Curtis Moffat

Edwin Curtis Moffat (October 11, 1887 – 1949) was a London-based American abstract photographer, painter and modernist interior designer.

Four years later, he opened an interior design showroom and gallery, displaying a combination of modern, antique and African tribal furnishings.

His large and striking black and white portraits of friends such as the Sitwells, Lady Diana Cooper, Augustus John and Nancy Cunard[3] influenced Cecil Beaton,[5] among others.

[2] In 1929, financed by the American millionaire Jock Whitney, he opened a gallery, Curtis Moffat Ltd., at 4 Fitzroy Square in London.

The showrooms combined modern interior design and lighting with one of the first major collections of African tribal sculpture in London.

Objects for sale ranged from 16th century antiques to rugs by Edward McKnight Kauffer and Marion Dorn, and modern china, silver and glass.

His large house in Fitzroy Square, perhaps the first and most original of the so-called modern interiors of the late Twenties and early Thirties, was the meeting place for many of the celebrated painters, writers, critics and designers of the day.

His photographic archive and papers relating to his gallery, Curtis Moffat Ltd., are held and exhibited in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

[2] A book, edited by Martin Barnes with essays by Mark Haworth-Booth and James Stevenson, Curtis Moffat: Silver Society.