Eames Lounge Chair. Today Show debut 1956.

Thoughts on the importance of drawing by David Garshen Bomberg (1890-1957). From the Bomberg Papers: An Anthology. Oxford Press 1988.

Sappers at Work 1918 The Tate Collection

"Style is ephemeral – Form is eternal"

"Good judgement is through good drawing – from the nervous system to the sensory of the brain it is the combination of eurythmics, euphony and poetry, and when the good draughtsman draws, the muses come to dance. Then the imagination is given full play, and design happens. They then become the Muses".  

"Speaking generally Art endevours to reveal what is true and needs to be free. All things said regarding Art are subject to contradiction. An artist whose integrity sustains his strength to make no compromise with expediency is never degraded. His life work will resemble the integrating character of the primaries in the Spectrum. At the beginning, of the middle period, and at the end… I approach drawing solely for structure. I am perhaps the most unpopular artist in England – and only because I am draughtsman first and painter second. Drawing demands a theory of approach, until good drawing becomes habit – it denies all rules. It requires high discipline… Drawing demands freedom, freedom demands liberty to expand in space – this is progress. By the extension of democracy – good draughtsmanship is – Democracy’s visual sign. To draw with integrity replaces bad habits with good, youth preserved from corruption. The hand works at high tension and organises as it simplifies, reducing to barest essentials, stripping all irrelevant matter obstructing the rapidly forming organisation which reveals the design. This is drawing".

"The exercise of drawing from the life brings out the individuality of the (artist) in the man. When the door has been closed on completion of an academic rendering, no matter how rendered to the resemblance of the anatomic stress and strain, it is still only saying the things you already know... it is still a lifeless drawing in the light of modern art". 

Sold in 2014.

Raymond Loewy: The Father of Industrial Design (1893-1986)

The original idea for this post was to document the history of Air Force One, the Presidential aircraft. In 2016, a stunning new Boeing 747-8 will replace the Boeing VC-25 that has been in use since 1985. Hearing that, made me look back at the history of the aircraft, which led me to the work of Raymond Loewy. Also known as the Father of Streamling, his body of work is incredibly immense and too vast for this post so I will concentrate only on the portion of his work related to Air Force One.

After a brief but promising career as a fashion illustrator, Raymond Loewy dedicated his talent to the field of industrial design. Loewy's creative genius was innate, and his effect on the industry was immediate. He literally revolutionized the industry, working as a consultant for more than 200 companies and creating product designs for everything from cigarette packs and refrigerators, to cars and spacecrafts. Loewy lived by his own famous MAYA principle - Most Advanced Yet Acceptable. He believed that, "The adult public's taste is not necessarily ready to accept the logical solutions to their requirements if the solution implies too vast a departure from what they have been conditioned into accepting as the norm."
A popular lecturer as well, Loewy spoke at institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Columbia University, and the University of Leningrad. He founded three design companies: Raymond Loewy and Associates, New York; Raymond Loewy International, London; and Compagnie de I'Esthetique Industrielle, Paris. His writings include The Locomotive: Its Aesthetics (1937), the autobiography Never Leave Well Enough Alone (1951) and Industrial Design (1951).

Raymond Loewy launched his career in industrial design in 1929 when Sigmund Gestetner, a British manufacturer of duplicating machines, commissioned him to improve the appearance of a mimeograph machine. In three days 28-year-old Loewy designed the shell that was to encase Gestetner duplicators for the next 40 years. In the process, he helped launch a profession that has changed the look of America.

The Gestetner duplicator was the first of countless items transformed by streamlining, a technique that Loewy is credited with originating. Calling the concept "beauty through function and simplification," Loewy spent over 50 years streamlining everything from postage stamps to spacecrafts. His more famous creations include the Lucky Strike cigarette package, the GG1 and S1 locomotives, the slenderized Coca-Cola bottle, the John F. Kennedy memorial postage stamp, the interior of Saturn I, Saturn V, and Skylab, the Greyhound bus and logo, the Shell International logo, the Exxon logo, the U.S. Postal Service emblem, a line of Frigidaire refrigerators, ranges, and freezers, and the Studebaker Avanti, Champion and Starliner.
By 1951, his industrial design firm was so prolific that he was able to claim, "the average person, leading a normal life, whether in the country, a village, a city, or a metropolis, is bound to be in daily contact with some of the things, services, or structures in which R.L.A [Raymond Loewy Associates] was a party during the design or planning stage."

