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BOOKS ON DESIGN THEORY, AESTHETICS AND HISTORY

PUBLISHER
MFA Publications, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 7 x 10.5 in. / 192 pgs / 110 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date
Active

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2022 p. 27   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9780878468850 TRADE
List Price: $45.00 CDN $61.00 GBP £36.00

AVAILABILITY
In stock

THE FALL 2023 ARTBOOK | D.A.P. CATALOG

Artbook | D.A.P. Catalog Cover Link
Preview our Fall 2023 catalog, featuring more than 500 new books on art, photography, design, architecture, film, music and visual culture.
  

MFA PUBLICATIONS, MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON

America Goes Modern

The Rise of the Industrial Designer

By Nonie Gadsden with Kate Joy.

America Goes Modern

How design made America modern: masterpieces of furniture, metalware and plastics from the early 20th century

During the 1920s and 1930s, the speed of modern life in the United States, accelerated by advances in transportation, communication, technology and advertising, changed how people lived their lives, and the objects they chose to live with. A new profession emerged to help American manufacturers and consumers navigate the overwhelming transitions of the era. Through the power of design—form, color, ornament and materials—the earliest industrial designers created a modern aesthetic that came to represent American hopes, dreams and fantasies.
America Goes Modern explores these designers’ achievements through close examination of selected masterworks. Each of these exceptional objects offers a window into the social, cultural, technological and economic world in which they were made and used. The book features sleek furniture, vibrant ceramics, streamlined metalwares and innovative plastics from the leading designers of the era.
Designers include: Norman Bel Geddes, Manning Bowman Company, Jules Buoy, Donald Deskey, Paul Frankl, Earl Harvey, Ianelli Studios, Belle Kogan, William Lescaze, Erik Magnussen, Peter Muller Munk, Gilbert Rhode, RumRill Art Pottery, Victor Schreckengost, Walter Dorwin Teague, The Hall China Company, Harold Van Doren, John Vassos, Kem Weber, Western Coil and Electric Company and Russel Wright.
Photographers and painters include: Berenice Abbott, Arthur Dove, Archibald Motley, Alvin Langdon Coburn, M. Murray Lebowitz, Norman Lewis, Max Weber, Margaret Bourke-White, Henry Callahan and Alfred Stieglitz.


Featured image is reproduced from 'America Goes Modern'.

PRAISE AND REVIEWS

Midwest Book Review

Profusely illustrated ... Exceptional and unreservedly recommended.

America Goes Modern

in stock  $45.00


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FROM THE ARTBOOK BLOG

CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 8/24/2022

'America Goes Modern' collects early 20th-century masterpieces of industrial design

'America Goes Modern' collects early 20th-century masterpieces of industrial design

We can't get enough of this 1927–28 table lamp designed by Donald Deskey, reproduced from America Goes Modern: The Rise of the Industrial Designer, MFA Publications' striking new survey of exemplary furniture, metalware and plastics of the 1920s and '30s. "Slightly over a foot tall, Deskey’s lamp combines a flat rectangular back with three stacked triangular volumes," Nonie Gadsden writes, "each concealing an incandescent bulb. Its distinctive shape evokes connections to numerous elements of modern life. The lamp’s overall vertical orientation, looming overhangs and stepped base suggest the skyscrapers then defining the new American city. Its serrated profile references the angularity of Cubism, as well as the teeth of industrial gears. Its upright, tripartite shape is similar to that of recently patented traffic lights that direct the constant stop-and-go of urban space. And its jagged outline calls to mind Mother Nature’s powerful lightning bolt, the symbol of modern electricity. Yet, the most modern aspect of Deskey’s lamp is its electrification. The switch on the back permitted it to be turned on and off at will. The flame-free bulbs allowed light to be directed and manipulated in ways that were impossible a generation before. Its cord connected the lamp’s user to the rapidly expanding national power grid and, symbolically, to a new and modern way of life. In both form and function, Deskey’s lamp utilized modernity to harness the new energy—and light—of modern American life." continue to blog


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Active | In stock