Washington Winter Show 2023

47 The ambiance of the living room and of other rooms in Bunny Mellon’s several homes are beautifully portrayed in a series of watercolors that Bunny Mellon commissioned in the 1970s from the author and artist Snowy Campbell. The entire series of more than a hundred fascinating images that capture artworks, furniture, ceramics, books and much else from all of Bunny Mellon’s homes is being readied for publication by the Oak Spring Garden Foundation. Bunny Mellon’s creative contributions extended well beyond the harmonious assembly of the productions of others. She was an active participant in the creation of art and beauty. She corresponded with many great designers, including Syrie Maugham, Billy Baldwin and Paul Leonard, and her creative instincts found especially vigorous expression in her partnerships with the sculptor and designer Diego Giacometti, her couturiers Cristóbal Balenciaga and Hubert de Givenchy, and the jewelry designer Jean Schlumberger. Her sustained engagement with Giacometti resulted in multiple items of furniture and other works, including a spectacular chandelier that hung in her Antigua home. She secured Givenchy’s participation in developing and fabricating unique Point de Beauvais embroidered linens for her table and bedrooms. With Schlumberger she commissioned and helped design unique jewelry and many other objects that often incorporate botanical or sea life motifs. Bunny Mellon in her formal greenhouse holding a myrtle tree in a clay pot, and to the right is her Norwich Terrier, Patrick, Oak Spring, 1982. Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Upperville, Virginia. Fred Conrad, photographer.