Parker & Morris - the Art of Decorating
5th April 2024
An auction devoted entirely to an eclectic collection of items amassed over 60 years by renowned interior designers Derek Parker and Peter Wynne Morris will feature as part of Woolley & Wallis’s series of furniture, collections and works of arts sales this month.
Parker & Morris; The Art of Decorating comprises 342 lots which represent a snapshot of the glamourous lives of the couple, their various homes in Scotland, England, France, Monte Carlo, Australia and the United States and their passion for collecting and antique dealing.
Presented in conjunction with Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler, one of today’s most famous firms of interior decorators that had a long and close association with Parker & Morris, the auction on 17th April will feature such diverse lots as a collection of rare Manus Island green tree snail shells, found only on the island in Papua New Guinea, porcelain figures and bowls, art works, furniture and furnishings and books.
In association with the auction, on April 10th, Hampshire interior designer, Charlotte Stuart, who has a long-standing association with Colefax and Fowler will give the 8th Tim Woolley Memorial Lecture, covering the firm’s history and its association with the collection of Parker & Morris.
Derek and Peter who spent their later years in Salisbury, were good friends with Tim Woolley and clients of Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury for many years.
Roger Jones, a director at Sibyl Colefax and John Fowler, met Derek and John when he joined the company in 1994 and said they were regular visitors to the showrooms whenever they were in London.
“They had a business connection with the company as well, as for a number of years they ran the Australian Colefax and Fowler showroom,” said. “The influence of Colefax and Fowler is evident in the way they decorated their various houses in the 1970s and 1980s, a sort of ‘full’ Colefax and Fowler look; busier and more exuberant than the way in which we work today. There are many pieces in the sale which historically relate to Sibyl Colefax and John Fowler.”
Born in Leith near Edinburgh, Derek Parker first met Melbourne-born Peter Morris in 1959, the beginning of a professional and personal relationship which would last for the rest of their lives. In his early years as an interior designer, Derek worked on some of the great houses of Scotland, including Lennoxlove in East Lothian, home of the Duke of Hamilton, Lennel in Berwickshire where he designed and decorated the ballroom and Eden Hall, home of the Earl and Countess of Dalkeith. He also worked for the Queen and designed some of the cushions at Holyrood House.
In London, where they opened a showroom, they lived in Winston Churchill’s bachelor's pad and were dubbed the “best dressed men in Mayfair” but their interior design business took them around the world.
One time residents of Monte Carlo, they bought an apartment beneath Shirley Bassey’s and drove around in a powder blue convertible Rolls Royce, the same car as Princess Grace. They also bought a house in Roquebrune in France and leased Netherhampton House in Wiltshire, once home to Siegfried Sassoon. Many of the items in the auction were displayed at Netherhampton House.
They wintered in Australia and spent summer in Europe and wherever they lived and travelled they indulged in their passion for collecting unique and interesting pieces, furniture and works of art, decorating each of their homes, in what Derek described as “appropriate to the style of the house”.
“Interiors are governed greatly by what people own to what they aspire. Houses should, after all, be an expression of one’s personality and lifestyle,” he said.
The proceeds of the auction will be donated to the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, which already owns Peter’s collection of French 18th century white porcelain.
