There is—literally—a man behind the design of the post office in Pieter Brattinga’s (1931-2004) De Man Achter de Vormgeving van de P.T.T. This poster is for a 1960 exhibition by the Dutch postal service, the PTT (then the Staatsbedrijf der Posterijen, Telegrafie en Telefonie; now the Koninklijke PTT Nederland). The PTT, founded in the nineteenth century, has promoted contemporary art since the 1920s through stamp designs and by sponsoring exhibitions. To create this poster, Brattinga innovatively used printing technology to create a layered design. Brattinga used the image of a man as the base of his design. Over that, he printed a translucent layer of white ink, using it to create a pattern with PTT logo above the exhibition title and to convey exhibition details below the title. Brattinga then emphasized the exhibition title by overprinting in a bold red. This poster is characteristic of Brattinga’s work, which balances his design aesthetic with the clear presentation of information.   

De Man Achter de Vormgeving van de P.T.T. is just one example of how Brattinga was able to meld aesthetic harmony with commercial design. Brattinga learned printing at an early age in his grandfather’s printing company, and his upbringing in both art and printing made him a highly effective mediator between printers and clients. Brattinga manipulated techniques used during and after World War II to create his designs. As a result of wartime shortages, some printers began overprinting basic colors to create a range of colors while saving ink. They also adopted rotary presses and used offset lithographic printing in lieu of traditional lithography. In this particular design, Brattinga plays with layering as the basis of his design concept.  

Brattinga is a main figure in both postwar Dutch graphic design and the illustrious history of Dutch printing. His distinctive approach to printing technology has had a major influence on contemporary graphic design.

Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum? is a poster designed by the Guerrilla Girls - a radical feminist collective – in order to draw attention to rampant discrimination against women artists in the curatorial collections of major museums. Legendary for their guerrilla tactics, gorilla masks and take-no-prisoners attitude, the Guerrilla Girls name names and point fingers with no apologies. The Guerrilla Girls were formed in New York in 1985 as a response to a survey of contemporary art at the Museum of Modern Art in which only 13 of the 169 artists represented were women. Unsatisfied with the effects of their demonstrations outside the museum, a group of women artist protestors joined together in order to more directly confront issues of gender representation in the art world.

For the past several decades, the Guerilla Girls have created posters, billboards and ad campaigns that reveal disturbing statistics about the representation of women artists in major museum collections. The use of graphic design has become a characteristic technique for the Guerrilla Girls’ activist art. Graphic design brings controversial criticisms of the art world out of the sacred space of museums and into the general public. Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?  was featured in New York City public buses in 1989, and has since become one of the most famous of the Guerrilla Girls’ interventions. The bold colors and compelling imagery make the poster impossible to ignore.

For their striking poster design, the Girls have drawn from an icon of the 19^th century Western Art canon, Jean-August-Dominique Ingres’ Grande Odalisque.   An odalisque is an image of a female slave in an Oriental harem, often depicted reclining and nude, or semi-nude. Ingres’ Grande Odalisque has become a symbol of idealized female beauty.[1] The face of Ingres’ Odalisque has been replaced by the same gorilla mask that the Guerrilla Girls don to reveal their identities when appearing in public. By collaging their signature gorilla mask onto the Grande Odalisque, the Guerrilla Girls explode this classic symbol of female sexuality. The Grande Odalisque has been “mask-ulinized.”[2]

The Guerrilla Girls have released several editions of the Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum? poster. These editions either feature a recount of the statistics from the Modern sections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, or using the same design to attack different museums. The Guerrilla Girls remark in their 2012 publication, The Guerrilla Girls’ Updated Art Museum Activity Book: “We were sure things had improved, but surprise! Only 4% of the artists in the Modern and Contemporary sections were women, but 76% of the nudes were female. Fewer women artists, more naked males. Is this progress? Guess we can’t put our masks away yet.”[3]

When IBM premiered its boxy, geometric logotype in 1956, designed by Paul Rand, the idea of a coordinated corporate identity system was just taking off. Indeed, Rand’s logo design set the mark for a new standard of graphic communication in business. A corporate identity was intended to be more than a logo, however: it was conceived as a broader program encompassing signage, letterheads, packaging, publications, and more.

