To celebrate the opening of Saturated: The Allure and Science of Color (May 11, 2018-January 13, 2019), Object of the Day this month will feature colorful objects from the exhibition. Niklaus Troxler (Swiss, b. 1947) designed this boldly colored poster in 2005 for the annual Willisau Jazz Festival, an event he co-founded in 1975.  Here, Troxler engages...

To celebrate the opening of Saturated: The Allure and Science of Color (May 11, 2018-January 13, 2019), Object of the Day this month will feature colorful objects from the exhibition. Graphic designer Fanette Mellier (French, b. 1977) has a contemporary practice that frequently highlights process in the printed medium.  Her stunning poster, Specimen, initially appears abstract.  Dominated by...

This bold graphic work combines text and image in a call for solidarity with indigenous populations and resistance to their continued subjugation. Dominating the print is a depiction of a fearsome Aztec warrior, clad in a traditional jaguar costume and stabbing a prone Spanish soldier. Designer Lincoln Cushing (American, b. 1953) appropriated the image from...

Bill Brownlie, a long-time designer and car stylist for Chrysler, drafted this interior concept for a truck cab in 1952. His sectional depiction of the interior is composed to provide viewers with a glimpse through the passenger’s side door.   The highly finished effect of the drawing, the result of using an airbrush and ink, gives...

From squash to cherries and peppers to pineapple, Marion Weeber’s button designs are as simple as they are charming.  Her evocative shapes, bright colors, and whimsical stripe patterns unify this disparate array of fruits and vegetables, drawn in graphite and painted with watercolor.  The buttons themselves were made of individually molded celluloid-a synthetic plastic.  Cooper...

Good cheer abounds in this festive poster designed by graphic designer and educator Linda Powell.  The poster is part of a set of four created to promote the 1978 Herman Miller Christmas Party.  The beloved Zeeland, Michigan furniture company has a hearty tradition of exceptionally made products and innovative communication design, geared both outwardly, for...

Somersaulting with dopey glee, a group of kangaroos thump around, lapping up wine from gravity defiant glasses.  Inebriated marsupials with bottles in their pouches?  Such a zany scene is characteristic of the work of beloved graphic artist and designer Ronald Searle (British, active France, 1920-2011).  His wry illustrations, ranging from caricature to cartoon and inspired...

Beneath a foreboding sky streaked with lightning, a figure wanders through a cemetery.  Barefooted and dressed in a monk’s habit, he seems to be missing something.  Quite literally, it may be his head, whose snarling visage is directed out at the viewer from the crook of this gruesome monastic’s left elbow.  But who is this...

Set against a black background, this drawing of a cherry-red radio demands attention.  Its oblong form and stepped surface are echoed by curving red lines that float above and beneath the body.  These may be details, intended to show highlights that would be reflected on the curved surface, but there is also something less literal...

“It is, indeed, a tribute to the appeal of the sheer granite walls of Katahdin that Church should have made so many studies of this region alone.”[1] -Myron Avery, writer and Maine adventurer American landscape painter Frederic Edwin Church (American, 1826-1900) began visiting the region around Mt. Katahdin, Maine in 1852.  While Church is renowned for...

This post is relevant to the exhibition The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s. Godly brawn characterizes the classical subject of this drawing: Hercules and the Nemean Lion.  According to Greek mythology, King Eurystheus tasked Hercules with vanquishing a lion that was terrorizing the region of Nemea.  He ultimately succeeded, killing the animal with his...

Ragged, curvy and relentless, the pussy willow catkins in this print are symbolic of the battle for spring that marks the month of March.  Designed by Theodor van Hoytema (Dutch, 1863-1917) for a 1911 calendar, one can understand the month it represents even without translating the Dutch word at the top: “Maart” or March.  Known...

This figure study of a nude male depicted from the rear in contrapposto, bears the geometric massing and imperfect proportions of the work of a student.  Made in 1957, the drawing is a vestige of the collegiate days of renowned artist Eva Hesse (b. Hamburg, 1936-1970). From 1954-1957, Hesse was a student at the Cooper Union...

Where does a building end and the earth that surrounds it begin? Often, this question is easy to answer. We tend to think of buildings and land supporting them as separate entities. This preliminary drawing by the Weiss/Manfredi Architects for the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, New York shows us that sometimes buildings and...

Daniel Marot, architect, decorative designer and engraver fled, like many other Huguenot workers, from France to Holland due to the revocation of the Edict of the Nantes in 1685.  The Edict had offered measures to ensure religious liberty and its revocation sent shock waves through Protestant communities who were no longer protected.  Bringing his talent...