Vincent Gabriel Fourcade (27 February 1934 – 23 December 1992) was a Frenchinterior designer and the business and life partner ofRobert Denning. "Outrageous luxury is what our clients want," he once said.^[1]

"Born...to a family of distinguished French aesthetes, the designer spent many of his formative years in a twenty-bedroom house replete with made-to-orderMajorelle furnishings."^[2] "I learned my trade by going out every evening as a young man," he told art historianRosamond Bernier. "I went to every pretty house in France and Italy and other places too, and I remembered them all, even down to what was on each little table." Vincent was educated at University College London.

Fourcade was son of the French banking family, who had grown up with theRothschilds.^[3][4]

A handsome^[5] eligible bachelor, he was never without invitations in the United States either. He tried a career in banking, the business of his father and grandfather in Paris. He met Robert Denning in 1959. Denning aprotégé ofEdgar de Evia, had acquired an eye for design and effect from working with the photographer on sets for many fabric and furniture accounts, and with whom he shared one of the most magnificent Manhattan apartments on the top three floors of theRhinelander Mansion. It would be here that early clients such asLillian Bostwick Phipps and her husbandOgden Phipps would be entertained as de Evia was spending more and more time on his estate inGreenwich, Connecticut. While Vincent would take Ogden Phipps to good dealers where he would spend millions of dollars on signed pieces of French furniture, Bob would take Lillian Bostwick Phipps down to 11th Street. "It infuriated Vincent. He used to say 'Bobby, you have ruined the Phippses for me by giving Mrs. Phipps that strange appetite for 11th Street.'"^[6]

Fourcade and Denning later shared a red brick mansion on East 73rd Street in Manhattan and a house they built in Bridgehampton, Long Island; both houses were the subjects of articles in decorating magazines around the world.

Slowly the pair became known for an extreme of luxury compared tole goût Rothschild. An early party that they styled included covering the floor with a hundred old raccoon coats. In 1960 they formed the firm ofDenning & Fourcade, Inc. which would for over forty-five years set a standard for a list of clients that read like a social registry. Referred to inNew York magazine as "...the Odd Couple. Boyish, down-to-earth Denning is the hardest worker, while Fourcade sniffs the client air to gauge if it's socially registered before he goes beyond the fringe."^[7] Early clients included old friends that he had known socially such asMichel David-Weill.^[8]Jackie Kennedy met his mark and two of her notes to him survive, the first thanking him for his letter after the assassination of her brother-in-lawRobert F. Kennedy, with the cancellation over her signature since as the widow of a president of the United States she still hadfranking privileges. She lost this when she remarried. The other, a handwritten note postmarked 28 October 1976 over a thirteen cent stamp —

Dear Vincent, I have never eaten such delicious food in such incredibly beautiful surroundings in my life. Thank you sovery very much. affectionately Jackie.

The return address also handwritten – Onassis, 1040 5th Ave.

Early in the 1980s Fourcade contractedAIDS. He kept his looks and strength through most of that decade as Denning and he would divide their time between New York and Paris, crossing the Atlantic on theConcorde. His older brotherXavier Fourcade, the internationally known contemporary art dealer, died of the disease in 1987 atSt. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York City.

By 1990 the disease would take control of his life. In early 1992 Denning & Fourcade would take the Concorde to Paris for the final time. He would live his remaining days in their apartment^[9] at 16 rue de Chazelles, just up the street from the studio of the sculptorFrédéric Bartholdi who is best known for theStatue of Liberty.

• Robert Denning and Vincent Fourcade's Official Homepage
• Franklin Report Card atThe Franklin Report