Sean Scherer's Kabinett & Kammer: Creating Authentic Interiors

Interior designer, artist, and collector Sean Scherer shares his secrets about applying the principles of two-dimensional art to home design

“The book is a keeper. A must have on my list.” —Robert Ruffino, Style Director of House Beautiful

Sean Scherer’s Kabinett & Kammer is equally a celebration and a guide to both collecting and showing how lively design can integrate disparate objects into beautifully layered ensembles. Scherer’s interiors feature vintage display cabinets housing discarded collections of whittled songbirds, stunning 19th-century maps and school teaching aids, ferns in cast-iron planters, and photomurals. The effect is a supercharged nod to American Gothic heightened by Scherer’s sophisticated palette and sense of proportion. Each photograph by William Abranowicz is a lesson on color and texture, focal points, and room size.

Illustrated with over 200 color photographs and with a foreword by Anderson Cooper, whose house Scherer helped design, Kabinett & Kammer demonstrates that though styles fluctuate, and tastes are unique, the principles of design are immutable, and good design is good design.

“Expect to find just as many objets d’art scattered across the pages of Scherer’s book, as well as a newfound desire to go antiquing.” —Modern Luxury

Sean Scherer studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Independent Study Program of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. His paintings have been shown extensively in North America and Europe. In 2002 he moved to the Catskills, where he opened his shop, Kabinett & Kammer, a contemporary curiosity shop of antiques, natural wonders, and art that serves as a visual medical, botanical, and zoological design resource. His art and design work has been featured in the New York Times and elsewhere. For fifteen years, until 2020, Scherer taught art history and design at the State University of New York at Oneonta. William Abranowicz’s photographs are in collections worldwide and have appeared in nearly every major publication. His books include American Originals: Creative Interiors. Anderson Cooper is the anchor of the CNN news show Anderson Cooper 360°.