Wednesday 5 November 2008

Celia Birtwell Apres L'Ondee





I'm a big fan of Celia Birtwell. I also love the work of her sadly deceased husband Ossie Clark but that is for another post.

Celia seems to have walked a sometimes difficult road always with grace and always on her own terms. She has also achieved the seemingly difficult position of being a very relevant lady in her later years. Her website is here and is filled with lovely textiles. She also designs capsule collections for Topshop which I have found to be not only lovely but of very good quality for the price.

On reading my Vogue yesterday (I'm not normally this obsessed with an issue honestly!) there was a little feature on people's extravagances. Celia Birtwell named hers as perfume (she is one of us!) and said how much she loves Apres L'Ondee. I don't know why this pleased me so but it did. It is just perfect for her, perfume can tell you so much about a person.

You can read more about the David Hockney painting Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy here picture courtesy of Wikipedia.

Picture of Celia Birtwell courtesy of www.independent.co.uk

6 comments:

Perfumeshrine said...

Perfume CAN tall you a lot about a person. (Ossie Clark was massively talented btw).

And...you've been tagged!
http://perfumeshrine.blogspot.com/2008/11/tagged-yet-again.html

The Daily Connoisseur said...

Love that painting... it just brings you in...

Rose said...

Hi Helg/ Perfumeshrine, Yes and it's one of the things I love about perfume. Yes wasn't Ossie Clark a genius.

How exciting! I will write my six things as soon as I can!

Rose said...

Hi Daily, I like David Hockney in general but my friend actually highlighted this one to me and I agree it does draw you in. There is so much love there, between the two models although their love wasn't regular and also between the artist and his subjects.

Unknown said...

I a few years ago I got to see the paint up close and personel and really was beautiful, but then again I found Hockney very much showed his love for Celia in his paintings (well at least the ones my friend and I saw of his featuring her). I had know idea that Celia was an artist in her own right.

Rose said...

Hi Jenavira, yes there is a touching quality to this painting, an intimacy, I honestly can't remember other Hockney work on Celia so I will have to look that up. Yes Celia Birtwell is a fantastic textile designer.