Rose Cumming (1887-March 21, 1968) was a flamboyant and eccentric

interior decorator Interior design is the art and science of enhancing the interior of a building to achieve a healthier and more aesthetically pleasing environment for the people using the space. An interior designer is someone who plans, researches, coordina ...

whose career was based in New York. Rose Cumming was born on an Australian

sheep station A sheep station is a large property ( station, the equivalent of a ranch) in Australia or New Zealand, whose main activity is the raising of sheep for their wool and/or meat. In Australia, sheep stations are usually in the south-east or sout ...

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

. In 1917 she came to New York with her sister, silent-screen actress

Dorothy Cumming Dorothy Greville Cumming (12 April 1894 – 10 December 1983) was an actress of the silent film era. She appeared in 39 American, English, and Australian films between 1915 and 1929, notably appearing as the Virgin Mary in Cecil B. DeMille's ...

. Following advice of her friend

Frank Crowninshield Francis Welch Crowninshield (June 24, 1872 – December 28, 1947), better known as Frank or Crownie (''informal''), was an American journalist and art and theater critic best known for developing and editing the magazine '' Vanity Fair'' for 2 ...

, editor of '' Vanity Fair,'' Cumming decided to become a decorator. She worked for Mary Buehl before opening her own shop in 1921. Cumming's shop was her decorating office and a retail shop for antiques and fabrics. She put her best furniture in the window of the shop left the lights on at night, which nobody had ever done. Her shop sold Bromo-Seltzer bottles and empty candy boxes alongside fine French furniture. As she explained, “It’s all salesmanship." She was known for ''

chinoiserie (, ; loanword from French ''wikt:chinoiserie#French, chinoiserie'', from ''wikt:chinois#French, chinois'', "Chinese"; ) is the European interpretation and imitation of China, Chinese and other East Asia, East Asian artistic traditions, especial ...

'', displayed in the Chinese wallpapers of her often-photographed drawing room, and for baroque and rococo Venetian, South German and Austrian furniture, at a time when conservative New York tastes ran to Louis XV and English Georgian furnishings. Her color sense favored saturated, dramatic tones. She brought

chintz Chintz () is a woodblock printed, painted, stained or glazed calico textile that originated in Golconda (present day Hyderabad, India) in the 16th century. The cloth is printed with designs featuring flowers and other patterns in different colou ...

to informal dressing rooms and bedrooms, inaugurated the vogue for smoked mirrors veined with gold and extended her love of reflective and lacquered surfaces to lacquered walls, satin upholstery and the metallic wallpapers she invented. In Cumming's own town house, the living room had early-eighteenth-century hand-painted Chinese wallpaper with a silvery background and Louis XV furniture. Conventional lamps were one of her pet hates, so black candles lighted the room. At the top of her townhouse was the infamous “Ugly Room” filled with predatory images of snakes, vultures, boars and monkeys. Her clients included

Marlene Dietrich Marie Magdalene "Marlene" DietrichBorn as Maria Magdalena, not Marie Magdalene, according to Dietrich's biography by her daughter, Maria Riva ; however Dietrich's biography by Charlotte Chandler cites "Marie Magdalene" as her birth name . (, ; ...

Mary Pickford Gladys Marie Smith (April 8, 1892 – May 29, 1979), known professionally as Mary Pickford, was a Canadian-American stage and screen actress and producer with a career that spanned five decades. A pioneer in the US film industry, she co-founde ...

, and

Norma Shearer Edith Norma Shearer (August 11, 1902June 12, 1983) was a Canadian-American actress who was active on film from 1919 through 1942. Shearer often played spunky, sexually liberated ingénues. She appeared in adaptations of Noël Coward, Eugene O'N ...

. She designed and printed fabrics. Her sister Eileen Cecil, a former editor of Harpers Bazaar, stylist, and advertising force in her own right, carried on the business after Cumming's death in 1968. Later the merchandise line was leased to Dessin Fournir, and currently to Wells Abbott. Her great-niece Sarah Cumming Cecil carried on the atelier "Rose Cumming Design", now based in

Portland, ME Portland is the largest city in the U.S. state of Maine and the seat of Cumberland County. Portland's population was 68,408 in April 2020. The Greater Portland metropolitan area is home to over half a million people, the 104th-largest metropol ...

, presenting a stripped-down simplified style.Rose Cumming Design

Notes

External links

Rose Cumming, Russell L. Cecil, and Affiliated Families Photographs and Papers
at th
New-York Historical Society
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cumming, Rose American interior designers 1968 deaths American women interior designers Women inventors 1887 births 20th-century American inventors