Angelo Testa designed the printed linen fabric shown here. Testa attended the School of Design—the “New Bauhaus”—in Chicago in the 1940s. Studying there with modernist pioneers László Moholy-Nagy, Gyorgy Kepes, and Marli Ehrman (a weaver), Testa was the school’s first graduate. Founding his own firm in 1947, he went on to create original textiles in a bold, painterly style. He started out cutting his own stencils and screen-printing his fabrics by hand.  When his business grew after World War II, he hired printer Ruben Auguilar to produce his company’s fabrics. Testa also conceived designs that were printed by other manufacturers. Designing patterns primarily for use within the architecture and interior design trade, his clients included many of the leading producers of mid-century modern furniture and fabrics, including Herman Miller, Knoll Associates, and Jens Risom.

Little is known about how the IBM fabric was used or how closely Rand and Testa worked on the design. By presenting the logo in several line weights as well as in solid blue, Rand and Testa imparted a varied tone and texture to the overall pattern. Several other designers at the time created patterns based on corporate logos. Below, William Golden, art director for CBS, is shown lounging against a wall covered with the famous “eye” he created in 1951, inspired by a Pennsylvania Dutch hex sign. Such pieces are testaments to the growing field of corporate identity design and the role designers hoped to play in crafting fully branded environments.

Inventor Tinker Hatfield is responsible for the original design concepts of Air Jordan sneakers, one of the most widely recognized and highly coveted products from the 1990s. The jagged line of color on the edge of the sole that became a trademark; the revolutionary “Air” bubble design, a small plastic window in the sole of the shoe which allowed you to see the cushioning system inside, are all ideas that came from one man who seems to know a little more about building than just shoe design.

Tinker Hatfield grew up in Hillsboro, Oregon, trained as an architect at the University of Oregon, and was a member of the University of Oregon track team under the leadership of Bill Bowerman. Bowman had an interest in Nike, a young company founded by an alum of his track program, and had Hatfield test shoe designs as well as draw his own ideas on paper.

As with a beautiful house, the design of the Air Jordan fits a function as well; “An actual basketball player will find it fits better and tighter to his ankle,” says Hatfield. “We would never make a basketball shoe and throw some lumps on it unless it had some intrinsic value to the activity.”[1]

After graduation Hatfield was hired by Nike, where he spent his first four years as a staff architect designing showrooms, trade show exhibits, and company stores. In 1985, Hatfield was invited to participate in an in-house shoe design competition; this opportunity led to his career as a revolutionary designer and his current title as Vice President for Design and Special Products. Hatfield says, “When I started designing shoes in late 1985, athletic shoes were just basic performance footwear. There was no romance, no tying in with athletic personalities, no design inspiration from outside. They were just done for sports. Then Nike came on the scene.” [2]

Nike signed up-and-coming basketball star Michael Jordan, and Hatfield got to work on a shoe design that exemplified the athleticism and star power of their namesake. Hatfield and Nike were able to drastically reshape the perception of the trainer, adding value to the idea of buying shoes: says Tinker, “you’re not really buying a piece of leather with some rubber and foam; you’re buying a part of modern culture.”[3]

In 1939, the pioneering industrial designer Donald Deskey, was asked to participate in the Contemporary Industrial Arts Exhibition to be held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in early 1940.  For his project, he designed a prefabricated weekend cabin, called “Sportshack,” depicted in this air-brush rendering.

The many innovations in the house included a large picture window made of Aklo glass, developed by Libbey Owns Ford, that absorbed heat from the sun; exterior and interior walls of Deskey-designed Weldtex, developed with U.S. Plywood which was a low-cost striated plywood that added a warm, traditional feeling to the simple, modern home; built-in sofas, the backs of which could be flipped up to create the bunk beds; tables and chairs, not shown in the rendering, that were simple, light, and easily moved for flexibility; and interior partitions that could be extended to provide privacy for the bedroom areas.

Deskey created a scale model of Sportshack for the Museum, together with a full-scale installation of the living/dining area.  Sportshack was also exhibited life-size in the America At Home exhibition at the 1940 New York World’s Fair.  Deskey saw prefabrication, with design flexibility and potential for expansion, as the only way to provide the volume of housing that would be needed in the future. After World War II, he established Shelter Industries, which produced variations on Sportshack for small families.  While most of these homes have been modified or destroyed, anyone with a spare million can acquire one, currently for sale in Montauk, Long Island.

Moving to a new home includes a trip to the nearest library to read all about this new location. Next, after finding a great librarian, is being lucky enough to find a neighbor who becomes a soul mate. My new neighbor in Woodmere, New York shared my love and enthusiasm for archeology and anthropology, an interest I have had ever since my student days in South Africa when I visited the caves at Sterkfontein, outside of Johannesburg.

