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Julia Keiner’s Universalism and the Question of Israeli style Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2024-02-20 Noga Bernstein
The existence, or lack thereof, of a distinguishable Israeli style remains a central question in the historiography of Israeli art and design. This a examines tensions produced by this debate between the 1940s and 1960s—a formative period of Israeli nation-building—as manifested in the design and pedagogical ideology of handweaver Julia Keiner (1900–1992), who immigrated to Mandatory Palestine from
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The Dot: Statistics, Society, and Graphic Design, c. 1830–1970 Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2024-01-05 Hannah Pivo
This article takes Chermayeff & Geismar Associates’ cover designs for a paperback reprint series, “Studies in American Negro Life” (1968–c. 1972), as a starting point for investigating the history of the dot as a tool for social-statistical visualization. It first situates the series—which re-issued texts on Black history, sociology, and literature—within the context of 1960s urban unrest in the United
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Becoming Imperial Brands: Japanese Advertising in Colonial Korea, 1920–1932 Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2023-12-10 Yongkeun Chun
This article explores the expansion of advertisements by Japanese consumer goods brands in Korea during the Japanese colonial period (1910–1945), focusing on the 1920s and early 1930s. It adopts the “colonial modernity” approach to examine Japanese advertising in Korea as an interface between Japanese and Korean non-state actors. It also uses transnational design history to investigate, more empirically
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Seeds for New Beginnings? Ecological Uncertainty, Blurry Ideology, and Speculative Design at the Universitas Symposium, 1972 Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2023-11-25 Ingrid Halland
In 1972, designer Emilio Ambasz (b. 1943) organized the symposium “The Universitas Project” at MoMA in New York City. The issue at stake was how the field of design should tackle the possibly irresolvable societal, political, and ecological problems of post-industrial society. Ambasz proposed a new design approach, which he named design as a mode of thought, with the aim of building a new research-education
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Envisioning the Future by Design: Toyota’s Show Cars at the 1969 and 1970 Tokyo Motor Shows Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2023-11-07 Frans Autio
Toward the end of the 1960s, the car industry in Japan was reaching its maturity, and it seemed increasingly certain that Japan’s future was firmly linked to cars. At the 16th and 17th Tokyo Motor Shows, in 1969 and 1970, an unprecedented number of show cars made by Japanese car manufacturers were introduced. At these shows, Toyota introduced a series of show cars, the EX-I, EX-II, EX-III, and EX-7
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Eileen Gray and Jean Badovici at Vézelay Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2023-08-25 Tim Benton
The study of collaborative work by architects and designers can present difficulties. The principal biographers of Eileen Gray asserted that she played the key role in the design of the houses that her friend Jean Badovici (1893–1956) acquired and transformed in Vézelay between 1926 and 1934 and that this work contributed to the design of her other buildings. This claim is worth investigating because
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The Lady in the Overall: First World War Patriotism, Respectability, and Workwear of Upper-Class Munitionettes Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2023-07-12 Jenny Richardson
This article offers new insights into the national market for utilitarian garments worn by British upper-class Munitionettes in the pursuit of essential First World War munition manufacture. There has been a resurgence in recent years in the interest of women’s workwear, but little dress historical research has been undertaken into the manufacture and consumption of these garments by upper-class women
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The Future Sign Language: A Critical History of Aicher’s Ideas About Signs and Pictograms for the 1972 Munich Olympics Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2023-07-11 Wibo Bakker
The signs and pictograms designed by Otl Aicher and his team for the Munich Olympics in 1972 are regarded as a milestone in design history. With this work, Aicher responded to what he thought were the most important challenges for signs and pictograms during the 1960s: the lack of grammar and visual clarity. He had specific ideas about this which he expressed in his designs as well as in his writings
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Follow the Boots: A Case Study of Design and Global Value Chains Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2023-07-05 Elise Hodson
As manufacturing has become globally fragmented, so too has the work of design. Complex supply chains conceal sources of creativity and innovation, posing new challenges for researching design history. There is little understanding of how the globalization of manufacturing in the late-twentieth and early-twenty-first centuries has affected design practice or how design authorship might be identified
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Co-option or Recognition? Second-wave Feminist Politics and the Frigidaire Australia Women’s Design Conference, 1980 Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2023-06-24 Jesse Adams Stein
In 1980, Frigidaire Australia launched an advertising campaign in popular women’s magazines calling for readers’ opinions on refrigerator design. Soon after, Frigidaire held the Group 200 Women’s Design Conference in Sydney, leading to the release of the G2 refrigerator in 1981, which was promoted as being “designed” by the women involved in this market research. This example offers insights into evolving
