emergence as “Bacon Agonistes”, in critic John Richardson’s memorable phrase.

This occurred in 1933 with the selection of Bacon’s painting Crucifixion by Herbert Read for his 1933 survey Art Now: An Introduction To The Theory Of Modern Painting And Sculpture; tellingly, the work by the 24-year-old was juxtaposed in the layout with Picasso’s 1929 Female Bather With Raised Arms. Picasso was the only 20th century artist who “fully captivated Bacon”, wrote his biographer Michael Peppiatt, while the artist said he decided to abandon furniture and interiors when he saw an exhibition of Picasso’s Dinard paintings at Paul Rosenberg’s Paris gallery in the late 20s.

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‘The most radical designer of objects and furniture in the latter 20th century and early 21st century”: Jim Walrod on Gaetano Pesce in Bad Day #18

pesce1The current issue of arts and culture magazine Bad Day is enlivened by an engaging interview with the eminent designer and architect Gaetano Pesce by one of his most vocal champions, design authority Jim Walrod.

Augmented by Jeremy Liebman’s photographs, the feature makes a strong case for Pesce’s significance. “He’s the most punk rock person I’ve ever met,” writes Walrod of the 74-year-old.

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Issue 18 of Bad Day has sold out but visit the magazine’s excellent website for further elucidation.

Liebman’s website is here; Pesce’s is here.