My renewed interest in the subject came about when my neighbor recommended a book that has stuck with me for years: Fair Gods and Stone Faces, by Constance Irwin, which was the impetus for learning about the indigenous cultures in the Americas.  My husband and I have traveled the Americas discovering these cultures. Our last trip was to Peru to delve into the civilizations which were conquered by the Incas.

As a docent at the Cooper-Hewitt I have been asked to choose one object from the permanent collection to research and blog. I remember seeing two pieces of pre-Inca fabrics in the collection and am delighted at the opportunity to delve into these cultures again.  I chose this mantle fragment because as textile art, its beauty is equal to any textile found anywhere or during any period.     

The Peruvian desert stretches for about 1800 miles and is crossed from east to west by many streams, each sustaining a valley. The villages in these valleys were self-sustaining and social life was sedentary, well-disciplined and very productive. The dry soil of the coast helped preserve textiles which were woven mostly on a narrow back-strap looms from the wool of guanaco, vicuna, llama and alpaca as well as cotton and the maguey plant. The wool of the alpaca and llama was coarse and had no luster, while the wool of the vicuna was shiny. Occasionally human hair was woven into the textiles.  While weaving the fingers were moistened with saliva which gave softness and permanence of twist.

The mantle fragment falls into the period of the Tiahuanoco coastal culture, a geographic area now part of Peru and Bolivia. The fragment is tapestry-woven with three wide bands containing highly stylized animal motifs in shades of blue, green, tan, white, black and red.

Some Nazca cloth used as many as one-hundred ninety different colors.  Organic dyes were red, blue and yellow -- red came from a plant related to madder or from the cochineal insect, blue from indigo, yellow from plants and flowers, and purple from a mollusk. Cotton was brown and white, the alpaca and llama fiber were beige, gray, brown, and black. The textiles were woven to size and shape and rarely cut.

In the Andean world textiles played an important part in political, social and religious ceremony. Gifts of specially woven cloth were used to strengthen social and political bonds and the dead were buried with the most precious woven cloth.

Edna Ritzenberg is a 20-year veteran of Cooper-Hewitt’s docent program, and for 28 years was a teacher in the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Schools on Long Island. A native of South Africa, she earned her BA at the University of Cape Town and her master's in education at C.W. Post. Since her retirement from teaching she has conducted book discussions for many libraries and private groups. She and her husband have two sons and two grandchildren.

Beginning in the late 19^th century, the medium of printmaking played an integral role in the creation of modern Mexican art, a tradition that can be traced back to the work of, among others, José Guadalupe Posada.  But it was in the post-revolutionary period of the early 20^th century that large groups of Mexican artists, often with the support of the government, began using printmaking as a means of expression that allowed for large-scale dissemination.

Francisco Dosamantes was one of many Mexican artists who considered art, and particularly printmaking, to be an instrument for social and political change.  Born in Mexico City in 1911, Dosamantes began his formal artistic training at the age of fourteen at the Academy of San Carlos.  At the Academy he studied both sculpture and painting, but his focus was on printmaking.  While still a student, he joined the Academy’s lithography workshop, which was run by Emilio Amero.  In 1937, Dosamantes was among the founding members of the Taller de Gráfica Popular (TGP).  The TGP, which still exists today, was initially composed of young printmakers with political ties to both the left-wing Partido Popular and the Mexican Communist Party.  Beginning in 1938, Dosamantes produced prints at the TGP that depicted the tumultuous events unfolding in Europe as well as his own country.  His fellow printmakers joined him in producing printed materials that supported anti-Fascist causes around the world.  The members of the TGP also designed and printed posters and pamphlets that supported local and national groups on issues of labor, poverty, and politics. 

This lithograph, designed by Dosamantes in 1939, was used to advertise an exhibition held at the Galeria de Arte de la Universidad Nacional of other prints produced by the members of the TGP.  Many of Dosamantes' other lithographs from this period are monochromatic, but in this work he has chosen to make bold use of both red and black ink.  He uses different fonts in alternating scales and colors to clearly delineate the necessary information about the time and place of the exhibition.  Yet this print also offers a more complex message.  The wide-open eye encourages us to consider the importance and pleasure of looking.  But it also reminds us that the collective eye of society is always open. 

Stare into the electric blue shades of this woman’s sunglasses and what do you see?  Even if you know what you are looking for, the blue letterforms come together to form coherent words only with sustained visual focus.  If you were to advertise a concert that you wanted people to come to, would you make it this difficult for your audience to find out about it?  Or could it be that the designer had something else in mind?

