(LENOX) – Author Maureen Footer will discuss how George Stacey shot to prominence with projects for fashion high-priestess Diana Vreeland and commissions for socialites with last names such as Astor, Paley, Harriman, and Whitney in the 1930s, continuing and extending the ideas established by Edith Wharton in “The Decorations of Houses,” in a talk at the Mount on Sunday, May 18, 2014, at 4pm.

Stacey’s work — avidly covered at the time by Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, House & Garden and Town & Country — defined American chic. The irreverence of his designs, combined with erudition, a flair for color, and an innate grasp of balance, scale, and proportion, produced rooms that were surprising and sophisticated, in a way that fit the modern American aesthetic of the 20th century.

Maureen Footer, herself a designer, is author the brand new book, George Stacey And The Creation Of American Chic (Rizzoli).