Author: Leigh Wishner In celebration of the third annual New York Textile Month, members of the Textile Society of America will author Object of the Day for the month of September. A non-profit professional organization of scholars, educators, and artists in the field of textiles, TSA provides an international forum for the exchange and dissemination...
When Edwin Land, co-founder of the Polaroid Corporation, introduced the SX-70 instant camera, he could have hardly predicted how forward-thinking his design truly was. The idea of instant photography, something synonymous with today’s smartphone and social media image sharing applications, was more or less an inexact science before 1972, the year that the SX-70 was...
Pumpkin-orange! Motion! These are just a few words that come to mind to describe this collage by artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude. This bright, dynamic work presents a plan and rendering of The Gates, a public art installation that filled the winding walking paths of New York’s Central Park with 7,503 rectangular structures draped with flame-colored...
“I was in my early 20s and I could quite happily work all day and go out all night. And I always had a camera with me.” –Nick Waplington, 2016 British Photographer Nick Waplington (b. 1965) was a student of the Royal Academy of Art when he was “discovered” by renowned fashion photographer, Richard Avedon. Throughout his...
In last month’s Short Story, Matthew Kennedy paraded us through the theatrical follies of the Hewitts, as well as the vivid and varied theatrical design collection of Cooper Hewitt. This month, Emily Orr, Cooper Hewitt’s assistant curator of modern and contemporary American design, introduces us to the chic and imaginative world of store window displays...
Elizabeth Broman discusses the work of influential Jazz-Age photojournalist Thérèse Bonney.
During the mass digitization project at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, which has been under way for the last year, twenty Megalethoscope plates of unknown origin were discovered in our storage facility. The Cooper Hewitt’s Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design department collection contains a photostat of an advertisement from the early 1860’s that illustrates the...
A “Beau” is as a man greatly concerned with appearance. And like the word “Dandy” it is often applied to men who affect extreme elegance; who are unduly concerned with looking stylish and fashionable; and who place particular importance on leisurely pastimes. We know F. Scott Fitzgerald’s charming Jay Gatsby as a shining example of...
From the archives, an Object of the Day blog post on the Polaroid SX-70,. The 1972 point-and-shoot camera revolutionized instant photography. Now on view in Bob Greenberg Selects.
