Among the Fante people of coastal Ghana, small local militias known as Asafo play an important role in community and political life. Rivalries among the Asafo companies are common, and many flags are specifically designed as challenges or insults to rival companies. Others are based on proverbs, with subtle references to local events or personalities.

This flag presents a frightened looking man, perhaps an intruder, with a hand raised to his open mouth, facing an impressive group of armed women in two lines. The two women closest to the man carry a flag and a drum while the others carry rifles and a machete. The initials of the militia are embroidered along the bottom edge. The design evokes the saying “When even our women have been prepared for war, what are our men capable of?” Before their independence from the United Kingdom in March 1957 many of the flags featured the Union Jack in the upper left corner, much like this example. Later flags can be dated because of the inclusion of the Ghanaian flag. The Fante Asafo flag is part of a unique textile arts tradition, as well as a vibrant form of graphic design.

The song lyric, “I believe the children are our future, teach them well and let them lead the way” (famously popularized by Whitney Houston in 1985) holds surprising resonance with this 1976 poster for The Young Pioneer Organization of the Soviet Union.

The revolutionary Young Pioneer Organization, also known as the Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization, was founded in 1922 (disbanded in 1991) for children ages ten to fifteen. Leaders of the Soviet Union viewed children as the promising future of socialism, and believed a mass youth movement was fundamental to communist education, indoctrinating the communist ideology, and defending the motherland. Accordingly, Young Pioneers participated in a broad range of extracurricular “hobby groups” both after school and during vacations that included outdoor activities, science and technical classes, creative and artistic pursuits, sports, and politics.

Posters were frequently used in Soviet Russia to communicate messages to the masses through the use of readily identifiable images and easily understandable slogans. In images, this poster features the figures of a young boy and girl, a profile of Vladimir Lenin, and groups of children participating in various activities. It utilizes many of the symbols of the Young Pioneers – the blue and white uniform, red neckerchief, red banner, and red flag – along with some of the organization’s common traditions, such as the Pioneer salute and the campfire rally. In slogans, the poster’s text translates to:

Lenin’s Testament Faithful!

Pioneer Order

My Homeland – Soviet Union

Strong, Bold, Deftly

To the Land of Knowledge

Thus, in text and images this poster calls on Lenin’s loyal Young Pioneers to lead the Soviet Union towards its utopian future through the capacity of learning and knowledge. 

This Tudor Rose pattern of Tynecastle Canvas is one of a very few textile wallcoverings in the Museum’s collection. Tudor Rose consists of a single repeating element, a foliage sprig with a dominant tudor rose along with several smaller flowers. This motif is tightly melded with its repeating cohorts so forms a nice all-over pattern, with no noticeable gaps or voids between motifs. With the way the plant form twists and bends the design is non-directional and would be appropriate for use on the wall as well as the ceiling.

Tynecastle Canvas is an embossed wallcovering made of linen canvas and paste patented by W. Scott Morton in 1882. Morton had been working as an architect and designer, and in the early 1870s established a partnership with his brother John called Morton & Co. By 1881 Scott Morton had stopped practicing architecture and went on a short study tour of Italy where he was inspired by embossed leather hangings. Upon his return to Scotland requests for leather decorations led Morton to develop the embossed canvas wallcoverings. John developed the method for the embossing, creating the rollers and molds, while Scott created the designs. With applications of paint, dye and gilding the embossed canvas could be made to resemble gilded leather, carved woodwork, or fancy plaster. Embossed canvas friezes were patented in 1885.

Demand for Tynecastle Canvas continued to grow throughout the 1880s and 1890s and included many specialty markets such as yachts and railroad cars. In 1893 Tynecastle Canvas was used on W.K. Vanderbilt’s new yacht, said to be the finest boat afloat with elegant appointments. New offices and showrooms opened to meet the growing demand and in 1889 a showroom opened In New York City to directly market Tynecastle Canvas in the United States.

This unique matchsafe is a keepsake from the early 1900s, celebrating Lucy the Margate Elephant, a landmark of South Atlantic City, N.J. (now called Margate).

Portable matchsafes were used to protect wooden matches from moisture or combustion, and served as mementos, or conversation-starting trinkets that often made a statement about their owner. This particular piece commemorates a trip to the seaside to South Atlantic City, and a trip to see Lucy, “The World’s Greatest Elephant.”

