Enter Richard Shapiro’s new book Past Perfect and prepare to be transported. Dive into its pages of exquisite photography by Jason Schmidt, sensitively designed by Mary Shanahan, and you will enter another realm. Take a deep breath of air redolent of ancient eras and far off places and then exhale as you make your arrival into his homes full of “serenity, beauty and wonder,” as Mayer Rus so aptly describes it in his foreword.
The world of Richard Shapiro is not merely beautiful, it is a passionate evocation of beauty – a subtle yet meaningful distinction. The book encompasses his two homes, both highly personal romantic visions, or as he depicts, “fictions crafted and composed to allow for the suspension of your awareness of time and place.”
Created with an obsessive fervor for all that he loves – art, antiquities, architecture, travel – these houses contain a level of authenticity, details and brilliant juxtapositions that few would have the knowledge, patience or eye to complete.…