Before Victor Moscoso began producing psychedelic posters, he understood that the basic rule of successful poster design was to “transmit a message simply and quickly.”  Unlike many of his compatriots, including Wes Wilson, Stanley Mouse and Rick Griffin, Moscoso came to graphic design with a great deal of training.  Born in Galicia, Spain in 1936, Moscoso moved to Brooklyn, New York as a young child, and worked briefly in the commercial advertising industry as a teenager before enrolling at the Cooper Union Art School in 1954.  It was there that Moscoso first became aware of the color theory of former Bauhaus master Josef Albers.  Moscoso subsequently attended Yale University from 1957 to 1959, where he studied with both Albers as well as the famed Swiss-born designer Herbert Matter.  Moscoso absorbed the lessons that Albers taught, but it was not until the mid-1960s that he realized he could exploit his understanding of color theory to create a transformative approach to poster design, one that demanded the viewer’s close and prolonged attention.

Even after leaving Yale, Moscoso had not finished with his formal artistic training.  He moved to the West Coast and enrolled at the San Francisco Art Institute, where he learned the process of stone lithography.  In California, Moscoso realized the critical role of poster art in the counter-culture movement.  He chose to produce posters that would advertise an event, typically a concert, but that lived extended lives as souvenirs and art pieces in their own right long after the event had ended.  Moscoso also inverted that basic tenet of poster design—to keep everything simple and legible—through his embrace of "vibrating colors."  Albers had taught that by placing two or more bright, deeply saturated colors beside each other, a visual vibration could be created, making it more difficult to “read” the poster.  To make the viewing experience even more demanding and complex, Moscoso adopted a style of psychedelic lettering, derived from Wes Wilson, that gave the appearance of the individual letters melting away.

Chambers Brothers Band (Neon Rose #12) was produced by Moscoso in 1967 for his own poster company, Neon Rose.  To create the image, Moscoso took a photograph of a model wearing sunglasses that he found in a fashion magazine, hand-sketched the intricate lettering inside the frames of the glasses, and then selected a color palette of pink, orange and blue that would produce the vibrating effect.  The poster has since become an icon of the psychedelic movement and graphic design.  It was one of roughly eighty posters that Moscoso designed in the 1960s.

Neon Rose #12 was designed to advertise a band whose music evokes the spirit of the moment in which it was made.  The Chambers Brothers band continues to be known for their evocative blending of soul, gospel, funk, blues and psychedelic rock.  Check out this 1970 video of a performance of their biggest hit, Time Has Come Today, for some serious psychedelic clock action!  Other recordings by The Chambers Brothers can be heard at Smithsonian Folkways.

In April 2005, while writing an essay on Winslow Homer and the American Landscape, I drove up with my husband to Prouts Neck, Maine where Homer had his studio on land that was owned by his family.  Homer, along with his father and two brothers, had purchased property on Prouts Neck from 1882 through 1909, for the purpose of creating a family vacation compound and as an investment in one of the most scenic spots along the Atlantic Coast.  An easement or “marginal way,” along the coast of the Neck, built into the deeds by the original developers, permitted homeowners and their families to have unimpeded access to the view of the cliffs and the seashore.  Since I was writing about Homer’s drawings and paintings of Prouts Neck, I had to see the setting for myself.

At the time, Prouts Neck was a very private community which restricted access to tourists by providing no accessible parking area for cars or any other conveniences for day trippers.  It was open to homeowners and their visitors, with the exception of one small seasonal hotel, that  was in the process of being sold.  We drove up with some trepidation, parked in a homeowner’s driveway, and got out of the car to face the biting wind and cold.  We first walked to Homer’s studio, which colleagues from the Portland Museum of Art, who had control of the studio, opened for me.  The small, unheated building had originally served as the family’s stable.   We walked upstairs to the porch, facing the sea and immediately understood what a marvelous view the artist must have had, sitting in view of the sea while he painted.

After the studio tour, we walked against the wind on the easement, following the coast from the eastern to the western end.  We stopped and gazed at spots that Homer had drawn and painted in the 1880s and 1890s.  We even looked through a fence at the still-standing house that Homer had built for himself to move into which he never did.   After we completed the easement, we walked on a road behind the seashore homes and returned to our car.  We were freezing but it was well worth it to get a glimpse of the exact places where Homer had worked, at the craggy juniper-covered cliff (depicted in this drawing), and the rocky shore, and imagine Homer fishing and sailing of the coast of the Neck, and painting in the place that he loved.

Since I made that trip, the Portland Art Museum of Art has purchased the studio from Homer’s descendants and has reopened it, in September 2012, to the public.