Built in 1881 and patented in 1882 by her creator, James Lafferty, Lucy is a 65-foot high wooden building in the shape of an elephant, divided into rooms and accessible by stairs housed in the legs. This odd tourist attraction must have provided excellent fodder for the souvenir market!

It turns out that Lucy is actually one of three such structures built by Lafferty, but she is the only one left, after a fire destroyed the Coney Island elephant and the Cape May elephant was torn down.

This matchsafe is a reminder of Atlantic City before the devastation of Superstorm Sandy, before the casinos and resorts we think of now, when the main attraction was a massive wooden elephant.

You can learn more about Lucy here: http://www.lucytheelephant.org

Landscape friezes were popularized by Walter Crane’s May Tree frieze in 1896 and remained popular into the 1920s. Beginning around 1900 many wide friezes were developed for children, and this hunting frieze would have been appropriate for a boy’s room as well as a library or dining room. This panel shows the hunters, horses and dogs at rest in front of a lodge or cabin in a very stylized landscape setting, presumably at the start or end of a hunt. There is another similar landscape frieze with identical trees where the hunters, horses and dogs are shown in active pursuit. I don’t know if these were designed to be used together, splicing them at the tree to lengthen the size of the repeat, or if this was the manufacturer’s way to re-use the background printing rollers to create a second frieze design. This frieze would have been used with a sidewall paper most likely containing a subtle tone on tone design matching one of the colors in the frieze.

When it came to decorating their rooms boys had a great many more options than girls. Boys could choose from papers containing ships, Cowboys and Indians, space flight, or hobbies, while girls had very few options until the early 1970s. Girls usually had to settle for a pretty floral design that would have been similar to the Mother’s bedroom paper. Wallpapers designed for children first appeared in the 1870s and remained popular until the Depression, when parents and decorators began designing rooms that could grow with the child. Children’s wallpapers were reduced to simple stripes and plaids, while the details that identified the room as belonging to a child were relegated to things that could be easily and cheaply replaced as the child grew, such as pictures or toys.

If, at first glance, this textile by Thomas Lamb seems to have a mythical and classical reference at its core, that’s because it does.  It may seem strange for a mid-1920s textile to embrace Diana the Huntress as its subject matter, when Art Deco, with its focus on skyscrapers and modern materials was rapidly becoming the style of the age, but don’t be too quick to judge. This textile actually speaks largely to the period from whence it came, including the designer’s use of Diana as his central figure. In fact, the image of Diana the Huntress, which has been widely reproduced in art, architecture, literature and film throughout the ages, was relied upon a good deal in Beaux Art Architecture, where references to Diana as a metaphor for commerce and the perennial hunt for profits were extremely common. This focus on commerce is one shared by much of Art Deco art and architecture, as the style emerged in the Roaring 20s, when America was booming with new industry, inspiring artists and designers to experiment with innovative materials and play with the theme of commerce and industry in their work.

Diana’s presence as a possible reference to commerce isn’t the only Art Deco element of Lamb’s work, however. The highly graphic, stylized pattern features Diana shooting backwards at an antelope, as running dogs and other prancing animals surround her from all sides. The framework of curving vines twists around the moving silhouettes in a decorative pattern that recalls the extravagant ironwork that was ubiquitous in much of Art Deco architecture.

Besides its clear Art Deco style, you can clearly see the influence of Lamb’s work as an illustrator of children’s books in this playful, bold pattern, with its almost lyrical forms that seem to dance across the weave. Lamb had a monthly page in Good Housekeeping Magazine, where he often featured children and animals engaged in fantastical play. Clearly, Lamb took both from the Art Deco style of the time and his own fascination with playful, moving creatures to design this textile, creating a fusion of elements that come together into a creative, yet modern, design.

Emily Shapiro is a Masters student in the History of Decorative Arts and Design program at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum/Parsons New School for Design. She worked at the Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies for two years after graduating from Brown University in 2009, and is pursuing research in 20^th century fashion and interiors.

