Medinīpur Sandra Nunnerley is a woman widely known for her exquisite interiors, her conspicuous elegance, and ability to find key artists and artisans as she travels the globe to bring her clients the crème de la crème when it comes to design. As the famed designer develops a line of occasional tables for Maison Gerard and rug collection for The Rug Company, High End Weekly© recently spoke to her after her successful project for Sotheby’s third annual Designer Showhouse & Auction. The international auction house selected twelve interior designers and design firms to create one unique room within a home constructed within the fifth-floor exhibition space of Sotheby’s Manhattan headquarters.

High End Weekly©: Tell us about your inspiration for the room you designed at the 3rd annual Sotheby’s Designer Showhouse? How did it come about?

Sandra Nunnerley: Furniture as functional art is very inspirational to me at the moment and Sotheby’s had several functional art pieces that I was able to use in the Family Room I designed for the Showhouse. Two pieces were particularly interesting — the Rock Chaise by Studio Job (out of Antwerp – current exhibition at the Museum of Art and Design) and Zaha Hadid‘s “Gyre” lounge chair from the Seamless series (who sadly passed away right before the Showhouse opened) – they are great examples of furniture as functional art. It was exciting to create a functional Family Room around these two fantastic pieces and juxtapose their forms and shapes with other wonderfully designed pieces of furniture and lighting by Max Ingrand, Armand Jonckers, Oscar Niemeyer and art by Gerhard Richter, James Rosenquist, Robert Longo and Andy Warhol. I’m always inspired by the conversations that pieces from a range of periods have in a room.

High End Weekly©: Was this the first showhouse you got to take part in? If not, how was it different from the rest?

Sandra Nunnerley: I have done 3 Kips Bay show houses over the course of my career and my first for Sotheby’s. This one was different from the rest because Sotheby’s had an existing group of furniture and art and the 12 designers were asked to choose pieces from the existing inventory.

High End Weekly©: Sotheby’s requested that you selected works from an array of their departments to furnish your Family Room, including 20th Century Design, English & Continental Furniture, Ceramics, Fine Arts, Prints, Silver, and Photographs. How was this experience different, if at all, from designing for your clients?

Sandra Nunnerley: It was different because all the Sotheby’s inventory was divided via a lottery system among the 12 participating designers. The lottery made the design process a bit of a jigsaw puzzle and the experts at Sotheby’s who I have worked with for years were instrumental in helping pull together a cohesive room. Stacy Goodman, the head of Pre-Colombian art, Jean Fritts and Alex Grogan in the African and Oceanic departments lent pieces from their upcoming sales that really gave the room a point of view. Usually for my own clients, they are starting a home from scratch and I am the one responsible for sourcing all the items from a wide array of sources — shops, galleries, auction houses, etc. In this instance, Sotheby’s was the client who came to me with a lot of existing furniture and wanted to use it in a new and fresh manner.

High End Weekly©: Over the years, you’ve worked with a number of artists to curate some of the most exclusive collections for your clients. What sorts of art (or artist) catches your eye?

Sandra Nunnerley: It really depends on the client’s point of view and I enjoy working with lots of different art and artists. Right now I’m very interested in color field painters from the 50s and 60s, non-objective school, contemporary Chinese ink, photography, Outsider Art and Primitive.

High End Weekly©: Are there any major design trends or ideas that influenced your design aesthetics?

Sandra Nunnerley: I strive to create timeless environments that transcend periods…. “classic meets contemporary” … I love mixing traditional and modern periods with contemporary design. The interplay between modern and traditional fascinates me.

High End Weekly©: If you had to choose a favorite element of artists to collaborate with, what would it be?

Sandra Nunnerley: Recently, I’ve found that the artists and artisans working in Korea are very interesting. Kwangho Lee and Choi Byung Hoon.

High End Weekly©: Where do you look for inspiration?

Sandra Nunnerley: I’m always “looking” — going to art fairs, shows, galleries and museums. you never know what you’ll find or when you’ll see something in a new way. For me travel is also important — I love to discover new artists or modes of expression that are not well-known.

High End Weekly©: Tell us, if you were to work on a high-end furniture line, what would you call it, and what would be the inspiration behind it?

Sandra Nunnerley: We are currently developing a line of occasional tables for Maison Gerard and I’m excited about our rugs collection that will launch this fall for The Rug Company. We are also working on a line of fabrics and a lighting line which are to be announced.

High End Weekly©: Congratulations! What are some of your other most recent interior design projects?

Sandra Nunnerley: A home in Palm Beach, a chalet in Aspen, a pied-à-terre in New York, a penthouse in Berlin, a residence in New Zealand.

High End Weekly©: Where are your go-to museums and galleries?

Sandra Nunnerley: Tate London, The Norton Simon Museum in LA – a great building designed by Frank Gehry with wonderful gardens – I like the fact that it is a museum which has a very strong point of view as a collector’s eye. For similar reasons, the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia is also very interesting as it is one person’s collection. The Met on a Friday night is always a great choice too.