The Bauhaus, a school of design and architecture founded in Weimar, Germany, in 1919 by Architect Walter Gropius, had the goal of developing unity of the arts through craftsmanship taught in specialized workshops by key theorists and practitioners, among them Johannes Itten, Marcel Breuer, Lázló Mology-Nagy, Mies van der Rohe, Oskar Schlemmer, Josef Albers, and...
This is a pillar and arch paper, the format of which was introduced in England in the late eighteenth century. These papers consisted of a series of pillars and arches, with any variety of motifs used to occupy the space under the arch. The scale and repeat size was usually quite large so these designs...
This rare poster was created in 1930 Paul Schuitema (Dutch, 1897–1968). The poster came to Cooper Hewitt in 2019 as a gift from Merrill C. Berman, one of the world’s most influential collectors of modern graphic design and a longtime collaborator with our museum. With this recent gift, Schuitema’s poster is coming home to Cooper...
SI Alpaca demonstrates Claudy Jongstra’s interests in combining sheerness and opacity in lightweight, translucent structures, and in reintroducing historic dye plants such as madder and weld to the Netherlands. Jongstra planted a research garden specifically devoted to dye plants, and has studied with dye masters to learn historic techniques. SI Alpaca is dyed with walnut....
Wallpapers have a long history of celebrating innovations in technology, especially when it involves mobility. Early steam-powered locomotives and paddle boats, automobiles and airplanes are frequent themes. Feats of civil engineering including the Brooklyn Bridge are also highlighted. Here is a wallpaper celebrating industrial progress. This paper is commemorating the Exposition Universelle of 1855, the...
A pork shank flies through the air, flanked by nine Allied bombers. Perspective lines shoot out from a distant point of origin, emphasizing the speed, impact, and patriotic urgency of the heroic ham and her military escort. But why? Signed “herbert bayer” in the upper left corner, this mysterious black-and-white printed photomontage is part of...
Author: Rachel Pool This green purse is made from silk embroidery, plant fibers, and glass beads. A single tassel dangles from one side of the purse. Made between 1910 and 1912, the purse exhibits the Art Nouveau design style, indicated by the embroidered motif that displays organic patterns taken from nature, shown in the form...
A compressor rumbling. A nozzle hissing. The colorful geometric shapes decorating this otherwise straightforward dish were not painted by hand. Rather they were applied by a device novel to the world of ceramics: the airbrush. The important and prolific German designer, Martha Katzer (1897–1947), created this dish for the Karlsruhe Majolika Manufaktur (KMM) in Baden,...
In case these gray winter skies are getting you down, here is a perky wallpaper to brighten the mood. Aptly titled “Life Savers,” this wallcovering enlivened the interiors market sometime in the early 1970s. The design consists of circles, or life savers if you will, tightly aligned in polka dot fashion. The front of each...
