Monday, May 12, 2014

The Late J. Hyde Crawford



May 20 marks the one year anniversary of the death of J. Hyde Crawford, a truly talented man. As an illustrator, Crawford was responsible for updating Bonwit Teller's signature violet print, which was strewn across both the store's shopping bags as well as its charge cards.  And as a textile and wallcovering designer, Crawford was one of the founders of Quadrille, the textile and wallpaper line that remains popular today.

Photos of Crawford's Manhattan townhouse have appeared numerous times on this blog, as recently as a few weeks ago.  Some photos show the townhouse as it looked in the late 1970s, while others capture its early-1990s appearance.  Just last week, I was informed that the townhouse, which is located in the Turtle Bay neighborhood, was recently sold, having been listed with agent Clifford E. Katz of Sotheby's International Realty, East Side Manhattan brokerage.  A perusal of the listing's photos showed that although some tweaking had been done here and there, the townhome's interiors looked much as they did in the early 1990s.

I know that many of you, like me, are fans of Crawford's work, so I wanted to show you the home as it appeared before Crawford's death (Mr. Katz was kind enough to allow me to use his listing photos on my blog.)  I have also included both the late 1970s and early 1990s photos so that you can make a comparison.



2014:











Early 1990s:





Late 1970s:




5 comments:

  1. Hi Jennifer, Beautiful rooms. That deep saturated gray is exactly what I was aiming for when I painted my smaller shop space, but it went "dead" when on the walls......now I know what to do: more gold (frames, etc.) and change out the lighting for "warm" lights instead of the easier to find "cool" overheads which are reading green. Thanks for solving my problem.
    Have a great week.
    Mary

    ReplyDelete
  2. So that's where the bath with the mirrored walls and Venetian mirror overlayed on the wall was located!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mr. Crawford was a delightful gentleman, as nice as he was talented.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Dear Jennifer,
    How thrilling to see Crawford's classic rooms from then and now. In a way it reminds me of Howard Slatkin's Fifth Avenue apartment, and yearning to take in all of the equisite details!

    xoxo
    Karena
    The Arts by Karena

    ReplyDelete
  5. Quadrille did the most wonderful fabrics no matter what you might be looking for. I have a folder full of magazine ads of them; usually half-page vertical on the left. Always a thrill to revisit these rooms. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete