Denning & Fourcade, Inc.
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Robert Denning & Vincent Fourcade, Inc. (1960 – 2006) was an interior design firm which for over forty years was a leader in opulent interiors with offices in New York City and Paris.
Founded in 1960 by Robert Denning, a protégé of Edgar de Evia, and Vincent Fourcade son of the French banking family who grew up with the Rothschilds. Their first client was Lillian (Bostwick) Phipps who they entertained together with others from New York society in the oppulent Rhinelander Mansion, which Denning shared with deEvia.
Their work would be featured through the years in most major interior and fashion magazines including Architectural Digest, Arts & Decoration, House & Garden, Town & Country and many others. The home that they decorated for Henry Kravis was parodied in the 1990 movie "The Bonfire of the Vanities" with Tom Hanks.
The firm has been known for their extensive architectural changes to existing structures, as in the partners own home in the Lombardy Hotel in Manhattan, where ceilings and walls are torn out to the structural foundations and then new and elaborate columns, panels, and moldings are used for base resurfacing before the application of fabrics and polychrome. Their work with new homes, from ocean front to city penthouses have also created unique spaces for clients which transport one to other cultures and centuries.
They have also applied their skills to commercial applications which inclued the lobby at the Lombardy Hotel in 1996 and Etoile Restaurant which is located in the hotel several years earlier. Here Denning used his signature arm lamps with fringed shades and numerous reproduction paintings made from his own originals, housed in his apartments in Manhattan and Paris. The restaurant today is known as Table 12 and retains the earlier decorating. Denning also did the offices for the Carlisle Collection [Visit to the Carlisle Showroom] retrieved June 29, 2006 in New York City which was founded by another client William Rondina.
Clients of note have included Countess Rattazzi, for whom Denning did homes in Manhattan, South America and Italy, Charles and Jayne Wrightsman; Henry Kissinger; Oscar de la Renta, Jean Vanderbilt, the Ogden Phipps family, Phyllis Cerf Wagner, Lynette and Richard Merillat, Henry P. McIlhenny[Henry P. McIlhenny papers] and many others.
Two of their clients have collections named for them at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: The Wrightsman Galleries and The Henry R. Kravis Wing. These include works and objects some of which were originally procured by the firm for the private homes of their clients.
The firm has always participated in charity benifits such as the auction to benefit Friends in Deed, a counseling organization for people with AIDS and cancerButtons, bows and Damask: Designer Chairs at Auction by Elaine Louie, December 12, 1996, New York Times [online] retrieved June 29, 2006 to decorating the main foyer of the von Stade mansion to benefit Southampton's Rogers Memorial Library. Southampton Show House to Open Doors by Suzanne Slesin, June 30, 1983, New York Times [online] retrieved June 29, 2006
Fourcade died of AIDS in 1992Vincent Fourcade, 58, Decorator Known for His Ornate Interiors by Carol Vogel, December 25, 1992, New York Times obituary and the firm was desolved after Denning's death on August 26, 2005. "Robert Denning Dies at 78; Champion of Lavish Décor", by Mitchell Owens, September 4, 2005, New York Times obituary
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