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Frank Barr: Avant-Garde Designer in Mid-Century Chicago? Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2023-06-21 Paul F Gehl
A popular 1941 gallery show in Chicago entitled “The Advance Guard of Advertising Artists” included five prominent European advocates of modernist design and four Americans who did daring and innovative work. All but one of these designers is today included in the mid-century design canon. The odd man out was Frank Barr (1906–1955), a Chicago letterpress printer with a modest, entirely local reputation
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“Something Really Very Odd and Singularly Appropriate:” The Fashionable Swastika in the US Before 1939 Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2023-06-21 Caroline Elenowitz-Hess
More than a decade before Hitler became the leader of the Nazi party, on the other side of the Atlantic, the Ladies’ Home Journal hit on the perfect insignia for their new “Girl’s Club”: a swastika. This was far from anomalous; an examination of American fashion and lifestyle publications shows that the swastika was a fashionable motif for dress, home decor, and particularly jewelry from the turn of
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“The credit of priority”: The Japanese Collection Loaned From the Netherlands to The Great Industrial Exhibition, Dublin, 1853 Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2023-06-02 Christina Baird
The year 1853 marks a landmark in the history of Japanese art exhibitions within Britain and Ireland, being the year when the first clearly identified exhibition of Japanese items was displayed in an international exhibition in the British Isles. The Great Industrial Exhibition, Dublin, 1853, is of importance because the Japanese exhibition loaned from a Dutch collection illustrates the Dutch playing
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Innovation and Revivalism: Powell & Sons’ Opus Sectile Mosaic Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2023-05-02 Lily Crowther
The late-nineteenth century saw a flourishing of mosaic in British architecture. Both traditional and innovative methods of mosaic-making were deployed in a wide variety of contexts from the 1850s onwards: in domestic, public, sacred, and secular buildings; for interior and exterior decoration; at large and small scales. Widespread experimentation with new materials, facilitated by the affordability
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Marie Neurath: Designing Bilston’s Housing Exhibition Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2023-03-11 Pia Pedersen
Marie Neurath was a pioneer in information design who co-developed the graphic approach Isotype and co-founded the Isotype Institute. This article elaborates on Marie’s creation of an educational exhibition in 1946 in Bilston, UK, advocating for a slum clearance project in a working-class neighborhood of Bilston. For over ten months, Marie carefully designed twelve charts that would help viewers understand
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“Thrice Precious Tube!” Negotiating the Visibility and Efficiency of Early Hearing Aids Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2023-02-26 Magdalena Zdrodowska
In the nineteenth century, acoustic hearing aids (such as ear trumpets or conversation tubes) became ubiquitous attributes of deaf people from polite society. These prostheses were a visible sign of otherwise invisible deafness. Although some deaf people used hearing aids openly and proudly, and constantly attempted to convince others that using them was nothing to be ashamed of, others wanted to hide
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Balenciaga, licensee of Maison Vionnet Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2022-12-05 Ana Balda
Cristóbal Balenciaga’s initial period in Spain (1917–1936), when he was working to develop himself as a couturier and consolidate his business in the luxury sector, is less known than his Parisian period (1937–1968), due to the scarcity of available information. This article analyses the designer as a buyer of haute couture licenses during that initial period. His biographers claim that in the early
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Introduction: the Bauhaus centennial and design history Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2022-09-13 Jeremy Aynsley, Esther Cleven
The Bauhaus is possibly the most famous school of art, design, and architecture of the first half of the twentieth century. It holds an enduring reputation as one of the most influential sources for the origins of modern design. In response to the centenary of its foundation in 1919, this special issue offers critical perspectives on the school’s reputation from a range of international scholars. The
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“Moroccan” Artek—Colonized Textiles within 1930s Modernist Interiors Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2022-09-03 Daniele Burlando
Shortly after opening in 1936, the Finnish interior design company Artek organized two exhibitions in Helsinki: a model apartment showroom and a display within its shop, both involving a substantial presence of Amazigh carpets from the French protectorate of Morocco. This article analyses these rugs within Artek identifying them as “colonized textiles.” This proposed concept aims to highlight textiles
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Screen Interiors: From Country House to Cosmic Heterotopias Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2022-04-13 Anne Massey
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Taking a Stand? Debating the Bauhaus and Modernism Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2022-04-07 Alice Twemlow
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Crafting Identities: Artisan Culture in London, c.1550–1640 Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2022-04-07 Christine Casey
