Grant Wood is best known for his iconic 1930 painting, “American Gothic,” in which an unsmiling and oddly flattened couple, rather humorous in their solemnity, pose with a pitchfork in front of their farmhouse. Wood was a great proponent of the American regionalist movement, made up of rural, mostly Midwestern artists who tended to paint...

In the mid-1820s, the development of press-molding radically changed the American glass industry, increasing output and bringing affordable decorative glasswares within the reach of a broader consumer market. In this new production process, workers placed gathers of molten glass in a machine press and applied pressure, forcing the glass into the contours of a mold....

Giovanni Battista Piranesi, an eighteenth-century designer of architecture, elaborate Interiors and exquisite furnishings, boldly combined historical elements to create innovative designs that still resonate today. Cooper-Hewitt invites a panel of designers to discuss how, like Piranesi, their imaginative and often irreverent use of historical motifs invigorates contemporary design. This panel features: Anna Sui, Fashion Designer;...