Go Ahead: Match the Art to the Furniture

Many of the rooms featured in Met Home are designed around collections of art, which makes perfect sense: People who love design usually love art, and vice versa. In the photo above, a collecting couple installed many pieces of museum-quality art in their Miami condo. Interior designer Judi Male kept most of the brilliantly curated furniture pale and neutral, in the way of museums, but pushed the envelope with that psychedelic Pierre Paulin chair that picks up the color and the shapes in the Helen Frankenthaler painting.

So what if, instead of boorishly buying a Basquiat to match my chaise (remember the scene in the film?), I follow Judi Male’s example and choose the pouf to go with the painting? Who could object to that?

So I went straight to the Internet to call up some of my favorite pieces. My first “capture” was Paul Klee’s “Twittering Machine” of 1922 (I don’t know why “twittering machine” should be so on my mind lately… it’s not like I hear the word “twitter” every 2 minutes). And here it is:

As soon as I saw it, I knew what I needed, and I Googled around until I found the Campana brothers’ new (2009) “Cipria” sofa for Edra. It was the perfect match in color, tone and sardonic gesture.

Of course it’s almost too easy with the Brazilian Campanas, Fernando and Humberto. Take for example, their now almost classic “Favela” chair (a riff on re-use, conservation, and sustainability—think saving the Amazon rain forest):

How great would a pair of those puppies look beside a Louise Nevelson sculpture, for example: “Dawn’s Wedding Chapel IV” of 1959-60? A dusting nightmare, but I’ve always loved Louise Nevelson (I’m a fan of Tina Louise, too, but that’s another blog story). Just make sure nobody mistakes the chairs for kindling.

And I would be remiss, if I didn’t note the Campanas’ op-inspired, all-for-fun rubber-clad “Sushi" sofa of 2003, made in a limited edition of seven(!):

Which is exactly the piece I would choose if (a) I ruled and world and (b) I owned a festive late-‘60s Frank Stella painting like “Tahkt-I-Sulayman Variation II” (1969).

Now, I have to admit, this next pairing started with the sofa, a lovely swooping piece (or pair of pieces, depending on how you look at it) by Pritzker-winning architect Zaha Hadid called “Moon System":

To me, it had Georgia O’Keeffe written all over it (as many things do). It took only a moment to find Ms. O’Keeffe’s “Blue Flower” of 1918. The resonances in this pair are about much more than color.

Then I began to get excited. I selected one of Andy Warhol’s silkscreen flowers (a full-sized print of which hung on my freshman-year dorm room wall in 1965):

Something about it drove me right to this “Green” chair (which we’ve run in the magazine). It’s a one-of-a-kind piece by Margaret Elman, who starts with French and Italian antiques and then reupholsters them in quite unexpected fabrics.

Got a Modigliani, like “Anna Zborowska” (1917)?

How about something that speaks to its shapes, like Wendell Castle’s “Sizzle” table?

Don’t know what to do to complement (and compliment!) your Motherwell?

Obviously, you need the fabulous Tom Dixon wing chair (yes, again!):

Only this time, add an Yves Klein coffee table: It’s a clear Lucite box filled with loose dry pigment in his patented “International Blue.”

Were I to find myself the proud owner of Van Gogh’s 1889 “Yellow Chair” …

… I would fly in the face of all contrary advice to avoid the literal and hang it over, yes, a yellow chair!!! Perhaps this Arne Jacobsen “Egg” chair.

When I came across Joan Miro’s “The Nightingale’s Song at Midnight and the Morning Rain” (1940), I had a little epiphany. I obviously was never going to own this painting, but I could have this painting turned into a rug for a fraction of the cost. Maybe it’s a little disrespectful to the painting, but it wouldn’t be a painting. It would be a rug.

And sitting on my Joan Miro rug would be Karim Rashid’s 2002 “Orgy” sofa for Sweden’s Offecct AB—in red, of course.

More than likely you won’t have to make decisions on this scale, but that’s not the point. First of all, the exercise is fun. Second, it gets the little gray cells, as Hercule Poirot called them, bursting with little full-color design ideas. And before you know it, your living room or bedroom or dining room will be furnished. So I’m thinking of a shag rug with Jackson Pollock…

Michael Lassell,
Features Director, Metropolitan Home