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Elsie de Wolfe

Elsie de Wolfe, Lady Mendl (née Ella Anderson de Wolfe; December 20, c. 1859[1] – July 12, 1950[2]) was an American actress who became a very prominent interior designer and author. Born in New York City, de Wolfe was acutely sensitive to her surroundings from her earliest years and became one of the first female interior decorators, replacing dark and ornate Victorian decor with lighter, simpler styles and uncluttered room layouts.

Elsie de Wolfe

Ella Anderson de Wolfe

December 20, c. 1859
New York City, U.S.

July 12, 1950(1950-07-12) (aged 90)

Versailles, France
  • Actress
  • interior decorator
  • author

Lady Mendl

​
(m. 1926)​

Her 1926 marriage to English diplomat Sir Charles Mendl was seen as a marriage of convenience, although she was proud to be called Lady Mendl. Since 1892, de Wolfe had been living openly in a lesbian relationship with Elisabeth Marbury, with whom she lived in New York and Paris. Lady Mendl was a prominent social figure, and she entertained in the most distinguished circles.

In 's "Harlem on My Mind", the singer Ethel Waters professes to prefer the "low-down" Harlem ambience to her "high-falutin' flat that Lady Mendl designed."[41]

Irving Berlin

One of the color schemes she popularized was the inspiration for the song "That Black and White Baby of Mine" (whose lyrics include the lines "All she thinks black and white/She even drinks Black & White").

Cole Porter

In 's "Anything Goes," a song about modern scandals, he observes "When you hear that Lady Mendl, standing up/Now turns a handspring landing up-/On her toes/Anything goes!"[42]

Cole Porter

Cole Porter also refers to her in the song Farming from the musical . The lyric describes the celebrities who have gone back to nature: "Kit Cornell is shelling peas, Lady Mendl's climbing trees, Farming is so charming they all say!"

Let's Face It!

Elsie de Wolfe is referred to as "Maid Mendl" in 's satirical and poem "Rat Week": "That gay, courageous pirate crew, With sweet Maid Mendl at the Prow, Who upon royal wings oft flew, To paint the Palace white – (and how!).

Osbert Sitwell

Tributes[edit]

In 2015, she was named by Equality Forum as one of its 31 Icons of the 2015 LGBT History Month.[43]

. New York: The Century Company. 1913.

The House in Good Taste

Hutton Wilkinson, ed. (2004) [1913]. The House in Good Taste. Rizzoli.  0-8478-2631-7. (Reprint)

ISBN

Elsie de Wolfe's Recipes for Successful Dining. New York: D. Appleton-Century Company. 1934.

After All. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1935.

(2014). Elsie de Wolfe's Paris: Frivolity Before the Storm. New York: Harry N Abrams. ISBN 978-1419713897.

Charlie Scheips

, a manual of interior design by Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman

The Decoration of Houses

Victorian decorative arts

,To the One I Love the Best (New York: The Viking Press, 1955)

Ludwig Bemelmans

The Great Lady Decorators: The Women Who Defined Interior Design, 1870–1955 by Adam Lewis (2010), Rizzoli, New York.  978-0-8478-3336-8

ISBN

Elsie de Wolfe, The Colony Club, and the birthplace of American design

Flanner, Janet (1938) "Handsprings Across the Sea," The New Yorker, 1938-01-15, as posted online ; profile of de Wolfe

[4]

at Project Gutenberg

Works by Elsie De Wolfe

at Internet Archive

Works by or about Elsie de Wolfe

"A Decorator's Life: Elise De Wolfe 1865–1950", Canadian Interior Design <>

Elsie De Wolfe

"Elsie de Wolfe" Encyclopædia Britannica <>

Elsie de Wolfe | Biography, Designs, & Facts

(University of Wisconsin Digital Collections)

The house in good taste

Vintage Designs

Sarah E. Mitchell, "Review of Elsie de Wolfe, The House in Good Taste"

Elsie de Wolfe House

Archived March 4, 2016, at the Wayback Machine, ISBN 0-926494-27-9

Penny Sparke, Elsie de Wolfe: The Birth of Modern Interior Decoration

Elsie De Wolfe – Famous Interior Designers

Canadian Interior Design

A Decorator’s Life: Elsie De Wolfe 1865 – 1950

Her stage career on IMDb