Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/1477684
I t's a clear memory. Spring 2011, and a crew has flown in, and I'm directing a new portrait of Ann Getty for my Rizzoli monograph Ann Getty Interior Style. Ann, dressed in a white linen Loro Piana blouse, Levi Strauss jeans, and well-worn Superga tennis shoes, is perched on an ornately carved early George III giltwood chair in the center of her San Francisco living room. She is smiling. Her interior design firm is flourishing; her Ann Getty Home collection is in demand. She's just returned from Venice, where she was checking on a large custom order of cut silk velvet hand-woven by the illustrious Bevilacqua atelier. "I've been working with Tessitura Luigi Bevilacqua for over 30 years," she said. "They are still making my Soprarizzo cut silk velvet on their original 18th-century looms. They weave only a few millimeters a day, but the beauty is so worth it." She gestures to the dramatic black and rose Bevilacqua cut-velvet upholstery, graphic and sumptuous, on the seat of a pair of 18th-century baroque stools. Luscious, indeed. Just over her left shoulder is a haunting symbolist painting by Gustave Moreau, its clouds of crimson paint in delicious juxtaposition with the lustrous crushed silk velvet sofa below. Thanks to Ann's exacting style, these large-scale rooms are transformed into moments of intimacy. Clusters of porcelains and jades and carved crystal boxes on marble tabletops invite close-up immersion in the exquisite beauty. Ann knows the provenance and story of everything in the house. "It has been a great adventure putting this house together, and for me it will never be finished," she said. "We are always editing, adding, rethinking. It has given great enjoyment to Gordon and me and our family over the years." Shimmering late afternoon light reflects off the bay and illuminates every detail of the ornate pair of circa-1740 gilded George II tables festooned with carved scallop shells, floral garlands, and scrolls of baroque splendor. Later, as Ann walks through the opulent dining room to get back to work, she passes walls paneled in charming and eccentric Chinese court scenes, circa 1720, crafted for a dining room in a Dresden palace of Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony. Verre églomisé wall panels are exceptional, created by an artist who worked on site for months at a time. The Getty collection — the family's treasures of antiques, and paintings by Degas, Cézanne, Matisse, Canaletto, Pissarro, Cassatt, and Gauguin — was amassed over more than four decades. "I have been impressed," says Martin This month at Rockefeller Center in New York, Christie's will auction 1,500 dazzling lots from Ann and Gordon Getty's residences in San Francisco. It has been called the sale of the decade. PaperCity pays homage to the glorious golden years of the late Ann Getty — her legendary style, her parties, her taste, and the magnificent and pedigreed art, antiques and objects she collected. This auction will benefit the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation for the Arts. In her global philanthropy, Ann Getty lives on. By Diane Dorrans Saeks. Photography Lisa Romerein. Being Gordon and Ann Getty (wearing her JAR collection) at a San Francisco gala, 1998 BRUCE FORRESTER 122