An irreverent Mel Bochner text painting strikes a playful note over an 18th-century mantelpiece in the Manhattan apartment designer Brian McCarthy shares with his partner, Daniel Sager. To the left of the fireplace, a Marc Bankowsky lambswool-clad stool and a monkey table by Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne join a Jonas armchair beneath an Albert Oehlen artwork. On the right, a small Pino Pascali painting hangs next to a W. P. Sullivan lamp, a 1930s French lacquer side table, and a Joaquim Tenreiro lounge chair.

Daniel Sager is seated beneath a Günther Förg work, while Brian McCarthy stands in front of a piece by Wallen Mapondera, and their dog, Vita, relaxes on the dining room’s Beauvais Carpets rug.

In designer Brian McCarthy and Daniel Sager’s New York apartment, the living room features an evocative work by influential German artist Albert Oehlen, whose collage-esque paintings meld abstract and figurative forms with frenetic energy. “We both had an immediate, heart-stopping reaction when we saw this piece,” says McCarthy. The ceiling, meanwhile, is painted in Benjamin Moore’s Mississippi Mud. “I wanted the ceiling to go with the shadow in the canvas,” he adds.

Claude Lalanne consoles and House of Heydenryk mirrors frame the opening between the living and dining rooms.

A monumental artwork by William Pope.L presides over the dining room, where McCarthy installed a Claude Lalanne chandelier above a glass-top table with a Gio Ponti base and Jean Royère–inspired chairs with Toyine Sellers upholstery. The painting in the window is by Walter Price.

The gallerylike central hallway features a Patrice Dangel plaster and bronze light fixture above an Alma Allen sculpture and a painting by Jonathan Lyndon Chase. 

Depicting intimate scenes of emotional strife, Philadelphia artist Jonathan Lyndon Chase’s vivid paintings are coveted by collectors and institutions alike. (In fact, the Baltimore Museum of Art just acquired a work.) “Jonathan is a true storyteller,” says McCarthy. “He’s like a modern Matisse.” Chase recently had a solo show at Company Gallery in New York.

In the entry hall of the New York apartment of Brian McCarthy and Daniel Sager, a colorful Günther Förg painting (right) is joined by a Patrice Dangel plaster-and-bronze chandelier, a canvas by Doron Langberg, and a sculpture by Alma Allen.

French artisan Patrice Dangel, who trained at the legendary École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, devised a bespoke light fixture for the entry hall. “Patrice is the most wonderful artist I’ve ever worked with,” gushes McCarthy. “He does everything himself so you can always see his hand.” The Olympe chandelier was crafted in golden bronze and features graceful alabaster cups.

Utilizing mediums such as stone, wood, and bronze, Utah-born sculptor Alma Allen conjures playful creations that possess an otherworldly allure. One of his mysterious sculptures graces the couple’s entry hall, its squat figure enhanced with a beak-like protrusion. In summer 2021, Allen took over Kasmin’s rooftop garden with a poetic exhibition of large-scale bronzes. “The way he works with patinas and finishes I thought was beautiful,” says McCarthy.

The lounge, which the couple calls the Not for Guest Room, was conceived as a space for regularly changing salon-style displays of smaller artworks. The largest is a Mika Rottenberg piece above the Jonas sofa.

“It’s like a sea creature,” says McCarthy of this intricate forged mild steel work by Japanese artist Junko Mori, who finds inspiration in plant matter’s microscopic complexity. “It looks so delicate, but it probably weighs 15 pounds.”

The bedroom’s Louis Cane cabinet hosts a small Michael Armitage artwork as well as a lamp, a vase, and an animal-head tray by Hubert Le Gall, with a work by William Pope.L on the wall behind.

A dynamic Hervé Van der Straeten light fixture crowns the bedroom, where McCarthy amped up the pattern with a John Rosselli & Associates wall covering and carpeting from Beauvais Carpets. A painting by Edi Hila is centered over the Jonas bed, which is dressed in Julia B. linens, while Stephen Antonson lamps top antique French tables on either side, and a work by Greg Haberny surmounts a Caleb Woodard cabinet.

A personality-filled Campana Brothers chair and a handmade cabinet by Caleb Woodard perfectly play off one another in the primary bedroom. “We needed to fill this hole, and Caleb was the only person whose work had the right softness of form, movement, and functionality,” explains McCarthy of the commission.

Sager’s bath is sheathed in richly veined Invisible Grey marble, which McCarthy found at Italian stone company Antolini. “I’d never seen anything with this yellow in it before,” he recalls. “It’s Mother Nature’s art at work.”