On May 13, Los Angeles-based interior designer Peter Dunham will be the featured speaker at the Women’s Committee Carnegie Museum of Art’s annual ON DEC fundraising event. We sat down to discuss his relationship to Pittsburgh, his process in putting together a talk, and more.

Talking Pittsburgh with Peter Dunham

Stephen Treffinger: Have you spent much time in Pittsburgh? 

Peter Dunham: I have, actually. My brother got married in State College, and Pittsburgh was the quickest and most interesting place to escape to.  

And I went to see Fallingwater and it was on the way. It was a long time ago, maybe 20 or 25 years, before the cultural renewal. 

ST: Is there something you’re looking forward to seeing? 

PD: I definitely want to see the Warhol Museum. We were friends when I was young. I was very much in his orbit in the 80s when I moved to New York—and also in Paris, where he and his business partner had an apartment. I also love to tour houses that are open to the public—such as Clayton, the home of the Henry Clay Frick family, as well as lots of other museums. 

ST: Can you tell us what your talk will be about? 

PD: It will be centered around my book, The World of Peter Dunham: Global Style from Paris to Hollywood, which came out in April of last year. I’ll talk about outdoor living and outdoor entertaining. I also have a collaboration with the brand Hudson Grace, which does a lot of tabletop. I may also talk about doing historic renovations, because we are called on to do those a lot.  

ST: How do you get ready for a big talk?

PD: I start thinking about who I’m speaking to, and what they’re likely to be interested in, and what time of the year it is. It’s May, so people are going to start thinking about summer and outdoor stuff. So I might also do something about travel, which is one of the themes in my book. I’ll think about the photographs that we can populate the lecture with. To pluck something the audience is not necessarily expecting. And then, you know, I need to figure out how I can make it entertaining. 

ST: Will you be signing books? 

PD: Yes. 

ST: And, finally, what do you love about your book? 

PD: Oh, dear. Wow! All of it. I was a very, very reluctant enter into the idea of doing a book. I felt it was going to be very exposing. I didn’t want to do a portfolio book, just a list of projects. That seemed to me very boring and static. I’d saved up quite a lot of projects that people did not want me to publish in magazines or did not want me to publish with their names attached. In a book, you don’t really have to worry about that, as you do with magazines now.

So one of the things I do like about the book is I was able to present these projects that I’d saved up that either didn’t resonate with editors, or they were just not timely, or they wouldn’t publish because of the anonymity. The book is a little bit all over the place. And so I think you dig into it, and the effect becomes a little bit subliminal, the effect of color and pattern, as you go through. We organized it obviously into certain themes, because it’s very hard to do a seamless or completely unstructured book. 

ST: Can you give an example? 

PD: We discuss the importance of finding cool light fixtures. I mean, you might think, ‘Oh, light fixtures are light fixtures.’ But to me, light fixtures are almost like sculptural pieces. They’re like the jewels on someone’s earlobes, you know. You can be dressed in a similar black dress, but if you put on some great piece of jewelry, you know, you have a completely different aspect. 

I tried not to make it some kind of glory piece of, you know, how great am I—but just try and give people ideas to take home and decorate with. 

Tickets available on the Women’s Committee website.

Plus, while you wait for his arrival, check out one of Dunham’s latest design projects, where he transforms a young couple’s home.

Story by Stephen Treffinger
Photo Courtesy of Victoria Hely-Hutchinson for Peter Dunham

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