about

The Object of the Week blog is written by Cooper Hewitt’s curators, graduate fellows, and contributing researchers and scholars. Posts are published every week and present research on an object from the museum’s collection. With over 210,000 objects spanning thirty centuries of decorative arts and design, Object of the Week explores the material culture of textiles, graphic design, furniture, products, architectural drawings, wallcoverings, and much more.

Image features a multi-colored ombre of vertical columns of purples, grays and yellows bleeding into one another extremely gradually. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
The Sky Is Darkening Like a Stain
Throughout March, Object of the Week celebrates Women’s History Month. Each Monday a new post will highlight women designers in the collection. Does capturing the malevolent and mysterious quality of Rodarte’s fashions in contract fabrics sound like the impossible brief? Then extra credit is due to this collaboration among former National Design Award winners Rodarte...
Read Time
2 minutes
Posted By
Susan Brown
Date
March 23, 2020
Image features a small circular box and lid with printed abstract geometric decoration in olive green, yellow, red and black; the words "ODESSA” (in red), “FOOD. TRUST (in black)" printed on the side of the lid, in English. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Revolutionary Women, Revolutionary Design
Throughout March, Object of the Week celebrates Women’s History Month. Each Monday a new post will highlight women designers in the collection. In the tumultuous years following the 1917 Russian Revolution, a vibrant flourishing of avant-garde art emerged. Artists and designers embraced the most utopian hopes of the revolutionary spirit. They searched for new aesthetic...
Read Time
4 minutes
Posted By
Devon Zimmerman
Date
March 16, 2020
Image features an angelic figure facing frontally, in red-orange robe. Head indicated only through graphite sketch. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Anonymous was a Woman
Throughout March, Object of the Week celebrates Women’s History Month. Each Monday a new post will highlight women designers in the collection. This unfinished angelic figure was likely a design for stained glass. Louise Howland King Cox designed windows for Louis Comfort Tiffany in the 1890s. However, there are few extant records about her work...
Read Time
3 minutes
Posted By
Laura Fravel
Date
March 9, 2020
Image features a wallpaper illustrating the history of the locomotive, in a repeat of scattered drawings of locomotives and railway trains in orange, gray, and yellow, accompanied by the dates 1830, 1870, and 1935. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Train History on the Wall
Welcome to the Object of the Week blog. This March, in celebration of Women’s History Month, each Monday a new post will highlight women designers in the collection. This wallpaper called Transportation traces the history of the railroad from 1830 to about 1938. The designer, Mary Louise Leake, was inspired to create this design after...
Read Time
2 minutes
Posted By
Gregory Herringshaw
Date
March 2, 2020
Image features the cover of the 1905 Yamanaka & Co. furnishings trade catalogue covered in green and gold silk brocade and bound on the left with gold silk threads. A vertical rectangular white paper panel with Japanese characters is in the center of the cover. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Japonisme à l’extrème
  This 1905 furniture trade catalog in the  Cooper Hewitt Design Library  is from the renowned Japanese art and antiques firm of Yamanaka & Co. Covered in silk brocade and bound with silk threads according to the ancient Japanese bookbinding technique of Yotsume Toji or stab-binding, it contains 36 photographic plates of elaborately carved, gilded,...
Read Time
3 minutes
Posted By
Adrienne Meyer
Date
February 28, 2020
Image shows a dado panel containing a dense, lush flower bed. Please scroll down for additional information on this piece.
Always Summer in the Winter Garden
For the past couple days, I’ve had the pleasure of working with a French scholar doing research on the Parisian wallpaper manufacturer Jules Desfosse and later, Desfosse & Karth. We went through the museum holdings of wallpapers by this design firm and saw some really beautiful pieces. Jardin d’Hiver stands out as one of the...
Read Time
2 minutes
Posted By
Gregory Herringshaw
Date
February 27, 2020
Image features a two handled ovoid vase with a lusterware glaze, ornamented in resist copper-colored decoration. Surface decoration consists of two heraldic lions along with foliage and twining vines. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Once Upon a Time in Lancashire
At moments of dramatic social and cultural change a reflection on the past, or, better put, a past reimagined and romanticized, often offers a path of cathartic escape. Such was the case as Great Britain was transforming rapidly under the effects of modernization during the nineteenth century. The expansion of global communications and transportation, acceleration...
