Handcrafted Modern: At Home with Mid-century Designers

by Leslie Williamson

An intimate and revealing collection of photographs of astonishingly beautiful, iconic, and undiscovered mid-century interiors. Among significant mid-century interiors, none are more celebrated yet underpublished as the homes created by architects and interior designers for themselves. This collection of newly commissioned photographs presents the most compelling homes by influential mid-century designers, such as Russel Wright, George Nakashima, Harry Bertoia, Charles and Ray Eames, and Eva Zeisel, among others. Intimate as well as revelatory, Williamson’s photographs show these creative homes as they were lived in by their designers: Walter Gropius’s historic Bauhaus home in Massachusetts; Albert Frey’s floating modernist aerie on a Palm Springs rock outcropping; Wharton Esherick’s completely handmade Pennsylvania house, from the organic handcarved staircase to the iconic furniture. Personal and breathtaking by turn—these homes are exemplary studies of domestic modernism at its warmest and most creative.

Genres: Design, Architecture, Art, Nonfiction, Interior Design, Crafts, Photography

224 pages, Hardcover

First published October 5, 2010

About the author

Leslie Williamson’s work explores people and the spaces they inhabit. Trained as a portraitist at Art Center College of Design, she has straddled the line between fine art and the commercial world for her entire career, preferring the space in between.

Based in San Francisco, Leslie Williamson is best known for her interiors portraiture, exemplified by the photography and writing in her first book Handcrafted Modern: At Home with Mid-century Designers ; her People Watching column for the New York Times blog The Moment; and her own projects of word and image portraits wherein she captures artists and designers with sensitivity, humor, and genuine affection.

Unpublished images and outtakes from Modern Originals: At Home with Mid-Century European Designers can be seen at Leslie Williamson's website.

Reviews

[Ami · Rating 3 out of 5]

Williamson goes to several homes of designers and architects, writing briefly about their beautiful surroundings and photographing it for the rest of us. I was surprised how many live in Pennsylvania. Heavy on eye candy, light on writing.

[kerrycat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Make sure you read the text and not just browse through the pictures - there's a method to Williamson's study, and it's a lovely one at that.

plus - there's bonus photos on her website, so if there's something in the description that doesn't show up on the page, odds are that it's there.

[Ew Lake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Touring Frank Lloyd Wright's home changed everything for me - loved seeing how he accommodated his family and their interests, experimented, personalized standard elements. This book explored exactly the same thing - architects and designers' personal homes. And such a refreshing point of view - from a fan rather an academic expert.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Photos are average. Text is good.

[Lucas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice reference of a handful of midcentury artists' homes. I didn't read much of the actual text, but the picture were well done and capture the sense of each home quite well.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked this up to get some ideas for decorating my new apartment along with some inherited mid-century modern furniture, and it made me realize how much of my great-uncle's house was in line with mid-century architecture!

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best reference book for how I like to decorate my space....

[Sar · Rating 5 out of 5]

GORGEOUS book. the ultimate peek into beautifully crafted, modern homes that aren't stark, white and sharp.

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Consider my socks knocked off.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

very beautiful photographs, lovely choice of details, text not so interesting