Cooper Hewitt’s object conservators’ technical study and conservation of the surtout de table (designed by Pierre-Phillipe Thomire, ca. 1805) in the museum’s permanent collection was recently presented at several conservation-focused conferences (including focuses on sliver-leaf mirror and gilt metal). Information about the treatments and special imaging techniques used to study the piece were also shared...

Is it possible for a chair to be organic, imaginative, and even a little bit sexy? Perhaps, if it is one of the works by American designer Wendell Castle. Castle’s Triad chair is a piece composed of curvilinear sweeps of gilt fiberglass that make a strangely inviting seat. At the risk of pushing the pun...

This week’s entries are dedicated to objects featured in the exhibition Thom Browne Selects, currently on view at Cooper Hewitt through October 23, 2016. Jim Dine’s impressive career started not long after he had graduated from Ohio University with a BFA in 1957. After making the move to New York in 1959, Dine collaborated with...