The Queen of White: Interior Designer Syrie Maugham
Syrie Maugham’s All White Music Room
March marks Women's History Month, where we reflect on women's contributions to American history, society, and culture. When we look at the history of interior design in America, a significant influencer happens to be the British design legend Syrie Maugham (1879 –1955). Born Gwendoline Maud Syrie Barnardo, Maugham created the first "white room" using varying pale shades, painted French antiques, plaster tables, reflective mirror screens, milk glass, and white peacock feathers. Later glamorous rooms also featured pops of bold color and attracted London's elite, including The Prince of Wales and Wallis Simpson and American royalty like Bunny Mellon.
Syrie Maugham photographed by Cecil Beaton
The White Queen, as Syrie was known, photographed by Cecil Beaton, was not as successful in love as in business. Her first marriage to the much older American-born British pharmaceutical entrepreneur, Sir Henry Solomon Wellcome, was unhappy. After eight years, she separated from him, having several affairs, including one with brilliant Paris-born English playwright and novelist William Somerset Maugham. Maugham, a closeted gay man during the early 20th century, fathered a daughter with Syrie named Liza for his first successful novel Liza of Lambeth. Maugham married Syrie after her divorce, but the marriage failed.
The foyer of Maugham’s Park Lane residence
Despite the personal chaos in Syrie Maugham's life, her interiors were innovative and timeless. She turned away from the visual chatter of Victorian and Edwardian design, favoring an elegant Vogue Regency style that would later evolve into Hollywood Regency. Maugham championed esoteric designers and artists like Serge Roche, Emilio Terry, and the Giacometti brothers. Her signature design elements included vellum-covered books, velvet-upholstered fringed sofas, tables and torchieres incorporating palm-frond motifs, and Jean-Michel Frank's parchment furnishings. Frank was one of the many designers she influenced, along with Elsie de Wolfe, Frances Elkins, Albert Hadley, and Mark Hampton.