Whether it is fulfilling a holiday gift list, preparing for the first days of school, or even navigating a busy grocery store, most people have experienced the exhaustion of shopping. A sole lounge chair or bench in a store is often a welcome respite, an oasis for tired feet, and heavy bags. The German artist and founder of Stiletto Studios in Berlin, Frank Schreiner, may have been thinking of the extreme shopper, when he designed the armchair, Consumer’s Rest, in 1983. Originally a metal locksmith in the German armed forces, Schreiner later became a video artist and eventually, in 1982, started designing furniture. Fabricated of chromed metal wires and rolling casters, Schreiner reinterpreted the everyday object of the supermarket-shopping cart and endowed it with a new function. Schreiner revealed in a 1990 interview with the Design section of the New York Times that the inspiration for the Consumer’s Rest chair came from a comment from his mother, while browsing in a design shop in Berlin, about wire-mesh furniture reminding her of shopping carts.

Consumer’s Rest may not exude a user’s comfort as much as it generates a satirical commentary on the consumerism of the 1980s.  In 1989, Schreiner convinced a German manufacturer of shopping carts, Brüder Siegel, to produce a series of his work. A year later the chair went into production, and what began as an ironic and satirical work of art became its own consumer item. When Schreiner became aware of their miniature shopping carts for children, he was compelled to create a child-sized chair called Short Rest, in a colorful powder coated red. As a featured piece in the 2012, Museum of Modern Art exhibition, Century of the Child: Growing by Design, 1900–2000, Short Rest was an object that helped Schreiner extend further commentary on consumer culture and its focus on the child as an invaluable aspect of the consumer marketplace.

Rachel Brill has been a volunteer docent at the Cooper Hewitt, National Design Museum since 2006. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art History and Italian language from Vassar College and is currently based in New York City. 

Bandboxes were principally used between 1800-1850. They were initially designed to store and transport men’s collar bands but evolved into other uses such as hat boxes and general carry-all’s. During the 1830s many boxes were printed with historical scenes, marking events and places of interest. This design is printed on a deep blue ground to represent the night sky and stormy sea, and the words Sandy Hook are printed on the box. Two ships are shown being tossed about on the turbulent waters, with numerous rocks shown in the foreground and the lighthouse standing tall. The bandbox lid contains a different unrelated scene of cows and ruins. However, the border used on the rim of the lid seems very apropos in that being a leaf and fruit motif it appears more like a wave motif, mocking the rolling seas on the box bottom.

Sandy Hook has been one of the principle lighthouses on the northeast coast from a very early period. The merchants of New York realized the need to establish a light on this dangerous reef and in 1761 took steps to raise the money by having 2 lotteries authorized by the New York Assembly. Three years later the lighthouse was completed and the lamps lit. The structure was built of stone and measured 106 feet from the ground to the top of the lighthouse. During the American Revolution, the Provincial Congress caused the lights to be removed, but during a later period of the war the building was fortified and occupied by the British. The exterior of the lighthouse was retained in its original form but interior improvements made before 1881 included lining the interior with brick and replacing the wooden stairs with iron steps. The lens was of French construction and was 90 feet from the ground.

This Catalogue of the Monumental Bronze Co. is one of the many examples of trade literature that the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Library has in its collection; they are among the most valuable research resources for documenting the tastes and trends of culture, and the products being marketed and sold in a given time period. This is a salesman's tool. These are Victorian era zinc sculpture and ornaments for cemetery grave markers and “monuments”.  “White bronze” was an attractive, elegant trade name for zinc. It actually has a bluish gray color, and the catalog asserts that this material “is more pleasing to the eye in the form of Statues and monuments than is the dark of Antique”. It is easy to spot the unmistakable color from quite a distance amongst the more traditional and widely used traditional marble, limestone and granite memorials.  White bronze is found in large numbers on the East Coast; New York City metro area cemeteries are dotted with them, though they were sold everywhere. The catalog provided the consumer an opportunity to create personalized monuments with elements and forms that best expressed both one’s aesthetic tastes and personal preferences. You could select what you wanted in a memorial and customize the design much the way you furnish a room or build a house.