Visit our website to find the catalogue for the Cooper-Hewitt's 2006 exhibition Frederic Church, Winslow Homer, and Thomas Moran: Tourism and the American Landscape.

In 1931 when he designed this poster, the Swiss artist, designer, and architect Max Bill had already completed several years of study at the Bauhaus under the guidance of artistic luminaries Oskar Schlemmer, Paul Klee, and Wassily Kandinsky.  Bill had returned to Switzerland in 1929, and it was while living in Zürich that he received a commission to create a poster announcing the inaugural performance of the dance collective Tanzstudio Wulff.

Tanzstudio Wulff was the brainchild of the dancer Käthe Wulff, who had received her training from one of the pioneers of modern dance, a Hungarian man named Rudolf von Laban.  Among Laban’s many groundbreaking contributions to a radically new approach to dance was the concept of “movement choir,” which allowed for a group of dancers to move in a choreographed manner together while still maintaining degrees of personal expression and individuality.  As Laban’s student, Wulff was exposed to a new way of perceiving dance at a time when Dada artists were simultaneously exploring an entirely new approach to visual arts, performance, and literature.   She collaborated on choreography, costume design, and set design with many Dada artists including Sophie Tauber-Arp, Jean Arp, Hans Richter, and Marcel Janco before founding her own dance studio in Basel.

Bill’s poster advertises performances by the members of Wulff’s studio of several different avant-garde dance pieces, Relâche, Parade, and Ariadne.  In the arrangement of his composition for the horizontal poster, Bill has established two axes.  Everything printed in black runs parallel to the edges of the paper, but the remainder of the printed design cuts across the page at an upward angle.  This style of juxtaposition was a common feature of Bill’s graphic design at the time, and can be seen in his designs from the early 1930s.  These two axes allowed Bill to overlap the different blocks of text, a creative way of fitting a great deal of information into a confined space, while also creating a sense of both depth and movement.  To address the challenge of having to advertise the spirit of not one but three dances, Bill has printed the name of each ballet in a different font and with a different set of colors.   Through this innovative poster design, Bill manages to convey all the necessary information about the upcoming performances.  But he also cultivates a sense of rhythmic and coordinated movement that still allows for the individualized expression of each piece—a graphic evocation of Laban’s innovation in modern dance.

“Les coquecigrues” features in several French expressions, such as “á la venue des coqucigrues,” which has the meaning and something of the feeling of “when pigs fly.” But this enchanting fabric suggests another expression, “regarder voler les coquecigrues,” or watching the coquecigrues fly. Coquecigrues are fantastical imaginary creatures, so watching them fly would have to be considered the worst kind of wool-gathering… daydreaming… allowing oneself to be seduced by things that do not exist.
First produced around 1792 by Oberkampf et Cie. at Jouy-en-Josas, the design was popular enough to be still in production in 1818, when a white-ground version was used to decorate the bedroom of Oberkampf’s daughter Emilie, then Mme. Jules Mallet. While Oberkampf had become famous for the engraved copper plate prints now commonly called toiles de Jouy -- large-scale monochrome prints of pastoral scenes-- the company continued to produce very high-quality wood block prints in a dazzling number of colors, inspired by their Indian predecessors, hand-painted chintz.

Like thousands of others, I pass through Grand Central Terminal every day on my way to work. Actually I am on a subway train passing below, but in my mind’s eye I picture the magnificent granite and limestone building looming above Park Avenue interrupting the busy boulevard. Even today it stands as an enduring temple to urban transportation, commerce and design.

Completed in 1913, Whitney Warren with his partner Charles Wetmore and associate architects Reed and Stern designed this impressive structure to herald a new era of prosperity and progress. Electric locomotives replaced steam, a 2 story underground rail yard was carved into Manhattan’s bedrock, different concourses control pedestrian flow patterns, intelligent ramps were designed to bring passengers directly from the platform to street level and grand interiors accommodated the modern passenger.

Warren, the designer of Grand Central’s Beaux Arts façade, found “architectural drawing intensely absorbing and determined to be an architect” first studying at Columbia University he soon left and enrolled in the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris to hone his drawing and design skills. The nine year apprenticeship in the classical tradition is evident in his pen, ink and graphite sketch of Grand Central Terminal’s iconic southern façade. Evenly spaced columns and portals are crowned by sculptures of roman gods symbolizing the attributes of this new age: speed, strength and wisdom.

Perhaps one of the most used buildings in all of New York City, as many as 100,000 people pass through this transportation hub every day since it opened more than a century ago. It remains the largest railway terminal in the world.

