The idiosyncratic graphic designer April Greiman designed the poster Your Turn, My Turn for a 1983 symposium in Los Angeles, California. The conference aimed to discuss the roles of artists, designers, and architects within the field of design and possibilities for multidisciplinary collaboration.[1] In deference to the conference’s ambitions, Greiman embraces innovation and freedom in...
The seminal American architect Frank Lloyd Wright began designing a house for a wealthy newspaper publisher, Kansas Governor, and eventually Senator, Henry J. Allen, in 1915. The only residence designed by Wright in Wichita, KA, the Allen House was completed in 1918 and is considered the last of Wright’s celebrated Prairie Houses. Wright employs his signature...
This striking drawing, titled Altar Mensa for the Borghese Chapel in the Santa Maria Maggiore, is by a lesser known but influential architect, Mario Asprucci the Younger. Using water color paint to achieve vibrant illustrations of various, colored marbles and metals, Asprucci captures the architecture’s sumptuous materials and allegorical themes. The Borghese Chapel was originally...
Born in Hungary in 1884, William Hunt Diederich spent his childhood on his family’s estate, where his father bred and trained horses for the Prussian Army. Diederich’s mother was American and a member of the prominent Hunt family in Boston, whose relatives included the painter William Morris Hunt and the architect Richard Morris Hunt....
In Budapest, Hungary 1935, Andrew Kner was born into a family whose history in design, bookbinding and publishing dated back to the 18th century. In 1940, the Kner family fled the Nazi regime in Hungary and landed in Chicago, Illinois. Kner displayed an early interest in graphic design and matriculated at Yale University, where he...
LIFE magazine deemed him as a “dressmaker in silver” in 1939, but Tommi Parzinger was an incredibly versatile designer, celebrated for his furniture, wallpaper, packaging and textiles.[1] Parzinger designed furnishings for socialites, decorators, and celebrities like Marilyn Monroe and the Rockefellers and he established himself as a man about town in the glamorous circles of...
The architect and designer Florence Knoll described the work of the seminal, Swiss graphic designer Herbert Matter, “Everything was clear cut with imagination and even in some cases artistic whimsy…”[1] Their introduction sparked a creative partnership at Knoll in 1946 and Matter lent his diverse and exceptional talents to numerous artistic projects, including the company’s...
At the 1939 World’s Fair in New York, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) debuted its first electronic television, a symbol of American innovation and technological prospects.[1] However, the advent of World War II impeded the expansion of television, and the commercial development of receivers did not begin until 1946. In that first year, only...
“THE DIRT (OR EARTH) IS THERE NOT ONLY TO BE SEEN BUT TO BE THOUGHT ABOUT!” Walter de Maria stated in the press release for the first installation of his influential Earth Room at the Galerie Heiner Friedrich Gallery in Munich, Germany in 1968. The show, titled “Walter de Maria The Land Show: Pure Dirt...