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Inclusive Textile Histories: Gender, Geopolitics and Decoration Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2022-04-07 Claire I R O’Mahony
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The Joining of the Arts: Danish Art and Design, 1880–1910 Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2022-04-07 Maggie Taft
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No Compromise: The Work of Florence Knoll Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2022-04-05 Jennifer Kaufmann-Buhler
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In Sparkling Company: Reflections on Glass in the 18th-Century British World Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2022-04-01 Simon Spier
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Re-reading Bauhaus Histories: Appropriations and Global Perspectives Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2022-04-01 Joaquín Medina Warmburg
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Savage Mind to Savage Machine: Racial Science and Twentieth-Century Design Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2022-03-03 Jane Tynan
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‘Beautiful, plain objects like [SKF] ball bearings’: The Enigma of Aestheticizing Anonymity in ‘Machine Art’ and Modernist Logotypes Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2022-01-25 Ezra Shales
The SKF ball bearing on display in the 1934 ‘Machine Art’ exhibition in the Museum of Modern Art is an icon referenced throughout visual culture studies but this article recognizes its materiality, identifying the corporate logotype and other branded markings that complicate its identity as anonymous or, in the words of museum curator Philip Johnson, as ‘plain’. SKF, Svenska Kullagerfabriken (The Swedish
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Marcel Breuer, the Wassily chair and the ‘frozen’ Bauhaus modernism after 1945 Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2022-01-06 Donatella Cacciola
Donatella Cacciola teaches design history, theories of design, and in the Masters programme in Museum Studies at the University of Bonn. She studied World Heritage Studies in Parma and received her PhD from the Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture. Methodologically, she focuses her work strongly on archival sources (inter alia she worked and researched for several months in the archive
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More Brutal than Alton West?: Elevation Design and the Gordon Wilson Memorial Flats, Wellington, New Zealand. Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2021-12-16 Christine McCarthy, Michael Dudding
Summary This paper addresses a gap in research regarding the design of the main elevations of the Gordon Wilson Memorial Flats (GWF). The GWF is the only surviving post-war example of high-rise multi-unit state housing in New Zealand. Its identification as a heritage building has been controversial, but this status was recently confirmed in New Zealand’s Environment Court. This paper examines the GWF
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Home as an Aid: Domestic Design for Disabled Polio Survivors Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2021-11-22 Anna Myjak-Pycia
This article examines domestic interior design developed and propagated by the home economics movement in post-war America for women physically disabled by the poliovirus and other causes resulting in similar impairments. It argues that domestic interior design was maximally assistive, facilitating the disabled in their everyday tasks, in particular domestic labour. This article shows that home economists
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The theatre of exhibitions: Czechoslovakia at the International Exhibition in Paris, 1937 Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2021-11-15 Marta Filipová
Summary How can an exhibition designer engage the visitor to a world’s fair who has already spent hours walking around the grounds, visiting other attractions and countless national pavilions? This question drove many theoretical and practical considerations of exhibition design during the interwar period and preoccupied many designers and artists. As a very active participant in world’s fairs at this
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‘A Striking Air of Modernity Tempered with Tradition’: Vernacular Modernism and the Design of the Public House in Cork and Dublin, 1934–1969 Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2021-11-15 Tom Spalding
In design history discourse, modernity and tradition can be seen as intimately related rather than dichotomous. For example, Michelangelo Sabatino has noted the complex relationship between them in Italian twentieth-century architecture. What was the relationship between modernity and tradition in post-Independence Ireland? One way of investigating this is to consider the design of a quintessentially
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Space Suits and Gas Masks: Mary Ann Scherr and an Alternative View of Personal Technology Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2021-11-12 Kayleigh C Perkov
Summary The development of commercial, wearable biosensors since the 1970s has been promoted as a rhetoric of optimization, in which one’s body can be improved through harnessing information. The wearable biosensor can therefore be understood as a tool of biomedicalization, in which patients are turned into consumers and health is a personal responsibility. This paper argues for a radical alternative
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Chicago Modernism and the Ludlow Typograph: Douglas C. McMurtrie and Robert Hunter Middleton at Work Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2021-11-09 Paul Shaw
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Fur: A Sensitive History Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2021-10-30 Danielle Sprecher
FaiersJonathan, Yale University Press, 2020. 240 pp., 29 b&w and 217 col. illus., cloth, $60.00. ISBN: 9780300227208.
