Kristina Wilson

The Intimate Gallery and the Equivalents: Spirituality in the 1920s Work of Stieglitz

The Intimate Gallery (1925 to 1929) was Alfred Stieglitzs first commercial venture dedicated solely to American modern art. The article compares the gallery with Stieglitzs photographs from the same years, his images of the sky known collectively as the Equivalents, and proposes that a period-specific concept of spirituality informed the aesthetics of both projects. Central to Stieglitzs beliefs was the idea that bodily experience and spiritual knowledge were intertwined. He thus fostered an understanding of both the gallery and his photographs as interanimating agents, suggesting that the viewers empathetic response to the art would catalyze a spiritual epiphany.

The Story of Eames Furniture, by Marilyn Neuhart, with John Neuhart

book, by contrast, stands at a somewhat greater distance from the projects and personalities, but for that very reason is able to situate the IBM design program in broader aesthetic, political, and philosophical terms. Drawing upon the archives both of IBM and of the Noyes office, as well as the insights of critics ranging from Jean Baudrillard and Paul Virilio to management theorists Adolf Berle and Alfred Chandler to art historians Hubert Damisch and Friedrich Kittler, The Interface constitutes a significant contribution not just to the history, but also to the historiography, of design.

Fearing a “Conservative Public”

The Worcester Art Museum staged an exhibition of the modernist Dial Collection in 1924, featuring expressive, vibrant paintings by Matisse, Bonnard, Munch, Demuth, Picasso, and others. This article takes the exhibition as a case study that reveals lesser-known circuits of transmission for modern art in the U.S. in the decade after the Armory Show. Motivations both selfish and grand brought The Dial’s avant-garde art to this mid-level city. Scofield Thayer, editor of The Dial, was enterprising and opportunistic in seeking publicity for his collection, and he expressed little respect for the cultural conservatism that occasionally surfaced in Worcester. The museum’s director, Raymond Henniker-Heaton, was a determined, risk-taking administrator. His willingness to bring the Dial Collection to the museum, despite the reservations of his board of trustees, was part of a much larger campaign to establish Worcester as a venue for cutting-edge art. The Dial Collection eventually became a much-loved fixture in Worcester, and this case study demonstrates how the initial exposure to avant-garde art for audiences outside of cultural centers was a consequence of ambition, open-mindedness, and also self-interest.

Ambivalence, Irony, and Americana

This article examines the canvases and photographs made by Charles Sheeler between 1926 and 1939 of his own collection of Shaker furniture, hooked rugs, and nineteenth-century ceramics. It argues that the paintings possess modernist self-consciousness, ambivalence, and irony toward their historical subject matter and that they critique the contemporary collecting fad for all things Americana. The article sets Sheeler’s paintings in the context of the Metropolitan Museum’s American Wing and the writings of Holger Cahill and Edward and Faith Andrews and argues that an ambivalent, ironical attitude pervaded much of the early scholarship on these artifacts.

The Wedding Present: Domestic Life Beyond Consumption by Louise Purbrick

to the quick of the issues. However, it occasionally misses the mark. One component of ballot and election design that seems missing from the scope of discussion is the role of writing in the redesign process, as in, “graphic design is words and pictures.” Obviously the concise writing, voice, and tone of the examples illustrated in the book – not just their typography – were a crucial part of the successful solutions. But Lausen provides little guidance on how to improve the clarity and concision of election-related writing. Also surprising were the posters that were chosen to illustrate an initiative to encourage registration and voter participation: the prominent tagline on the bottom of each of them, opposite an AIGA logo, was “Good design makes choices clear.” Obviously the posters were meant to exemplify good design from the perspective of both elections and the AIGA, but unfortunately the showcased examples were not compelling choices. The AIGA Get out the Vote website (http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/get-out-the-vote) includes many superior examples of engaging, head-turning designs. Minor flaws aside, Design for Democracy cuts new and important ground in design scholarship and in the design literature. As a guidebook and case study for designers it provides an extensive information/branding design project model as well as documenting a successful collaboration between various kinds of designers, social scientists, and clients/stakeholders. The much greater contribution, however, is the book’s very approachable and graphic example of how design can address vital civic needs; it is accessible and useful not just to designers but also, and more significantly, to citizens and government officials. The bottom line is that this book is exceptionally important, not least because it drives home the point that design is never just design.