Design in the Rarefied World of the Art Museum

• how do we justify design in a museum setting?

design in american collections:

• why/when did museums start collecting design?

peter cooper established educational institution open to all
granddaughter eleanor (hewitt) opened cooper hewitt after cooper died

cooper hewitt, NY
america's first design museum
goal for hewitts: improvement of public taste

engraved acknowledgement of donation to cooper hewitt

museum opened til late so that workers would have the time to go after work
w hopes that it would lift public taste in all

cooper hewitt, national design museum, NYC
"the man-made environment in its totality"

• notion that museum could act as a source of taste

john cotton dana of newark museum
belief that museums should not be inaccessible & elite gazing museums
museums as reforming, teaching, uplifting presences for society
response to industrialization & consumer culture

newark museum, newark NJ

• dana mounted america's first ever display of industrial design

-1912 exhibition: modern german applied arts
-championed improvement of industrial goods, well created & beautiful even though made by machines

-prints, books, photos, ceramics, etc. 

-sent to 6 other cities to be seen

-pioneering effort: established dana's reputation

-offered to hand over to metropolitan museum & they turned it down, saying they didn't want to be associated w commercial "design"

-beauty could be found in every day goods; no strict relationship w age, rarity, or price

-in a changing world, shouldn't museums change as well?

1929 exhibition: inexpensive items of good design

• budget makes it hard for the newark to compete w the metropolitan's collecting power
• newark focuses more on the didactic aspect of design

metropolitan museum of art, NYC
1917 exhibition: the designer & the museum
reversed refusal of industrial art; small exhibition
gradually, cautiously integrating design & industrial arts
into the rarefied world of the art museum
exhibitions not curated by design curators

• collecting vs. exhibiting: collecting = commitment

textile study room, metropolitan museum of art, NYC
study rooms to go & study the examples of production
promote good design & elevate taste & production through education

philip johnson at the MoMA
famous architect
first director of architecture & design at MoMA
design department opens under him

• trustees of MoMA balked at the idea of showing industrial art but eventually started collecting
• design slowly creeping into museums due to progressive curators

1934 exhibition: machine art, MoMA, NYC
over 400 machine made objects
mounted on pedestals & lighted from above like traditional art & sculptures
philip johnson implies that industrial arts were just as worthy as traditional fine arts
usefulness can make an object beautiful; function would create its own beauty
MoMA acquired 100 objects from the exhibition

objects of catalog of exhibition:

• shows other art acknowledging importance of machine/industry

american landscape- charles sheeler, 1930

bird in space- brancusi 1928

• MoMa's 1940s-50s series of exhibitions:

exhibition: useful objects
MoMA, NYC
fitness to form
including more of the public into the notion of the beauty of production

good design exhibition, MoMA, 1951
industrial aesthetic

brooklyn museum
american union of decorative artists & craftsmen exhibition, 1931

russel wright cocktail shaker, 1930

design for the machine exhibition, philadelphia museum of art 1932
products to be appreciated for beauty

contemporary american industrial art exhibition, MoMA
industrial designer's office, 1934
educating the public about the industrial designer & what they do

• industrial design presented agents of reform, of tastes, education future 

-during wartime, these designs became relevant as affordable objects

-reassuring evidence of creative problem solving during shakey war time

-masterpiece & the mass produced were awarded equal footing in museum context

-museums endorsed design's presence among the arts

• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston:

• today, museums embrace design, are dynamic institutions
• "any object i acquire for my department [design] must stand up to the same criteria of works entering other departments" -curator of MFAH