For an incredible, in-depth look at the life and work of Loewy visit here

Raymond Loewy, Jackie Kennedy and Air Force One

"For all the interest in the “flying White House,” we generally ignore its blue-and-white paint job, serif lettering and heraldry, a graphic scheme rich in history.
The tale of its origins is almost urban legend: as I had heard the story told, Raymond Loewy was hired by Jackie Kennedy to create a smart graphic identity for President Kennedy, who was then being flown in a Boeing 707. That design—white on top, polished metal on bottom, with two hues of blue in-between—remain on the current 747, along with all-caps Caslon reading “United States of America,” the presidential seal on the sides and the American flag on the tail.

The specific origins of the design, like pretty much everything from the Loewy office, are obscured in mystery. Loewy talked about the design in his 1976 book Industrial Design and claimed to have spread out his drawings in the Oval Office to go over the design with JFK. Loewy told of three-hour-long sessions with the president, working on the floor with scissors and rubber cement.
In this typewritten account, Loewy writes that he saw President Kennedy's 707 for the first time in March 1962, when JFK flew into Palm Springs, where Loewy had a house. (That's the famous trip, March 23–25, during which Frank Sinatra had hoped to host Kennedy, but Sinatra's mob connections led the president's handlers to avoid him. In frustration, Sinatra personally took a sledgehammer to the concrete helipad he had built for the president's arrival when, adding insult to injury, he learned that JFK was staying with Bing Crosby, instead.)

Loewy met with Gen. Godfrey T. McHugh, the president's Air Force aide, in charge of his travel. He had known McHugh for a long time—a reminder of the sort of networking for which Loewy was famous, and probably a lesson for us all. Loewy recalled pointing out “the unbelievably poor manner in which the paint was applied” and the “rather gaudy” color scheme of the plane. “I felt that the new aircraft could become an image of the American government,” he wrote, “and that its appearance should be impeccable in every way. Loewy said he and his firm would be happy to donate their services.

His offer accepted, the designer showed up at the White House that May with four graphic schemes and five lettering alternatives. Loewy credits his graphics department, headed by Roy Larsen, with the lettering. The first proposals, according to Loewy, were based on a red theme, the Air Force standard. ”Together we arranged the panels on armchairs lined up against the west wall and the president without hesitation selected one of the graphics.“ His choice was also the one Loewy preferred." Courtesy of here

Here is how Wiki tells this collaboration:

Under John F. Kennedy presidential air travel officially entered the jet age.^[18] He had used the Eisenhower-era jets for trips to Canada, France, Austria and the United Kingdom.^[19] However, in October 1962, the administration purchased a Boeing C-137 Stratoliner, a modified long-range 707—Special Air Mission (SAM) 26000.^[20]
The Air Force had attempted a special presidential livery of their own design: a scheme in red and metallic gold, with the nation's name in block letters. Kennedy felt the aircraft appeared too regal, and, on advice from his wife, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, he contacted the French-born American industrial designer Raymond Loewy for help in designing a new livery and interiors for the VC-137 jet.^[2] Loewy met with the president, and his earliest research on the project took him to the National Archives, where he looked at the first printed copy of the United States Declaration of Independence, and saw the country's name set widely spaced and in upper case in a typeface called Caslon. He chose to expose the polished aluminum fuselage on the bottom side, and used two blues; a slate-blue associated with the early republic and the presidency, and a more contemporary cyan to represent the present and future. The presidential seal was added to both sides of the fuselage near the nose, a large American flag was painted on the tail, and the sides of the aircraft read "United States of America" in all capital letters. Loewy's work won immediate praise from the president and the press. The VC-137 markings were adapted for the larger VC-25 when it entered service in 1990.

Interestingly, Boeing makes no mention of Loewy, stating only that Jackie Kennedy designed the logo and color scheme.

Hot design alert: Arabia of Finland.

Here is a tip for you based on our sales experience. Kitchenware and tableware marked Arabia of Finland is super hot. We sell nearly every piece we get right away. Arabia is a Finnish ceramics company founded in 1873 by Rorstrand and currently owned by housewares conglomerate Fiskars. The items that are the hottest are from the 1960's and 1970's and designed by the famous Finnish designer Kaj Franck.

“Kaj Franck (1911-1989) was one of the leading figures of Finnish design, the teacher of several generations of professional designers in Finland, and an influential figure in design and applied arts between 1940-1980. He was artistic director of the Wärtsilä Group (later Hackman Plc, present-day Iittala Group) and artistic director and teacher at the College of Applied Arts, the predecessor of the University of Art and Design Helsinki.The Design Forum Finland awards the yearly Kaj Franck Design Prize to a designer or team of designers working in the spirit of the late Kaj Franck. The Mint of Finland will release a collector coin with the theme “Kaj Franck and Industrial Art” in January 2011. The year of release will coincide with the one hundredth anniversary of his birth.”

 Courtesy Dcwdesign

Here are some examples we have had in stock and sold. We have about 5 items in stock here.

