In this lecture, Dr. Bénédicte Gady explores the intersecting histories of the drawing collections of Cooper Hewitt and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. Cooper Hewitt was founded as the Cooper Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration in 1897. It was deliberately modeled after the Parisian museum, which had been founded thirty-three years...
A CHANGE IS GONNA COME: BLACK SPECULATIVE FUTURES FOR THE COOPER HEWITT, SMITHSONIAN DESIGN MUSEUM COLLECTION Dr. Dori Tunstall’s lecture examines the Black presence in the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum collection, from 19th-century Congolese status cloths to Art Sim’s Spike Lee film posters. Considering the history and methods of 19th-century collecting practices, Tunstall addresses...
THE TRANSMUTATION OF CREATIVE REUSE Designers turn existing materials or products into new works through the process of reuse transformation. More than a strategy for sustainability, reuse transformation not only diverts waste from landfills, but also challenges our preconceived notions of value and utility. In this lecture, designer and educator Hans Tan uses examples from...
DESIGNING THE SUBLIME: MECHANISM, RISK, AND WONDER World-renowned antiquarian horologist Brittany Nicole Cox explores the diverse utilization of the machine in design through a selection of objects drawn from the collections of Cooper Hewitt and other Smithsonian museums. Examples range from a nineteenth-century singing bird box to the world’s first tuning fork watch. Cox makes...
Dr. Ulrich Leben discusses the ornamental grammar of the surtout and its relationship to the interior architecture of the Palais Beauharnais
Designer Claudy Jongstra presents the in-depth knowledge of experimenting and working with products from the land.
Béatrice Quette looks at the design objects and art that fueled the West’s enthusiasm for Japan.
The Morse Historic Design Lecture | Ilonka Karasz
Jazz musician Victor Goines is the featured speaker for this year's Morse Historic Design Lecture Series.
Louis Comfort Tiffany used exotic motifs, extraordinary color, and abstracted forms in his lamps and art glass to become one of the most instrumental figures in American design history. While the Tiffany Studios stopped producing goods almost a century ago, the meticulous craftsmanship that went into the making of the studio’s lamps and vases has...
Lecture by Sarah Grant, Curator in the Word and Image department of London’s Victoria & Albert Museum. Talk given in conjunction with the exhibition ‘Fragile Beasts’ (on view at Cooper Hewitt June 10, 2016 through January 16, 2017). In this talk Sarah Grant gives an overview of the grotesque in all its many fanciful and...
Jacob Moss, Curator of London’s Fan Museum, traces the evolution of over 200 years of fan painting, using examples from Cooper Hewitt and The Fan Museum collections. This lecture is part of the Morse Historic Design Lecture Series. With the recent resurgence of interest in hand-held fan design, Cooper Hewitt’s historic collection of fans is...
