Image of textile piece 1919.
Peche’s Ornamental Ombré
Matilda McQuiad discusses this ombré textile by prominent Austrian designer Dagobert Peche.
Surface of Luxury
Sarah D. Coffin and Cynthia Trope discuss this lavish yet modern sharkskin desk, now on view in The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s.
The Master Silk Printer
Elizabeth Broman discusses the 1920s trade catalogue The Master Silk Printer.
Image of drawings by IIonka Karasz.
Tabletop Geometry
Gail Davidson discusses modernist designer Ilonka Karasz's geometric iterations for tableware.
Photograph of ceiling fixture, Rockefeller Center, 1932.
Cosmic Caldwell
Jennifer Cohlman Bracchi discusses this Caldwell lighting fixture, created for Rockefeller Center in 1932.
Paris, Indoors and Outdoors: Thérèse Bonney
Elizabeth Broman discusses the work of influential Jazz-Age photojournalist Thérèse Bonney.
Elements of the Exotic
The piano plays an intricate, rhythmic solo. The trumpet vocalizes a “wa-wa” sound that is explosively bluesy. The trombone whinnies bizarrely, both expressive and perverse. These are the sounds of Duke Ellington’s “Black and Tan Fantasy,” one of the defining musical pieces of his fifty-year career. Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington (1899-1974) was involved with music...
View of a liviing room designed by Sue et Mare at Lord & Taylor. The round display consists of two padded arm chairs, a low coffee table with rounded legs, and a tall, paneled plinth on which stands a statue of a nude figure.
Beautiful Objects for General Consumption: The New York Department Store and Modern Design in the 1920s
In the 1920s, the New York department store was an early promoter and exhibitor of European modernism and a distiller of these new styles for the American consumer. Good Furniture magazine reported in 1928 that “Lord and Taylor has taken a very definite step forward toward the actual placing of modern furniture in American homes.”[1]...
Image of Gods Man Lynd Ward Cover Blog.
A Wordless Novel: God’s Man
Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Library librarian Elizabeth Broman discusses a 1929 American wordless novel.