Left: White bronze monument with Sheaf of Wheat emblem. R: Assorted emblems available in Monumental Bronze catalogue. p.7

 In the 19th century, grave markers, could be ordered from companies that worked directly with stone quarries, or from companies like Monumental Bronze. Gravestones are much the same today; they are known as “blanks”, which could be customized in many ways; names, dates, epitaphs, and designs were cut or carved, or applied depending on the customer.  Religious, fraternal and popular Victorian iconography was important additions on some gravestones, as personal expression is today. Designs with particular flowers, leaves, or other objects often characterized the personality of the deceased, or the hopes of those left behind. These could be “read” at a glance, they were part of the popular and material culture of the day. For example, a sheaf of wheat symbolizes a long and fruitful life and symbolizes immortality as part of the harvest cycle. “Rock of Ages” is the title of a hymn popular in the 19^th century and still is today. Monumental Bronze offered many iconographical emblems or statues that could be, combined, mixed and matched and added to a large selection of “blank” bases; pedestals, obelisks, columns, to create a memorial.

Left: “Rock of Ages”, or “To the Cross I cling” emblem in catalogue (detail). R: White bronze cemetery marker with “Rock of Ages”.

White bronze “stones” were placed in cemeteries all over America from the mid 1870’s to World War I. Markers weren’t advertised or erected after 1914 because the Bridgeport, CT plant was taken over by the U.S. government for manufacturing of gun mounts and ammunition. Fashions changed after the war and the demand for white bronze monuments ended. The Monumental Bronze plant closed in 1939. 

Elizabeth Broman

“…organized crime in America takes in over forty billion dollars a year…a profitable sum, especially when one considers that the Mafia spends very little for office supplies.”—Woody Allen

“I have kept a record of most people I have met since the 1940s. Their names are stored in an electronically operated Rolodex that contains upward of one hundred thousand entries. Each card records my first contact and all subsequent meetings, and I can quickly review the nature of my past associations before seeing someone again.”—David Rockefeller

There are few office supply “objects” more iconic than the Rolodex (the name comes from a combination of the words rolling and index).  Before the digital age of smartphones and computers, everyone used Rolodexes to “network” and to maintain their business contacts. The Rolodex is designed as a cylindrical rotating card file on a tubular metal frame that holds A-Z index cards to store business contacts. Information management has grown out of simple paper-based operations. While technology has made it possible to digitally record and retrieve information with greater speed, some electronic systems still evoke the familiar visual and tactile qualities of the rotating wheel in their design. The Rolodex has endured. It is still used in the twenty-first century workplace, and maintains a reputation as a “survivor” of technology. Interestingly, it is believed that approximately ten million units have been sold every year since the device was first manufactured in 1958. The Rolodex also remains one of the cultural icons of the mid-twentieth century. It would be great to see one on view in the redesigned Cooper-Hewitt when it reopens.

The Rolodex was first marketed by Arnold Neustadter (1910-1996), the founder of Zephry American Corporation (later renamed Rolodex Incorporated), an eccentric businessman, inventor and designer who marketed a wide range of “dexes” such as the Autodex, Swivodex and of course the Rolodex. Neustader was a highly organized and efficient man often described as an “office worker type” who invented and manufactured office products that were designed to make networking effortless by easy storage of contacts. Incidentally, Neustader was very much interested in the arts and amassed collections of antique paperweights and modern art, including works by Chagall, Picasso and Henry Moore.

To see some of Cooper-Hewitt's Rolodexes in action, visit “Collections In Motion: Rolodexes” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9OJA5qFbIM

This Spanish textile displays the intricate geometric design which permeates many forms of Islamic art and represents the type of rich textiles favored by the Christian royalty of Iberia. This fragment is a piece of a mantle discovered in the tomb of the Infante Don Felipe of Castile (1231-1274) at the church of Santa María la Blanca in Villalcázar de Sirga, Palencia.[1] Felipe led a noble rebellion against his brother Alfonso X, king of Castile, and eventually, he and the other rebels renounced their feudal ties and found asylum in the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada.[2] Felipe may have acquired this fine cloth while residing in Granada, an area where the silk industry flourished.[3] Several other pieces of this mantle are preserved in other museum collections: the Museo Arqueológico Nacional in Madrid (51016), the Victoria & Albert Museum (796-1893), and the Art Institute of Chicago (1950.1150).[4] Other fragments with a similar pattern from this tomb, possibly parts of a tunic, appear in various museum collections as well.[5] Islamic silks were enormously popular with European Christian nobles, and many were used as burial shrouds, relic wrappings, vestments, and other clothing.[6] The decoration consists of registers of geometric patterning which form repeated white quatrefoils and blue rosettes, and a band of repeated white Kufic script outlined in pink, reflected over a horizontal axis to appear upside down below, is at the center of this fragment. This stylized inscription may say “barakah,” a word used to invoke blessings for the wearer usually seen on noble objects.[7] The background of all the designs on this opulent textile is gold thread. These rows of patterning are highly reminiscent of Islamic architecture, and similar rows of designs and calligraphy would not be out of place in carved stucco walls or mosaics. The white patterning in the bottom register of this fragment even gives the impression of lobed arches and tapered columns, often found in Islamic buildings. An interest in architectural design was present in Granada, and 60 years after this mantle was buried, the sultan of Granada moved into Alhambra, an impressive palace renowned for its architectural decoration.[8]

