Talkin' 'Bout Maya's Generation
Mark McMenamin -- Interior Design, 10/1/2009 12:00:00 AM
Experiments with whole-room dyed-textile environments lead to "Swan River" at the Richard Himmel Gallery in Chicago.
In New York's Central Park, he drapes Belvedere Castle in cotton canvas.
His first collaboration with the Rockwell Group is a glass-beaded mural for the New York restaurant Geisha.
Amy Lau and Jo Lynn Alcorn's three-dimensional interpretation of Romanoff's wall coverings transforms a staircase at the Kips Bay Decorator Show House in New York.
All photography courtesy of Maya Romanoff.
Most devotees of Maya Romanoff know it simply as the go-to source for exceptional wall coverings. But as the company's big 4-0 looms, it's time to toast the man behind the myth and retrace his aesthetic odyssey.
With typical 1960's karma, the company shares its anniversary year with the Woodstock music festival, the tie-dyed denizens of which sparked Romanoff's interest in the interplay between textiles and pigment. The dashiki-clad designer was soon testing out various resist-dyed vehicles: leathers, couture fashions, whole-room environments. But it was Weathered Walls, the hand-painted wall coverings launched in 1979, that became the house specialty—and won a Roscoe Award from this magazine. Other honors followed, along with showcases at museums.
Romanoff's penchant for experimentation has never waned, whether he's draping canvas banners over a building in Chicago or creating a geisha girl in beaded wall covering for a sushi restaurant in New York. Indeed, invention remains of the essence not only for Romanoff himself—who continues to work despite an ongoing battle with Parkinson's disease—but also for his wife, Joyce, the company's president, and niece, Laura, vice president.
One upcoming release isn't technically new. Designer Amy Lau has freshly reinterpreted archival tie-dyed wall coverings as the Anniversary collection, intended for a generation that's less LP, more MP3. 773-465-6909; mayaromanoff.com. circle 403
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