In celebration of Women’s History Month, Cooper Hewitt is dedicating select Object of the Day entries to the work of women designers in our collection. Helen Dryden (1883-1972) was born in Baltimore and studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Her early career was spent as an art teacher, costume designer and fashion...
In celebration of Women’s History Month, Cooper Hewitt is dedicating select Object of the Day entries to the work of women designers in our collection. Helen Dryden (1883–1972) was an American artist, fashion and costume illustrator and designer, illustrator, and designer in the early 20th century through the 1940s. The Cooper Hewitt National Design Library...
The Cooper Hewitt Library has a number of linoleum catalogs. Carpettes Linoleum is our newest, and to date, earliest one. This flooring trade catalog from Lancaster, England was printed for distribution to French consumers, who like many other European and American buyers, liked the durability, versatility, cleanliness, and the variety of designs available in linoleum...
This Soviet era trade catalog for toys was intended for non-Russian audiences, and was produced by the Raznoexport Company in Moscow. This firm sold all sorts of consumer goods of Russian manufacture for export; the text is in English and French. Textiles, rugs, tobacco, bicycles, cut glass, and building materials among other goods were marketed...
Art nouveau as both an architectural style and a style for any kind of ornament, permeated so much of European culture during the time period of 1890–1910. Fashion, graphic design, household furnishings and so many other everyday objects reflected this style – even your house keys were Art Nouveau! The Cooper-Hewitt Library has a large...
The Cooper-Hewitt Library owns many types of pattern books for architecture, textiles, wall coverings, and ornament for use by designers. Among our more unusual “how to” pattern books and trade catalogs are two recently digitized hair jewelry pattern books – The jewellers' book of patterns in hair work and Charles T. Menge's price list of...
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...
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...
Left: Paris, France, ca. 1925. Annual exhibition of the Primavera design department of Au Printemps department store. Right: Paris, France, ca. 1926. Copper-color painted figure with necklace of diamonds and sapphires by Dusausoy and dress by Callot-Soeurs. Born in upstate New York, Thérèse Bonney (1897-1978), was a photojournalist whose work reflected a wide variety of...
Isn’t it wonderful to sit outside under a shady tree in a comfortable chair? Wicker furniture, cold drinks and a porch swing…heaven. I used to have a wicker armchair in my living room, bought at a junk store and treasured until it began squeaking with the slightest movement and my cats started turning it a pile...
On a long ago walking tour of downtown New York, I was charmed and mystified to see people pulling refrigerator magnets or little alphabet letters out of their pockets and having them cling to the deceptively ordinary front of a building! They stuck! This is the test of a cast iron building. The Library has in its...
Title translation: A representation of Inland and Foreign Wood: As well Trees as [sic] Shrubs Which are Collected by the Lovers of Natural History in Their Cabinets of Natural Curiosities for Use and Pleasure. According to Their Inward Properties and Natural Colors … In a page headlined Advertisement, Sepp says this book is for “Kings,...
This extremely rare trade catalog from 1940, in the collection of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum Library, represents the output of 10 state-owned ceramics factories from all over the Ukraine in small towns and villages after industry was nationalized in 1918. Katalog farforu faiansu i maĭoliky is a primary source document for studying the decorative arts, material culture, and political...
During the last quarter of the 19th century, feather decoration for hats, fans, and boas was at its peak; in 1886, 77% of women’s hats were decorated with feathers and a milliner’s window had a display of colorful ostrich tips and plumes. They were used not only on hats, but were also used in trimming...