Steve Burges earned a Bachelor of Arts degrees in Classical Archaeology and Art History with highest honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2013. In 2013 he also entered an Art History PhD program at Boston University, where he studies ancient Roman art and archaeology. Steve participated in the Peter Krueger Summer Intern Program at Cooper-Hewitt in the summer of 2013.

Throughout the 1940s, the graphic designer E. McKnight Kauffer created numerous book jackets for Harcourt Brace, Alfred Knopf and others as well as his illustrated version of The Complete Poems and Stories of Edgar Allan Poe which was published in 1946. In the same year he received a commission from the Container Corporation of America to produce a magazine advertisement for the ‘United States’ series – in which all forty-eight states were represented. Under the inspirational leadership of CCA’s owner, the industrialist and philanthropist Walter Paepcke, the company promoted itself through a series of avant-garde advertising campaigns. In an attempt to achieve design excellence, the company used eminent émigré artists such as Man Ray, Herbert Matter, Herbert Bayer, A.M. Cassandre and Jean Carlu. For the ‘United States’ series, however, artists were assigned the state in which they were born, or had strong affiliations.

McKnight Kauffer was asked to create an image to represent Montana, his native state. He was born in Great Falls, Montana in December 1890 where his father, a well-established theater orchestra musician, was working for the winter season at the Park Theatre. John Kauffer, his father, made a living playing for, and often leading, theater orchestras for minstrel and vaudeville shows which meant frequent traveling relatively long distances from his hometown of Evansville, Indiana. Once the Great Falls contract was over John Kauffer took his young wife and baby Edward back to Evansville. Although McKnight Kauffer had only lived in Great Falls for a matter of months he retained a great affection for the notion of being born in the West. He never visited Great Falls again but in 1950 he found himself in Reno, Nevada. In a postcard message to a friend he wrote:“I am not far from my birthplace and the mountains do reverberate in my memory”. Towards the end of his life (he died in 1954), as his health declined and depression set in, he increasingly thought about his Western roots. In letters exchanged between the poet, critic, editor and close friend T.S. Eliot and McKnight Kauffer from this period Kauffer addressed Eliot as ‘Missouri’ (he was born in St Louis) and Eliot responded by calling Kauffer ‘Montana’.

This design, atypical of his work at the time, more closely resembles the watercolor and gouache landscapes he produced in the South of France in the 1930s.  The broad brush marks of the middle ground contrast with the almost naïve depictions of the longhorn cattle and cowboys on horseback. Overall the scene of open range and expansive vista is redolent of the Western  dream he yearned for, with the distant the mountains he never saw.

A large collection of original artwork for the CCA series of advertisements is held at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C. 

Dr Graham Twemlow, whose Doctorate thesis focused on an investigation into the posters of E. McKnight Kauffer, is an academic and design historian.

This is a contemporary printing using the original woodblocks of a scenic wallpaper called the Views of the American War of Independence, which was first produced by Zuber et Cie in 1852. This is an adaptation of an earlier scenic called the Views of North America, which highlights some of the scenic wonders of North America. Also called Scenic America, the set contains scenes of Niagara Falls, New York Bay, Boston Harbor, and West Point. To create this scenic of the American Revolution, Zuber retained the background scenery from Views of North America, but changed the foreground imagery from tourists and leisurely pursuits to soldiers and battle scenes. The updated scenes became General Washington on his white horse issuing orders to his men in front of the falls, the taking of an English redout, the surrender of General Cornwallis at Yorktown, and the triumphal entry of General Washington into Boston. This scenic paper is truly a block-printing marvel. A full set contains 32 panels, is printed in 360 colors, and requires 2,300 wood blocks to print.