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Paris Fashion and World War Two: Global Diffusion and Nazi Control Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2021-10-26 Bass-Krueger M.
TaylorLou and McLoughlinMarie (eds.), Bloomsbury, 2020. 360 pp., 239 col. illus., cloth, $115. ISBN: 9781350000261.
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Majolica Mania: Transatlantic Pottery in England and the United States, 1850–1915 Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2021-10-11 Rachel Gotlieb
WeberSusan (ed.), Bard Graduate Center and Yale University Press, 2021. 1200 b&w and col. illus., 1008 pp., cloth, $300.00. ISBN: 9780300251043.
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Design and Political Dissent: Spaces, Visuals, Materialities Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2021-10-07 Haldrup M.
TraganouJilly (ed.), Routledge, 2020. 324 pp., 54 b&w and 16 col. illus., cloth, $160.00. ISBN: 9780815374220.
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Critical Design in Japan: Material Culture, Luxury, and the Avant-Garde Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2021-09-28 Potvin J.
Critical Design in Japan: Material Culture, Luxury, and the Avant-Garde BartalOry, Manchester University Press, 2020. 248 pp., cloth, £80.00. ISBN: 9781526139979.
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Reading Graphic Design History: Image, Text, and Context Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2021-09-28 Gerry Beegan
Reading Graphic Design History: Image, Text, and Context RaizmanDavid, Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2021. 304 pp., 208 b&w and 33 col. illus., paper, $35.99. ISBN: 9781474299411.
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Iteration: Episodes in the Mediation of Art and Architecture Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2021-10-01 Finkelstein C.
SchuldenfreiRobin (ed.), Routledge, 2020. 210 pp., 91 b&w and 10 col. illus., paper, $35.96. ISBN 9781138392489.
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Art, Politics and the Pamphleteer Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2021-09-28 McVarish E.
Art, Politics and the Pamphleteer TormeyJane & WhiteleyGillian (eds.), Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. 384 pp., 250 b&w illus., paper, £24.29. ISBN: 9781350022461.
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The Pocket: A Hidden History of Women’s Lives, 1660–1900 Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2021-09-21 Harpley J.
BurmanBarbara and FennetauxAriane, Yale University Press, London, 2019. 264 pp., 200 col. illus., paper, £19.99. ISBN: 9780300253740.
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Victor Papanek: Designer for the Real World Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2021-09-21 Fallan K.
Victor Papanek: Designer for the Real World ClarkeAlison J., The MIT Press, 2021. 360 pp., 78 col. illus., cloth, $40.00. ISBN: 9780262044943.
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Atari Design: Impressions on Coin-Operated Video Game Machines Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2021-09-21 Atkinson P.
Atari Design: Impressions on Coin-Operated Video Game Machines GuinsRaiford, Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2020. 280 pp., 120 b&w and 16 pp. col. Plates, cloth, $81.00. ISBN: 9781474284547.
