Elsie de Wolfe is a twentieth-century legend and is the mother of modern interior decoration. Her name is familiar to many who practice the art of interior design or who are linked to the fashionable world of tastemaking. She provided appropriate settings for the new rich in the first half of the twentieth century and in the process helped to shape our understanding of what we have come to know as the modern domestic interior. Through the measured re-examination of known materials as well as the review of history-clarifying documents that have been overlooked or underused by previous de Wolfe enthusiasts, Elsie de Wolfe: The Birth of Modern Interior Decoration provides the foundation of a renewed interest in her groundbreaking career, her philosophy of design, and her belief that an atmosphere of beauty could cure a world of ills. This large format, profusely illustrated book covers twenty-nine projects (including Villa Trianon, The Colony Club, Anne Vanderbilt, Anne Morgan, the Duchess of Windsor, and J. Ogden Armour, to name a few) and concludes with a timeline of her works. Written by English decorative arts scholar Penny Sparke and edited by New York Times contributor Mitchell Owens, Elsie de Wolfe: The Birth of Modern Interior Decoration presents the most in-depth look ever into the design aesthetic of this early twentieth-century master decorator. AUTHOR: Penny Sparke is Professor of Design History and Pro-Vice Chancellor of Kingston University, London. She is the author of over a dozen books on twentieth-century design. Her best known publications include An Introduction to Design and Design; and, most recently, A Century of Design and A Century of Car Design. She has also curated a number of exhibitions and has broadcast widely on her specialist area. Mitchell Owens is a style and design correspondent for The New York Times, a consulting editor of Elle Decor, and a frequent contributor to Travel + Leisure. Owens was a co-curator of Inside Design Now, the 2003 triennial of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, and author of twenty-one essays in the exhibition's catalogue. He is also an independent scholar of the history of interior design, with a specialty in American decorators of the early twentieth century. 330 duotone and 14 colour illustrations