CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 2/17/2020

For Washington's Birthday, the textiles of American Modernist Marguerita Mergentime

This slogan-covered 1936 "Food for Thought" tablecloth is reproduced from perennial staff favorite, Marguerita Mergentime: American Textiles, Modern Ideas, the first and only book published on the until-recently-overlooked American designer who was so passionately "allergic to meaningless uninspired patterns in printed cloths." The subject of a talk today at Palm Springs Modernism Week, Mergentime printed this USA-themed textile with such provocative and today, timely, phrases as, "Share the Wealth," "Free Homes for the Homeless," "Sock the Rich," "Back to Normalcy," "A Business Man's Gov't," "A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand" and "Votes for Women," to name a few. Food for thought and thought for food, indeed.