Rago Auctions

This collection of furniture (lots 553-580) by Paul Evans and Phillip Lloyd Powell was acquired, and in many cases commissioned, by my parents, Rina and Norman Indictor, during the course of their almost 60-year marriage.

My mother is fond of saying that Paul and Phil saved their marriage. My parents met in person in their 20s, but their courtship was carried out largely by post. When my mother moved to Princeton in 1959 and saw the house her new husband rented for them, she sobbed bitterly. Their ideas about living spaces and interior design were, at the outset, incompatible, it seemed, and they could not agree on how to furnish their new home. One day, while driving through New Hope, they chanced upon Paul and Phil’s shop. For once, they agreed: they liked the chairs. Paul and Phil quickly sized up my parents and realized they were ready for some sessions of furniture therapy.

“How much money do you have?” Paul asked (I guess it was Paul; Phil didn’t like to talk about money very much). They worked within my parents’ paltry budget, advising them to return the carpets they had bought at a department store, replacing them with some inexpensive antiques. And they filled the downstairs of the house, which my parents set up as an art gallery, with furniture that they both loved.

The basis of my parents’ relationship was their shared love of art. The furniture drew them together, and the push towards antiques was the catalyst they needed to develop their aesthetic preferences together. They moved twice, first to Brooklyn, in 1963, and then to Manhattan in 1966, each time asking Paul and Phil to reinstall their works, adapting them to the new space.

My parents were especially close with Phil. Every so often he would come to the apartment in Manhattan, and they would talk about furniture they fantasized about. He would take measurements, and return a few months, or even a year or two later, with new surprises. My parents would occasionally give him small bits of metalwork or other antique items, and he would incorporate these into his works. Or he would come across the odd knickknack that reminded him of my parents and incorporate it into his designs.

How sad they both were when Phil died. My mother kept a picture of him on her desk; she mourned his passing, but I think that they both never imagined a time would come when they could no longer ask Phil to bring them new creations.

Nyr Indictor
Ossining, New York
April 4, 2023