Cooper-Hewitt maintains a sizeable and growing collection of scenic wallpapers and murals dating from the early 19th century to the present. Early scenic wallpapers tended to follow the painting style of the day and focused on natural beauty, places of wonder, and mythology. While the more contemporary scenics still follow trends in the arts and design, they tend to have more of a focus on reality, although that reality can be somewhat obscured by artistic license. And new digital printing methods allow these papers to precisely capture minute detail.

Founded in 1797, Zuber is probably the oldest wallpaper company still operating today. Zuber has always produced a very high-end product, and was one of the key manufacturers producing scenic wallpapers. Many of their early scenic wallpapers are still being produced today.

With its bold black lines contrasting with the tonal pinks, this scarf would have been a colorful finishing touch to a day ensemble when tied and draped across ones shoulders. The pattern is made not by a printing technique, but by silk satin pieced and hand sewn in the same manner as other pieces of 1920s couture were seamed.

This scarf, along with several others, was donated to Cooper-Hewitt by the husband of international socialite and haute couture devotee, Aimée de Heeren. An arbiter of style, she was included on numerous Best Dressed Lists. de Heeren patronized the major couture houses of her day, including Balenciaga, Dior, Schiaparelli, and Vionnet, as evidenced by her large donation to the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology. She was an ardent supporter of Caroline Reboux and completed many of her looks with smart looking headwear from the Parisian atelier.

Well known for her cloche hats and structured, restrained, modern aesthetic, the headwear designer Caroline Reboux (1837-1927) was called “Queen of the Milliners.” The firm began in 1865 by designing for Princess Pauline von Metternich and Empress Eugenie. Through the century, the atelier produced such famous hats as Marlene Dietrich’s berets and Wallis Simpson’s wedding hat. The atelier’s creations were published countless times on the society pages and fashion spreads of Vogue and L’Officiel magazines. When the namesake designer died in 1927, Lucienne Rabaté worked as head designer until the business closed in 1956.

After the revolution of 1959, Cuba developed a new visual language that expressed an enthusiasm for change. Graphic design was one of many artistic outlets Cuban designers channeled their individual freedom. Although most of the graphic work, between 1960-70s, advertised political and marketing conventions, many were printed for foreign films that were exhibited by the Instituto Cubano del Arte e la Industria Cinematográficos (Cuban Institute of Cinema Art and Industry). The ICAIC was established after the revolution of 1959, and today holds an extensive collection of over 1,500+ original silk-screened film posters produced over the last four and a half decades.

Antonio Pérez (Ñiko) González, renowned graphic designer and professor, created this poster for a Japanese film, titled The Stranger within a Woman, which was re-titled La Linea Delgada (The Thin Line) for the Spanish release. González represents the plot of the film through a compelling composition of a line, snaking through the center of a black background. The line is symbolic of the female protagonist’s infidelity, which provokes her husband to strangle her to death; the red contour symbolizes this tension. González’s stylistic playfulness speaks beyond the traditional film still depicted in most posters today. With little graphic information and bold use of color, one can imagine the dark tone of the film. González understands color associations and the power of line, which he masterfully combines to create something simple and evocative.

The line appears to continue beyond the poster’s borders. Cuban graphic designers, too, went beyond the expected and tapped into the surreal; their expressions are vibrant, and rich in artistic freedom. Perhaps film posters today should revive these graphic practices, yet it takes one to have lived in this political and social context to truly understand that minimalism works.

Carolina Valdes-Lora is a Masters student in the History of Decorative Arts and Design program at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum/Parsons the New School for Design. With a fine art and design background from RISD and Parsons, she aspires to pursue her interests in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century American and European design. Additionally, her Cuban-Spanish heritage inspires her interests in Latin American art history. She is a MA fellow in the Drawings, Prints and Graphic Design Curatorial Department at Cooper-Hewitt, as well as an intern at Christie’s Auction & Private Sales, 20th Century Decorative Art & Design Department. 