Setting the standard for its time, the architects’ design has endured. Threatened by development Grand Central Terminal played a pivotal role in generating support for the passage of NYC’s Landmark Preservation Law in the 1960’s, which called for “civic pride in the beauty and noble accomplishments of the past.”

Today it is only fitting this Beaux Arts monument to the modern age is now a National Historic Landmark.

At first glance, Figures with Still Life, designed by Ruth Reeves, looks like a modern art painting. I did a double take when I realized it was, instead, a screen printed textile on plain weave. Throughout her career, Reeves designed a variety of objects in modern styles including tapestries, wall hangings, wall fabrics, carpeting, and dresses. 

Figures with Still Life was completed in 1930. The bold geometric shapes and soft curved lines reflect the contemporaneous influences of two of my favorite twentieth century art movements, Art Deco and Cubism. The detailed adornments on the figures’ clothing and various surfaces add a decorative beauty that draws the eye to continuously return and find something interesting to discover.

I enjoy art and design that represents daily life. Figures with Still Life depicts three women carrying fruit and fish to a table near a window. The table holds fruit, a goblet, and a carafe. The scene is familiar and timeless. 

Figures with Still Life was intended for use as a wall hanging over a studio bedroom or in a hall. Decades later, I can imagine it gracing my living room wall with its simple and warm palette of dark and reddish browns, tans, and off-whites. This lovely textile illustrating everyday life is inviting and beautifully woven together.

In 1951, Fernand Léger designed seventeen monumental stained glass windows (vitrail, in French), depicting the instruments of Christ’s passion, for the new Eglise du Sacré Coeur in Audincourt, France.

In 1955, Léger used the design for one of these windows, Pincers and Nails, as the pattern for Vitrail, a textile produced by Fuller Fabrics.

Léger was one of five world-renowned artists commissioned by the American manufacturer to create designs for its “Modern Masters Series.” The others were Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Joan Miró, and Raoul Dufy. Dan Fuller, Fuller’s President, visited each artist to select the works that would provide source motifs for the textile patterns. This collaboration between art and industry resulted in a brilliant collection of sixty designs, which were celebrated in Life Magazine and exhibited at major American museums.

Léger’s design for Pincers and Nails is faithfully reproduced in miniature, in a straight repeat pattern, for Fuller’s Vitrail yardage. Léger’s Catholic church windows, which have been described as dramatic, deeply moving, and mystical, seem an unlikely design source for Fuller’s fabric. This was not haute couture – the Modern Master Series was mass-produced and sold at modest prices primarily for use in leisurewear. One garment manufacturer used Vitrail for bathing suits, in a “drip n’dry” cotton and a colorway of deep pinks.

But Léger was not a religious man. His goal in designing the Audincourt church windows was to create something that was objectively beautiful, not “sentimental.” His choice of the Pincers and Nails motif for the Modern Masters Series perhaps only underscores the intent of his original window design to “produce a pattern of forms and colors that was relevant to all, believers and non-believers alike.” [1]

I find it interesting that the novel Robinson Crusoe, written by Daniel Defoe in 1719, while not originally intended for a child audience, became the subject of one of the earliest children’s wallpapers. Early children’s wallpapers were designed to be educational and not to amuse. While this book was a novel about travel and adventure and would certainly have appealed to the imaginations of children, it also delivers a strong message of faith. This is the aspect of the novel that would have appealed to manufacturers and parents. Papers designed to amuse and entertain did not appear until the early 20th century. Manufacturers had been searching for a washable wallpaper for many years and they finally succeeded in the early 1870s. At that time, a British company developed the intaglio technique for printing wallpapers, or machine-printing with engraved copper rollers using oil pigments. This produced a very smooth surface that could be wiped clean. Intaglio prints can be discerned by the stippled format of the printing. This technique also allows the color to shade from light to dark, which is not possible with other forms of printing. Early intaglio wallpapers were only available in a monochrome color, while papers printed in multiple colors using this technique became available in 1884. The advent of washable wallpapers greatly advanced this niche market, and the popularity of children’s wallpaper quickly grew. While varnished papers were also available, the intaglio prints were the premium method of producing washable papers until 1934. Early children’s papers were gender neutral as they were designed to go into the nursery which could house both boys and girls. Papers didn’t start becoming gender specific until the 1940s.

Quirky and interesting, this elevation caught my eye as an object of the day to write about. I was especially drawn to the work, “Elevation Design for a Sitting Room, with Sofa, Two Chairs and Table”, because recently, the Cooper-Hewitt had a wonderful exhibit, House Proud, which was a look into 19th century rooms through watercolors. I wondered if there was any link to these room studies. But, this elevation, also a watercolor, was done later, in 1919.