Courtesy Dcwdesign 

Lisa was out picking yesterday and found an Arabia of Finland item she had never seen before. This is a pair of cappuccino size cups and saucers with a cool biomorphic design on them. Lahja Pattern by Raija Uosikkinen designed them for Arabia Finland. We have never seen these before with saucers. 

Available here

Huge.... Saucer is 6 3/4" diameter x 1 1/4" deep. Cup is 4 3/8" in diameter x 3 5/8" deep x 5 1/4" wide.

Harlequin pattern china designed by Eva Zeisel. Sugar bowl with lid, creamer and gravy boat. Made by Hall Pottery.

One of the most popular mid-century modern designers was Eva Zeisel.  Her Harlequin pattern china just screams out modernism and has that Atomic Age decoration that collectors crave.

We have three fine pieces in stock for you right now. 

These pieces are available for purchase here

Eva Zeisel

Hungary (1906-2011)

 Eva Zeisel was continually intrigued by what she called her "playful search for beauty." A person of delightfully defiant spirit, the designer was just beginning her career when she declared war on the fashionable avant-garde. "I didn't accept the purism of modern design," she said. "In my definition, if it gave beauty to the eye, it was beauty."

Zeisel was born Eva Striker in Budapest in 1906. Her father ran a textile factory and her mother was an outspoken feminist and one of the first women to earn a doctorate at the University of Budapest. It was through her mother's urging that Zeisel switched from studying painting at the Budapest Royal Academy of Fine Arts to pursue the more practical career of ceramist. She apprenticed herself to a potter at a porcelain factory, an unusual path for an educated woman at that time. Zeisel persisted, graduated to journeyman status and became the first woman admitted to the local pottery guild. It was during this time that her work took on the sensuous, flowing and biomorphic forms that would continue throughout her career.

In 1932, Zeisel moved to Russia, explaining, "It was curiosity that moved me. I wanted to see what was behind the mountain." She found a job working for the Communist government as artistic director of the glass and ceramics industries. In May 1936, everything changed. "At 4:00am, there was a knock at the door, and so began a different life," she recalled. Accused of plotting to assassinate Stalin, Zeisel was sent to prison for 16 months, 12 of which were in solitary confinement. The accusations were fabricated and Zeisel never knew who was responsible for her release or how that joyous day came to be. "I hadn't seen any colors for a year and a half," said the designer.
Upon her release, she married Hans Zeisel. They lived in Vienna briefly, before the threat of Hitler made them leave for America. "I saw the Statue of Liberty and my fears came down. It was a very touching reception," said Zeisel of her October 1938 arrival. The next day she went to the magazine China and Glass and was immediately commissioned for ten ceramic miniatures for $100. She was also hired at New York's Pratt Institute, where she became the first person to teach ceramics as industrial design for mass production, rather than handicraft. Zeisel's work continued to gather acclaim, and in 1946, her all-white modern dinner service – a first by an American designer – was honored with an exhibition at MoMA. Her work is included in the permanent collections of museums worldwide, including MoMA, the Met and the V&A. In 2005, she was awarded the National Design Award for Lifetime Achievement by the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York.

Courtesy of Design Within Reach

#midcenturymodern #mcm #zeisel

Mara and her friends in an Eames style, mid-century, 3 place settee by Krueger Metal Products of Green Bay.

SOLD. Krueger Metal Products article on midcenturymodernist.com

Syncromism.

A short-lived but important movement in American modernism was called Synchromism. It helped American abstract painting become appreciated internationally.

Per Wiki: Synchromism was an art movement founded in 1912 by American artists Stanton MacDonald-Wright (1890-1973) and Morgan Russell (1886-1953). Their abstract "synchromies," based on an approach to painting that analogized color to music, were among the first abstract paintings in American art. Though it was short-lived and did not attract many adherents, Synchromism became the first American avant-garde art movement to receive international attention.^[1] One of the difficulties inherent in describing Synchromism as a coherent style is connected to the fact that some Synchromist works are purely abstract while others include representational imagery.

 Stanton MacDonald-Wright 1948 Archive of American Art

Portrait of Morgan Russell 1918 by Amedeo Modigliani. The Athenaeum.

Synchromism was developed by Stanton MacDonald-Wright and Morgan Russell while they were studying in Paris during the early 1910s.^[6] From 1911 to 1913, they studied under the Canadian painter Percyval Tudor-Hart, whose color theory connected qualities of color to qualities of music, such as tone to hue and intensity to saturation.^[7] Also influential upon MacDonald-Wright and Russell were the paintings of the Impressionists, Cézanne, and Matisse, which heavily emphasized color over drawing.^[8] Russell coined the term "Synchromism" in 1912, in an express attempt to convey the linkage of painting and music.