While Ruhlmann is better known for his beautifully designed and executed furniture and interior decoration he also designed a number of wallpapers. This is an early design produced before he got into his brightly colored art deco phase. While still drawing upon an Art nouveau aesthetic with its meandering vines and organic nature, the restrained color palette and reduction of the natural forms into their most basic silhouette also shows some of characteristics of the coming Art Deco style. The original drawing for this design is in the collection of the Musée des Arts Decoratifs in Paris. While this is an early Ruhlmann wallpaper design, his later designs contained more dense patterns of stylized roses in brighter colors which are more in keeping with his Art deco style.

Most of Ruhlmann’s designs for interiors contain pattern on the walls which complemented the materials and patterns used on his furniture. His interiors frequently contained a mix of patterns and textures, blending strong and subtle, to create a harmonious room. This mix was also found on his furniture, where his pieces may contain patterns created by a mix of rich woods and other materials such as ivory and shagreen, while others contain decorative panels of dense flowers and bouquets.

Ruhlmann was born into a family of designers and in 1907 upon his father’s death took over the family business. In 1919 he founded Établissement Ruhlmann et Laurent with his friend Pierre Laurent where they designed luxury home goods including furniture, wallpaper, textiles and lighting. While Ruhlmann designed for an elite clientele, the beauty and elegance of his designs opened the eyes of the world to what is known as art deco.

The Cooper-Hewitt Library has a large collection of over 2,000 World’s fair catalogues and books. Some are children’s souvenirs and stories. A day at the New York World's Fair with Peter and Wendy brings back memories of certain things I remember. As a teenager, my mother had loved the 1939 World’s fair, so that when it came to New York City again in 1964-65, she wanted to see another World’s fair and have us children experience the same excitement and wonder. It was a long subway ride from Brooklyn through Manhattan to Flushing Meadows in Queens, the site of the ’39 fair.  I bought a special “World’s fair “outfit” to wear every time I went; an orange blouse and a blue skirt- the official World's fair colors.

We talked about the Fair in school, sang the UNICEF theme song in Assembly - “It’s a small world after all”, and learned about the different countries that had pavilions at the fair. I most vividly remember waiting until dark to see the fountains and colored lights and music. This was better than the 4^th of July! The Fountain of the Planets, sent tons of water into the air in shifting patterns, sometimes as high as 150 feet, and the water was synchronized with the fireworks, lights and music.

I remember very well the very exotic looking Hawaiian and Polynesian Pavilions, with thatched little booths. I never ate in the restaurant Like Peter and Wendy did; but we did study Hawaii and had a luau, when we each had to bring some Hawaiian food to school. Try explaining that to your grandmother. My memories of the Fair are mostly visual, glimpses of this or that pavilion, but what was most iconic, visible and still survives is the Unisphere. This was the only World’s Fair that I’ve ever been to, I think they’ve changed in purpose and scope with the advent of global communications and media.

The work of Nancy Skolos and Tom Wedell invigorates the fields of design and photography as well as blurs the distinction between the two. Their collaborative creative process has often been described by the phrase “one brain, two bodies,” which characterizes the seamless integration of their two disciplines. Skolos and Wedell create sculptural, surreal compositions that blend image and text through layering, texturing and collage. Rather than relying simply on text to communicate a message, Skolos and Wedell harness the power of imagery to pack a loaded punch. This particular poster, created for the Lyceum Fellowship is a preeminent example of how Skolos and Wedell use their unique aesthetic to transmit information. 

The mission of the annual Lyceum Fellowship is to advance the profession of architecture by engaging students in design and travel. Winners are awarded traveling fellowships, with the belief that travel is a transformative experience that would help students of architecture understand how their ideas fit into the real world. In 1991, competitors were obliged to design a bicycle factory located on the site of the largest city in the pre-industrial world near present day Mexico City. The Lyceum’s jury recognized that while bicycles are vehicles for leisure or sport, in some countries bicycles are a necessity of life, providing free access to food, water, work, and the community.

In this poster as well as many of Skolos and Wedell’s designs, photography is not only an integral part of the composition, but also the starting point. Once shot, the images are manipulated and layered both manually and with the help of computer technology until the final work is complete. An explanation with text of the fellowship is incorporated into the overall poster design, but the fragmented constituents of a bicycle take center stage. What at first glance appears to be a surreal cluster of abstract images, becomes an ingenious tribute to the bicycle upon closer scrutiny. By “reading” the imagery in the poster rather than the text, viewers can identify the prompt without depending on words to explain.

