Book review: When Art Meets Design

When Art Meets Design is the book review of the day at Best Design Books! Hunt Slonem is an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker that in When Art Meets Design offer an exciting view into the artistically decorated and meticulously restored homes such as his two Southern mansions in Louisiana, named Albania and Lakeside. Slonem combines vintage furniture with contemporary art, including pieces by Alex Katz and Andy Warhol. Vivid and expansive interior photography reveals how the artist combines antiques and artworks, offering an exciting view into his unique world.

Vivid original photography reveals how the artist antiques, artworks and fabrics—including the artist’s eponymous collection for Lee Jofa, which is featured for the first time in this book—offering an exciting view into his unique world.

Bringing a freewheeling sense of awe, wonder and detail to his wild array of paintings and sculptures and peaceful, mystical living and working spaces, NYC based artist and lifestyle trendsetter Hunt Slonem is considered one of the great colorists of his time.

The Maine born creative force of nature is well known for his neo-expressionist works of butterflies, rabbits and tropical birds, the latter often inspired by the 30 to 100 exotic feathered friends he houses at any given time in an aviary in his 30,000 square foot Manhattan studio. Slonem has had over 300 one-man shows in galleries and museums internationally. His work is also in the permanent collections of 250 museums including the Guggenheim, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney, and the Moreau Foundation, and is part of private collections all over the world, including those of many celebrities.

As a founding element of his process, Slonem likes to say, “Repetition is very important.” He starts each day painting, treating each moment as one of profound meditation and channeling of God or a higher consciousness. Included in this ritual are his famous bunny paintings – the result of a daily morning warm-up that was sparked during a late-night revelation at a Chinese restaurant: that he was born in the Year of the Rabbit. His famous Bunny Wall combines his art with his passion for collecting, as the paintings are exhibited in Victorian-era portrait frames picked up from his travels across the country.

“One of my recent focuses has been doing installations in various places that recreate my studio, including hanging some of my works and replicating my furniture and feather-walls with moulted feathers,” says Slonem. “In many ways, I see my whole life as an installation itself, an ever unfolding play of consciousness that is always fascinating me somehow. I’m always after that wow factor, those magical moments where I create a work and look at it in amazement, as if angels or gnomes had entered my space and created the whole thing. When I was young, I learned that Picasso collected chateaus, and I dreamed of doing something like that my whole life. Having reached that goal with these historic homes, I would like them to become part of my legacy, where people use them as study centers that can educate and inspire new generations of artists.”