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Selling Time: Multiple Temporalities in the Promotion of Danish Design Classics Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2021-09-08 Anders V Munch, Hans-Christian Jensen
The promotion of design classics was established in Denmark in the 1960s, turning Danish Modern into a tradition, and today it is carried out through institutionalized discourses and multiple temporalities, as we show in the cases of the Wishbone Chair and the Vipp brand. There has been much critique of the canonization of design classics, but little research literature on the concept itself, compared
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The Female Secession: Art and the Decorative at the Viennese Women’s Academy Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2021-08-28 Franziska Schweiger
The Female Secession: Art and the Decorative at the Viennese Women’s Academy Brandow-FallerMegan, Penn State University Press, 2020. 304 pp., 60 b&w and 27 col. illus., cloth, $99.95. ISBN: 9780271085043.
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Reframing Japonisme: Women and the Asian Art Market in Nineteenth-Century France, 1853–1914 Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2021-08-28 Kåberg H.
Reframing Japonisme: Women and the Asian Art Market in Nineteenth-Century France, 1853–1914 EmeryElizabeth, Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2020. 280 pp., 50 b&w illus., cloth, $120.00. ISBN: 9781501344633.
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Designing the Department Store: Display and Retail at the Turn of the Twentieth Century Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2021-08-23 Patricia Lara-Betancourt
OrrEmily M., Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2019. 208 pp., 50 b&w illus., and 16 col. plates, cloth, $120.00. ISBN: 9781350054370
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Irish Country Furniture and Furnishings 1700–2000 Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2021-08-23 Godson L.
KinmonthClaudia, Cork University Press, 2020. 576 pp., 454 b&w and col. illus., cloth, €39.00. ISBN: 9781782054054.
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Shifting Geographies Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2021-08-18 Courtney Schum
Summary This article explores the intersection of Bauhaus principles, communication design, transnationalism, and postwar global affairs present in Herbert Bayer’s World Geo-Graphic Atlas. The book was produced exclusively for clients of the Chicago-based Container Corporation of America in 1953 as part of the company’s unique patronage of artists and designers. Driven by the design prowess Bayer honed
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The Franko Prints: Joseph Urban’s Designs for the American Textile Market Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2021-08-16 Sarah Marie Horne
Summary While historical accounts of the Art Deco style in the United States often focus on the cultural influence of France, this article examines the impact of Viennese design on American taste through the work of architect and designer Joseph Urban. In particular, it offers new evidence that Urban persistently worked to disseminate the design aesthetic of the Wiener Werkstätte beyond the establishment
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Design and Agency Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2021-08-07 Zoë Hendon
PotvinJohn and MarchandMarie-Ève (eds.), Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2020. 328 pp., 40 b&w illus., cloth, £76.50. ISBN: 9781350063792.
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E. McKnight Kauffer: The Artist in Advertising Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2021-08-10 Aynsley J.
CondellCaitlin and OrrEmily M. (eds.), Rizzoli Electa and Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, 2020. 276 pp., col. illus., $65.00. ISBN: 9780847867745.
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Reconstructing the “Femme-Fleur”: Floral Modernism in the Work of Madeleine Vionnet and Jeanne Lanvin Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2021-08-04 Caroline Elenowitz-Hess
The seeds of modernism had been planted before the First World War, but it was in the post-war period that there was a true blossoming of self-consciously “modern” aesthetics and the new, “modern” woman. Although modernism is often associated with the masculine, urban, and geometric—indeed, women’s fashion took a more androgynous turn—influential couturières Madeleine Vionnet and Jeanne Lanvin still
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Artisans, Objects, and Everyday Life in Renaissance Italy: The Material Culture of the Middling Class Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2021-07-30 Thomas V Cohen
Paula HohtiErichsen, University of Amsterdam Press, 2020. 364 pp., 114 col. illus., 13 tables, 9 tabular appendices, cloth, € 118.00; eBook PDF, € 119.00. ISBN: 9789563722629; eBook PDF: 9789048550265.
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Deco Dandy: Designing Masculinity in 1920s Paris Journal of Design History Pub Date : 2021-07-30 McBrinn J.
PotvinJohn, Manchester University Press, 2020. 352 pp., b&w and col. illus., cloth, £80.00. ISBN: 9781526134790.