In 1925 Cooper-Hewitt added to its collection “Jenny Lind Paper Doll, and Ten Costumes Designed for her Operatic Roles” from an unknown designer and was featured in the 2005 "Faster, Cheaper, Newer, More: Revolutions of 1848"  exhibition. Upon discovering it in the collection,  I was immediately drawn to it because some of my favorite childhood toys were dolls. I enjoyed dressing my dolls in various outfits and pretending they were people I knew in real life or in my imagination.  The Jenny Lind Paper Doll celebrates the career of famous Opera singer Johanna Maria Lind, better known as Jenny Lind, the “Swedish Nightingale.” Exploring the Jenny Lind Paper Doll has sparked my interest in learning more about the history of doll design and piqued my curiosity about its future.

Paper dolls have been popular toys for more than a hundred years. A paper doll is a two-dimensional figure drawn or printed on paper for which accompanying clothing has been made. By the mid-nineteenth century, around the height of Jenny Lind’s career, boxed paper doll sets of famous ballerinas, opera singers and historical figures were commonly produced in Europe and America. In the set for the Jenny Lind Paper Doll,  ten costumes are kept in a cardboard container,  allowing for easy access during playtime while showcasing the rosy-cheeked soprano and her operatic roles listed in German and English. The paper doll pieces were made using the process of lithograph on paper. Each costume is designed to be placed over the doll and tied with a green ribbon. The individual costume pieces include the doll arms making various gestures and stage props, such as sheets of music and a bouquet of flowers.

Over the last hundred years, doll designers have shifted to focusing on children’s interests and broadened doll design to include various materials, including plastic. Today, toy stores are filled with doll collections of animated characters, superheroes and television personalities. Paper dolls have been replaced with plastic dolls like Barbie, whose fashions are designed using realistic fabrics and featuring accessories that include jewelry, shoes, and handbags, which are sold separately.

What will the next hundred years of doll designs look like? It will be interesting to see how the doll market might be impacted by individuals having more accessibility to technology such as 3D printers and being able to easily create miniature figurines. While the materials and process of making dolls might change over time, what remains timeless is children’s interest in toy dolls. I look forward to observing how doll designers will find new inspiration as their users interests change and how accessibility to new materials and processes will impact their designs.
 

If Natalie du Pasquier’s recent collaboration with mass market retailers and fashion designers, are any indication, the Memphis look is back in style.  For the American Apparel collaboration, Du Pasquier used a similar approach to develop her current designs, sketching with colored pencils and then using a cut and paste method to create her distinctive collage effect of color and pattern combinations.  Du Pasquier’s designs for Memphis are well represented in Cooper-Hewitt’s collection, including this scarf, as well as textile designs for Italian retailer Fiorucci, wallpapers, and sketches for interiors and textiles.

In the late 1980s, journalist and fellow member of Memphis, Barbara Radice, wrote of du Pasquier’s work, “Her visual research is unrestrained, it absorbs everything like a sponge and nothing in particular.  In the end it’s the collage that counts.  Her hard, aggressive, acid patterns, her harsh flat colors, her broad, black, angular mark make no compromise…They are enthusiastic, explosive, exalted, elated, as striking as neon in a tropical night.”[1] This scarf from 1983 embodies this description well, combining several patterns in bright flashes of colors which are symmetrically punctuated by sections of structured black and white stripes.  The patterns are reminiscent of shapes appearing in nature- giraffe’s spots, single celled organisms, peeling tree bark- but are subverted into the unfamiliar with unexpected colors.  These discordant combinations are visually both exciting and unsettling.

The beauty of a scarf is that while it can be appreciated as a flat surface, it is also intended as a fluid object to be interpreted by the wearer.  Depending on how it is tied and worn, different sections would be visible, creating a whole new dialogue between the patterns.  In the spirit of Memphis interiors, an adventurous dresser might have paired the scarf with a bright, multi-patterned dress or shirt, creating a vivid collage of color and shapes on the body.

Interior, 1985, Natalie du Pasquier. (Image Credit: Unknown from http://www.nathaliedupasquier.com/design.html)