The first Synchromist painting, Russell's Synchromy in Green, exhibited at the Paris Salon des Indépendants in 1913. Later that year, the first Synchromist exhibition by Macdonald-Wright and Russell was shown in Munich.^[9] Exhibitions followed in Paris in October 1913 and in New York in March 1914. Macdonald-Wright moved back to the United States in 1914, but he and Russell continued separately to paint abstract synchromies.^[10] Synchromism remained influential among artists well into the 1920s, though its purely abstract period was relatively brief.^[11] Many synchromies of the late 1910s and 1920s contain representational elements. At no time, though, did Macdonald-Wright or Russell achieve the level of critical or commercial success they had hoped for when they introduced Synchromism to the United States. It was not until after Russell's death and late in Macdonald-Wright's life that extensive museum and scholarly attention was paid to their highly original achievements. Other American painters who experimented with Synchromism include Thomas Hart Benton, Andrew Dasburg, Patrick Henry Bruce, and Albert Henry Krehbiel.^[12] 

The earliest extended discussion of Synchromism appeared in the book Modern Painting: Its Tendency and Meaning (1915) by Willard Huntington Wright. Wright was a literary editor and art critic and the brother of Stanton Macdonald-Wright, and the book was secretly co-authored by Stanton. It surveyed the major modern art movements from Manet to Cubism, praised the work of Cézanne (at the time relatively unknown in the United States), denigrated "lesser Moderns" such as Kandinsky and the Futurists (and, of course, the Orphists), and predicted a coming age in which color abstraction would supplant representational art. Synchromism is presented in the book as the culminating point in the evolution of modernism. Willard Huntington Wright never acknowledged that he was writing about his own brother's work.^[13]

Three other extended treatments of Synchromism can be found in the catalogue by Gail Levin that accompanied a major traveling exhibition organized the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1978, Synchromism and American Color Abstraction, 1910-1925, in Marilyn Kushner's catalogue for a 1990 Morgan Russell retrospective at the Montclair Museum, and in Color, Myth, and Music: Stanton Macdonald-Wright and Synchromism by Will South, a catalogue-biography published in conjunction with a three-museum exhibition of the artist's work in 2001. Levin and South are the two art historians most responsible for
attracting scholarly and public attention to Synchromism, a movement that has often occupied a minor place in twentieth-century art-history textbooks.

Synchromism is based on the idea that color and sound are similar phenomena and that the colors in a painting can be orchestrated in the same harmonious way that a composer arranges notes in a symphony.^[2] Macdonald-Wright and Russell believed that, by painting in color scales, their visual work could evoke the same complex sensations as music. As Macdonald-Wright said,"Synchromism simply means 'with color' as symphony means 'with sound.'"^[3] The phenomenon of "hearing" a color or the pairing of two or more senses--synesthesia—was also central to the work of Wassily Kandinsky, who was developing his own synesthetic paintings, or "compositions," in Europe at approximately the same time.

The abstract "synchromies" are based on color scales, using rhythmic color forms with advancing and reducing hues. They typically have a central vortex and explode in complex color harmonies. The Synchromists avoided using atmospheric perspective or line, relying solely on color and shape to express form. Macdonald-Wright and Russell were among a number of avant-garde artists at work in the period immediately before World War I who believed that realism in the visual arts had long since reached a point of exhaustion and that, to be meaningful in the modern world, painting needed to sever any ties to older ideas about perspective and to literary or anecdotal content.

The earliest Synchromist works were similar to Fauvist paintings. The multi-colored shapes of Synchromist paintings also loosely resembled those found in the Orphism of Robert and Sonia Delaunay.^[4] MacDonald-Wright insisted, however, that Synchromism was a unique art form and "has nothing to do with Orphism and anybody who has read the first catalogue of Synchromism ... would realize that we poked fun at Orphism." The Synchromists' debts to Orphism remain a source of debate among art historians. Their approach more clearly owed something to Cubism. The Synchromists made use of the broken planes of the Cubists, but their lavishly colored areas of paint sometimes looked, as the art historian Abraham Davidson has described them, like "eddies of mist, the droplets of which collect to form parts of a straining torso....To find anything like this in American painting one has to wait for the color-field canvases of Jules Olitski in the 1960s. All images courtesy Wiki Images 

A highlight of 2014 for Hazel Home Art and Antiques was the acquisition and sale of this period Synchromist painting. It was only initialed and dated 1957 which is a bit late but it is still mid-century. 24 x 18, o/c.  As you can see, it is almost completely non-representational with just hints of birds in the painting. The palette is heavily influenced by the works of MacDonald-Wright and Russell.