Background

Dororthy Draper was born Dorothy Tuckerman on November 22, 1889, in Tuxedo Park, New York, the daughter of Paul Tuckerman, a descendant of Oliver Wolcott, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and Susan Minturn.

Education

Draper attended the Brearley School in Manhattan. She had no formal training in art or interior decoration, but she traveled extensively in Europe and enriched her knowledge and appreciation of the decorative arts.

Career

Dorothy's professional career began in earnest when Douglas Elliman, one of New York's best-known realtors, commissioned her to decorate the Hotel Carlyle. Her talents in the field of interior design soon came to the attention of architects and real estate developers.

By the 1930's, Draper had established Dorothy Draper and Company and had added several staff designers. Her firm influenced the design of the interiors of hotels, hospitals, offices, restaurants, and apartment-house lobbies. She introduced bold colors; large, overscaled architectural elements; and carefully selected accessories. Dark green walls with white plaster appliques and consoles, swagged draperies and upholstery materials with patterns of large cabbage roses, and wallpapers in broad white and pink or shiny black stripes soon became trademarks of Draper's work.

"Draperized" was the begrudging approval given by her rivals in the decorating profession. Draper was able to secure commissions to redecorate apartment buildings by telling owners that "low-cost but intelligently applied cheerfulness" would boost rentals. She would combat dullness by selling "imagination and paint-and-color jobs. " She styled the exteriors of a New York row of brownstones on Sutton Place by painting the outsides a shiny black with white trim, giving each entrance door a different vibrant color. Within three months, all units had been rented. Even more successful was the rejuvenation of tenement housing belonging to the Henry Phipps Estates. Her renovations of eleven buildings made the property an income-producing project, not only amortizing the improvement costs but also bettering the neighborhood.

In 1939, Draper wrote Decorating Is Fun! How to Be Your Own Decorator, which showed readers how to economize on floor coverings and to reupholster furniture. In Entertaining Is Fun! How to Be a Popular Hostess (1941), Draper emphasized the art of enjoying oneself as hostess. A third book, 365 Shortcuts to Home Decorating (1965), returned to subjects of her professional interests. She was the director of the Studio of Architecture, Building, and Furnishing of Good Housekeeping magazine from 1941 to 1946. She also wrote for Vogue and House and Garden. In 1959, she began a syndicated newspaper column, "Ask Dorothy Draper, " which included advice on self-improvement and "self-refurbishing" as well as on home decorating.

Besides the projects in New York City, Draper did the interiors of a number of hotels elsewhere, including the Drake in Chicago; the Mayflower in Washington, District of Columbia; the Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia; the Arrowhead Springs in California; and the Quitainha in Petropolis, outside Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She was the color coordinator of the 1952 Packard automobile, and in 1960 she designed the interior of the Convair 880 airplane. In addition to decorating the New York homes of many society leaders, she designed the interior of the Westinghouse Dream House in the Better Living Center of the New York World's Fair in 1964. In 1960, Draper sold her firm to Leon Hegwood and for a time operated a smaller concern called Dorothy Draper Enterprises. Ill health forced her retirement, and she died in Cleveland, Ohio.

Achievements

• Dorothy Draper is famous for creating a new style known as "Modern Baroque, " adding a modern flair to a classical style. She used dramatic interior color schemes, and trademark cabbage-rose chintz. She promoted shiny black ceilings, acid-green woodwork and cherry-red floors. The largest and best-known work of her firm was New York's Hampshire House apartment hotel at 150 Central Park West, which opened in 1937. Every item in this thirty-six-story building was custom-designed, including the stationery. For rejuvenation of tenement housing belonging to the Henry Phipps Estates and for her originality in the decoration of River Club, Draper won the Hall of Fame award for 1933.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Entertaining Is Fun!: How To Be A Popular Hostess

    ( • Originally published in 1941, Dorothy Draper extends ...)

  • Decorating Is Fun!: How to be Your Own Decorator

    ( • A beautiful reproduction of the original book publi...)

  • 365 shortcuts to home decorating,

    (If one sentence could be taken to set the keynote for thi...)

Views

Quotations: "All that anyone needs to become a good decorator is a sense of beauty, a sense of fun, and some common sense".

"The color of your front door announces your personality to the world. "

"If it looks right, it is right. "

Personality

Draper, a statuesque, beautifully dressed, and meticulously groomed society woman, decorated her own house with such success that her friends asked her to decorate their homes.

Connections

Dorothy married Dr. George Draper in 1912; they had three children before their divorce in 1930.

Father:

Paul Tuckerman

Mother:

Susan (Minturn) Tuckerman

Spouse:

George Draper

References

• In the Pink: Dorothy Draper--America's Most Fabulous Decorator
• The Draper Touch: The High Life and High Style of Dorothy Draper