Oliver Messel is best known as a theatre designer, but is remarkable for the diversity of his work, his creative talents being applied to ballet and opera, cookbooks and shoe shops.
He was born in January 1904 into a prosperous and artistic family, the third child of Leonard and Maud Messel. His father was a partner in the family banking firm and his mother was the daughter of Edward Linley Sambourne, the Punch cartoonist. His early artistic talents were encouraged: he enrolled at the Slade School of Fine Art in 1922, was apprenticed to the portrait and landscape painter John Wells, and exhibited as a painter throughout his career.
Building on his penchant for dressing-up and fancy dress parties, he began to make papier maché masks, and it was at an exhibition of these masks that his work came to the attention of two impresarios, and was to mark the beginning of his long career in theatre: Sergei Diaghilev commissioned him to design for the Ballets Russes and Charles Cochran for his popular revues.
His sets and costumes were graceful and romantic, drawing on the elegance of the eighteenth century and imbued with a whimsical charm. His work in theatre, ballet and opera delighted his audiences and applause resonated as soon as the curtain lifted. This popularity was translated into financial success and Messel became the highest paid theatre designer in Britain and the first to receive a percentage of box office takings.
The glamour of film appealed and in 1934 Messel was commissioned to design costumes and sets for The Private Life of Don Juan, starring Douglas Fairbanks and Merle Oberon, paving the way to the bright lights of Hollywood.
On the outbreak World War II, Messel joined the Royal Engineers as a Camouflage Officer, stationed in Norwich. His skills as a set designer were redeployed to disguise pill-boxes, which Messel accomplished with inimitable flair, recreating haystacks, ruined buildings, gothic temples and gypsy caravans.
When peace was declared, the first post-war production at the Royal Opera House was Sleeping Beauty, staged in February 1946. Messel fashioned a sumptuous set, designing over two hundred costumes and all the scenery, creating an enchanting evocation of tradition and elegance which suited the mood of the nation. The production was revived over a number of years, travelled to America, was filmed and shown on television, and was recreated in 2006 to mark the 60th anniversary of the re-opening of the Opera House.
In 1950, Messel designed his first opera at Glyndebourne, and continued working with the opera house for the next ten years. As with all his commissions, he researched his subject thoroughly, creating costumes and sets which enhanced the music and immersed the audience. His costumes were also practical, comfortable to wear and durable. Acknowledging the artistry and artifice of theatre, he used unconventional materials to create the effects he envisaged, including pipe-cleaners, sweet wrappers, chandelier drops and dishcloths.
Success brought awards, and Messel received the CBE in 1958 for services to theatre, a Tony award in 1955 and an Oscar nomination in 1960. However, by the mid-1950s, tastes in theatre were changing and Messel’s dreamy elegance did not lend itself to the staging of kitchen sink dramas. He turned his attention to interior design, working for friends and private clients, including at Parham House and Flaxley Abbey, and designing textiles for the silk-manufacturer Sekers. In 1953, he was commissioned to decorate two new suites at the Dorchester Hotel in London. Employing his own brand of subtle Regency sophistication, comfortable yet opulent, these rooms were to become the most sought-after in London, and are now known as the Messel Suite.
Following a holiday to Barbados in the winter of 1959, Messel decided to move to the island, finding an affinity with the climate and the people. In 1966 he sold his London home and moved with his companion Vagn Riis-Hansen to Barbados, where he transformed a derelict plantation house into a stylish residence, filling it with his favourite pet monkeys. This house, known as ‘Maddox’, was greatly admired and led to commissions all over the island. Messel designed seventeen houses, mainly in Barbados but also on other islands in the West Indies, including ‘Les Jolies Eaux’ on Mustique for Princess Margaret, who had married Messel’s nephew Anthony Armstrong-Jones. The particular shade of green which characterised his designs has become immortalised as ‘Messel green’.
Oliver Messel died in Barbados in July 1978 and his body was returned to Nymans, the family home in West Sussex. His ashes are interred in the Wall Garden at Nymans where his life is commemorated by a stone urn. At the memorial service held at St Martin-in-the-Fields in London, the bishop commended Messel and gave thanks for ‘the divine gift which he possessed of taking the common things of earth and fashioning them into objects of rare and enduring beauty’.
Further reading:
Charles Castle, Oliver Messel, 1986
Thomas Messel (ed), Oliver Messel: In the Theatre of Design, 2011
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