“This is now the fifth year Benjamin Moore has held the
HUE competition,” said Eileen McComb, director of corporate communications, Benjamin Moore. “And each year the
honorees’ work awes us with not simply a richness of color
but also with the scope of breathtaking talent and imagination. This year’s judges had no easy task in making their decisions, but it’s another group of amazing architects and
designers who will receive the HUEY. We are excited to salute
their individual achievements and add them to the esteemed
roster of what now numbers 29 honorees.”
Lifetime Achievement Honoree – Muriel
Brandolini
In the recently published book chronicling her work—The World
of Muriel Brandolini (Rizzoli, 2011)—the designer acknowledges
that “the freedom to live a colorful life” has enabled her to flex
her creative muscle.
Brandolini was born in Montpellier, France, to a French-Venezuelan mother and a Vietnamese father. She was the youngest
of four sisters, and the family first lived in Vietnam for 12 years
and then moved to Martinique in 1972. When she was 15, she was
sent to live with relatives in Paris where her interest and tastes for
fashion, architecture and design were well nourished. And, it was
an eventual move to New York City in her early twenties with no
job but an instinctive entrepreneurial spirit and fearless drive that
led to her emergence as an in-demand interiors artiste. Her own
living spaces became laboratories for experimentation in use of
color and texture, pattern and scale, as she constantly was redecorating—seized by an endless flow of creative ideas.
The HUE judges were struck by Brandolini’s innate sense of
color, and in reviewing her work remarked that she’s skillful at
applying color in subtle measures or dialing it up to a more vibrant and audacious palette. They also noted how effectively she
finesses the layering of colors to create spaces that seem less
planned and more organic or evolved. Overall, the judges found
her interiors “emotionally satisfying,” which won her high praise
and has become an indelible signature of her work.
Benjamin Moore’s Carl Minchew, director of color technology, and
Denis Abrams, president and CEO, presented interior designer Muriel
Brandolini with the HUE Lifetime Achievement Award.
Special Achievement Honoree – Virginia
McLaughlin
It’s not enough that this 89-year-old still climbs ladders and scaffolding to execute the extraordinary painted wall and ceiling murals for which she has earned acclaim. Virginia McLaughlin also
still manages to do aerobics three times a week, plus gets plenty
of exercise keeping up with her five-year-old grandchild.
McLaughlin describes herself as “an itinerant painter,” traveling
job to job, whether it’s for a private home, an institution or commercial property. McLaughlin was awarded with a HUE Special
Achievement award for the nearly 120 murals she has painstakingly hand-painted since 1977.
McLaughlin, who lives in Frederick, Md., often is commissioned to paint murals representative of the local history and
landscape, and her work can be found in homes and even some
restaurants and inns throughout Maryland, Virginia and the
Mid-Atlantic region. Her work is inspired by the early 19th cen-
tury American landscape painter Rufus Porter and also, from
that era, a series of hand-blocked wallpaper from manufacturer
Jean Zuber called “Scenic America.”
Benjamin Moore’s Regal eggshell paint is her preferred
medium. “It’s easy to work with, is forgiving and stands the test
of time,” she said. McLaughlin also recently told the editor of
her hometown magazine, Elegant Living, that she favors the