It is a depiction of a traditionally set room dominated by hexagon shaped furnishings.  A frieze on the back wall contains inverted pyramidal designs.
There are three paintings with molten unknown forms. Colors are soft pink and blue against a beige background. V’s, or abstracted leaves, are scattered throughout. The room is both strangely primitive and formal in decor. It is charming and perplexing.

Research is so much fun and as it turns out, this elevation suggests a Czech cubist movement, called “Rondo Cubism”.  Did I even know of its existence?

Most interesting is that the designer of this elevation, Vlastislav Hofman (1884-1964), was the chief architect and designer of an earlier Czech Cubist movement, the first to replace realism with geometric forms. Pyramids, crystals and prisms with strong angularity dominated his design scheme. No decorations allowed! Hofman’s minimalist cubism was criticized for its lack of humanity.  

Rondo-cubism, a more gentle and humane form of cubism, was born in 1918 when Czechoslovakia became independent. It celebrated the new country and its folklore. Decorative effects reappeared, simplified and abstracted. Strong angles coexisted with rounded curved constructions. Traditional room schemes housed cubist furniture. It was dynamic, exciting and unique. In conflict with Hofman’s credo, it would be difficult to say that Hofman adopted Rondo-Cubism. But in this elevation I find its influence.
 

In the 1930s, Blue Ribbon Books and Pleasure Books, who published a series of colorful pop-up books including The Pop-up Pinocchio, were the first to coin the phrase “pop-up book”. In a five year period, they produced more than ten remarkable pop-up books on classic fairy tales including Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Jack the Giant Killer, Puss in Boots, and Little Red Riding Hood. Each of these titles featured large print text, thick board paper, colorful cartoon-like images and well constructed pop-ups that greatly appeal to children of all ages.

Originally created as a series for an Italian newspaper by Carlo Collodi (1826-1890) in the 1880s, the classic fairytale of Pinocchio was soon published into a book, translated in many languages, appeared in many illustrated editions in the early 20^th century, and later a feature in a Disney animated film in 1940. In this story, an elderly wood carver named Geppetto creates a puppet named Pinocchio who yearns to be a real boy. Pinocchio has many adventures in his journey to become human. He grapples with the challenges of becoming a well behaved child facing the visible stigma of having his nose grow each time he does not tell the truth.   

The art work and pop-up constructions for The Pop-up Pinocchio are the creation of Harold B. Lentz who also designed similar works including the Pop-upMother Goose,  Sleeping Beauty, and Jack the Giant Killer. Lentz was a talented graphic designer. He skillfully incorporates whimsical drawings throughout this book to illustrate this delightful fairytale as well as creating its colorful endpapers and cover. The four pop-ups –one with the figure of Pinocchio reading, one with a circus scene, one of Pinocchio’s house, and one of a whale -  employ v-fold and box-cylinder paper construction methods on each two-page spread. To see a video on the pop-ups in this book follow this link.

The colorful pop-ups, no doubt inspired by imagery found in cartoon/comic books, dramatically rise off the surface as the page is turned greatly enhancing the enjoyment of reading this book. To tell the truth, it is one of my favorite pop-up books! 

This very high-quality wallcovering, produced by the New York firm Leissner & Louis, ca. 1872-78, is woodblock-printed on embossed paper, demonstrating a well-executed design and of equal quality print.

A note on this object states “From Bush House, Salem, OR, built 1877-78,” which may have been written on the back of the wallpaper, however, the piece has been lined with fabric and the back is no longer visible. The Bush House in Salem, Oregon was once the estate of banker and newspaper owner, Asahel Bush, which he built and shared with his wife and four children. Now a museum, one can visit this preserved example of Victorian decorative ideals and see this sidewall paper displayed on the walls in their formal sitting room.http://www.oregonlink.com/bush_house/piano_closeup.html

This wallpaper is a fine example of high Victorian style and reflects the decorative ideals and aesthetic consciousness of the period. The details and patterning of the print would have been expensive to produce and demonstrates an ornamental wealth that the upper class often displayed through the decorated public and private spaces in their homes.

The print’s design demonstrates a Japonaiserie influence, combining softly blooming leaves and flowers drawn in pure outline and filled with delicate and dreamy tints of pastel pink, blue, cream and gray color and then layered over circular pattern filled shapes. The patterning is outlined in metallic gold and the background layered with metallic silver over cream ground. Oriental motifs mingling with peonies and cherry blossoms create an abstraction of nature that allows the eye to wander around the controlled, conventionalized wall decoration without distraction.