Read Time
4 minutes
Posted By
Devon Zimmerman
Date
February 26, 2020
Image features a woven textile that serves as a commemorative of the US centennial while promoting the textile manufacturer Pacific Mills of Lawrence, Massachusetts. Woven in black and cream, the composition has a bold graphic quality and depicts a broadly soaring eagle over a large modern factory enclosed in curvilinear frame. In between each factory is a plaque identifying the Treasurer, Agent and Selling Agent of the business. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Centennial Showpiece
This woven textile by Pacific Mills serves as a commemorative of the 1876 US Centennial while also promoting the textile manufacturer from Lawrence, Massachusetts – one of the largest textile producers in the Western Hemisphere during the nineteenth century. Woven in black and cream, the unusual composition has a bold graphic quality and depicts a...
Read Time
2 minutes
Posted By
Kimberly Randall
Date
February 25, 2020
Image features a colorful drawing showing a vertical view of the listing bow of a boat with a broken mast, among swelling waves. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Blood in the Water
Author: Laura Fravel Related to his trip to the Bahamas, this watercolor by Winslow Homer is a study for The Gulf Stream, a painting in which a shipwrecked man lies on a battered fishing boat as sharks circle in the water. Focusing on the boat, this watercolor sets the stage for the action of the...
Read Time
4 minutes
Posted By
Hannah Maureen Holden
Date
February 24, 2020
Image features a white polyester suede with stripes of organic "inkblots" in greens and pinks. Design scanned from a hand-stitched and shibori-dyed silk. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Shibori Stripe
One of the greatest challenges in designing commercial textiles has been creating durable, cleanable, affordable, and aesthetically pleasing fabrics for highly trafficked and 24/7 environments like healthcare facilities, theaters and airports. In addition, there is more demand for textiles with sustainable manufacturing practices, and companies like Designtex are taking on this responsibility and producing some...
Read Time
1 minute
Posted By
Matilda McQuaid
Date
February 21, 2020
Image features a white plastic chair molded in the form of a circular basket-type seat of flat branch-like elements on four thin cylindrical legs. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Vegetal Chair
In the mid-2000s, designers (and brothers) Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, came up with the concept of a chair that would “sprout up like a plant…with its branches gently curving up to form the seat and back.” They also took inspiration from historical seating, such as English cast iron garden benches, American chairs in the rustic...
Read Time
2 minutes
Posted By
Cynthia Trope
Date
February 20, 2020
Image features a poster showing three zones of color set against a white background. Text is featured in contrasting white or black within the areas of color. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Transcending Advertising
Herbert Bayer first became involved with Container Corporation of America (CCA) when Walter Paepcke, at the suggestion of his wife Elizabeth, began commissioning advertisements from avant-garde artists and designers, advocating for a collaborative relationship between art and industry. After completing several innovative advertisements, Bayer designed an exhibition for CCA in 1945 titled “Modern Art in...
Read Time
4 minutes
Posted By
Carey Gibbons
Date
February 19, 2020
Image features a wallpaper showing a wave motif, with every second swell containing a fish. Printed in blue, black, tan and red on off-white ground. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Something Fishy for Your Walls
This post was originally published on August 16, 2014. The Curwen Press got its start in east London in 1863 as a music publisher. The scope of the business expanded and in 1920 began including book publishing and artist prints. It was at this time that the Curwen Press made contact with the Royal College...
Read Time
2 minutes
Posted By
Gregory Herringshaw
Date
February 18, 2020
Image features a bookmark or stevengraph with a portrait medallion of Abraham Lincoln surmounted by an eagle perched on a shield flag that holds a banner in its beak that reads "E Pluribus Unum." Inscription at top reads: "Assassinated at Washington 14 April 1865," and just below another inscription: "I have said nothing but what I am willing to live by. And if it be the pleasure of Almighty God. To die by. (A Lincoln). Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Lincoln Bookmark
This post was originally published on July 26, 2018. Stevengraphs are small woven pictures that depict famous buildings, historical events, iconic scenes, and prominent public figures such as members of royal families, politicians and athletes. They were produced by Thomas Stevens (English, 1828–1888), a Coventry weaver who customized the jacquard loom to produce small detailed...
Read Time
2 minutes
Posted By
Kimberly Randall
Date
February 17, 2020
Image features a slim blue band, rectangular in section, coiled to fit around the wrist. There is a zig-zag pattern on the rubber surface, a thin metal cap at one end, and a metal strip with the word "JAWBONE" at the other. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
UP 24/7
Author: Carolyn Herrera-Perez With changes in digital technology occurring so rapidly, the discreet design of this  wearable fitness tracker may well be forgotten in the coming years. In production from only 2011 to 2014, the Jawbone UP tracked the wearer’s steps, workouts, and sleep rhythms. An innovative product, it was the first fitness tracker styled...
Read Time
3 minutes
Posted By
Cynthia Trope
Date
February 14, 2020