One can imagine sitting in a Victorian parlor during the late 19th century, listening to the piano or reading in an overstuffed chair, the flowering wallcovering creating a subdued environment inside the safety of the home, and distracting from the real wildness of the nature outside.

Efeu [Ivy] appears to be a photographic rendering of a lush growth of ivy consuming a wall. This rendering is more dense than usual but the design of ivy growing up a wall has been a popular theme in wallpaper for many years. Ivy patterns are rather casual, relaxing, non-offensive, a design that is rarely questioned. This design, however, does have a darker side. As with many of Demand’s works, this is actually a reconstruction of his own creation, which was then photographed and manipulated to create a repeating pattern. While the foliage in this wallpaper may appear to be real, it is actually a photograph of a recreation made from torn paper and cardboard.

Thomas Demand is an internationally known photographer from Germany who has a unique approach to his work. Demand receives inspiration from images found in the media, and while he tends to focus on violent or grim situations, the act of violence is absent. The photo may look innocent or ordinary but there is usually a story to tell. This ivy pattern was inspired by a series of photographs documenting the life cycle of the Klause Tavern in Germany, a building where the abuse and murder of a little boy may or may not have taken place. One of the few continuities running throughout this series of photos was the ivy growing on the building.

Demand was involved with the production of this paper from start to finish. There is some leeway in the speed at which the roll of paper can pass through the printing machines. The faster the paper goes through the press, the less time the pigment has to dry before the next color is printed, causing increased color bleeding. After testing different speeds, he selected the optimum speed to produce his desired amount of bleeding.

He studied at the Staatliche Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf and at Goldsmiths College in London.  He originally studied sculpture and later pursued photography as a medium.  In 1993 he began joining these two very different media by constructing the scenes he wished to photograph.
 

According to the lunisolar Chinese calendar, the Year of the Dragon has come to a close and we are beginning the Year of the Snake. In honor of the Chinese New Year I present to you a very small Chinese robe from the collection of the Textiles Department. This late 18^th century robe is made of silk, enhanced by metallic threads and boasts a pattern comprised primarily of dragons punctuated by blue and green clouds, flaming pearls, bats and other auspicious symbols. The five-clawed dragon and bright yellow coloring are both symbols of the Emperor of China, and the robe itself was more than likely an imperial donation used to clothe a statue of an emperor in a Taoist temple.

The structure of the pattern and specific motif on this robe can be dated to the Qing Dynasty (1644 -1911 AD). However, dragon robes appeared in China as early as the Tang Dynasty (618-906 AD), and were worn exclusively by the emperor or empress and those in the imperial court to communicate royal, and eventually, military rank. These fantastic and sumptuous robes have been an evolving fixture of Chinese court culture and dress ever since that time, and the iconographic importance of the dragon dates back further still. Though these robes are worn and used much less frequently in contemporary Chinese culture, it is not surprising the allure of the robe and the compelling visual interest in the patterns have found their way into the work of contemporary fashion designers from other cultures: most recently and notably in the work of Belgian designer Dries Van Noten.

Van Noten is known for adapting the patterns of other cultures, but in his collection for Winter 2012/2013 he did nothing to alter the patterns of the Chinese robes he integrated into his line. Van Noten selected works from the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Photographs of robes from the collection were digitally printed on fabric and integrated into many of his highly modern garments, introduced on the Paris runway in February of last year.

As illustrated in the photographs here, Van Noten deconstructs the traditional and very exclusively worn motifs and rearranges them in highly geometric ways. Although he disrupts the intended message and use of the centuries-old symbols, Van Noten mimics the diagonal patterning of the multicolored bands found at the bottom of these robes and highlights many of the auspicious symbols that find a home in the patterning of imperial Chinese textiles. Van Noten’s interesting repurposing and beautiful integration of Chinese patterning with clean, modern lines pays homage to a rich cultural tradition, and the collection having debuted in the Year of the Dragon makes it all the more alluring and appropriate.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Laurel McEuen is a candidate for a Master’s degree in The History of Decorative Art and Design offered by the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum and The New School for Design. Laurel is also a Teaching Assistant at Parsons in The History of Graphic Design), The Art of Viewing Art, and Modernism & Politics. In addition to freelancing at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Laurel has held internships at Christie’s, The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Museum of Fine Art, Houston. She holds a bachelor’s degree in art history from Southwestern University.