During the decades following World War II, Americans experienced a drastic shift in both the domestic and the professional landscape. In response, both US-born and émigré architects, designers, and patrons helped to disseminate the midcentury aesthetic and worldview to a broad American audience.
Yesterday saw the opening of Designing Home: Jews and Midcentury Modernism at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City, a first-of-its-kind, an exhibit exploring Jewish contribution to modernism. Designing Home features the essential contributions of both well-known and lesser-known architects and designers — Richard Neutra, George Nelson, and Anni Albers, to name a few — as well as those with fascinating life stories or who may not have received the attention that they deserve. Organized by the San Francisco Contemporary Jewish Museum, the exhibit demonstrates the part that (particularly Jewish) patrons, merchants, and key media figures played in responding to the new set of needs in the home, which were answered by the new direction of design: Midcentury Modern.
1938 Schiff Apartment Duplex designed by Richard Neutra. Photo by Julius Shulman. All images courtesy The Contemporary Jewish Museum
Harry Rosenthal’s Cube Frame chair, c. 1930
Featuring over 100 objects, the exhibition is composed of five different sections. The first section includes furniture and products for the home — plus ceramics, textiles, and graphics — from the pink Henry Dreyfuss Princess phone to George Nelson’s Marshmallow sofa. A section features original furnishings by Bauhaus architect Harry Rosenthal, which inspired the Richard Neutra-designed Schiff house in 1938. A small gallery holds examples of Judaica, primarily textiles and silver ceremonial objects, by well-known designers like Anni Albers, Judith Brown, and Ludwig Yehuda Wolpert.
Significant architecture from the era is spotlighted throughout the gallery, including the contributions of original entities (i.e. Museum of Modern Art) and individual and merchant tastemakers (i.e. Edgar Kaufmann Jr. and Sr.). The final area of the exhibition deals with Hollywood’s role in promoting modern design, with movie title sequences by Saul Bass, film clips featuring modernist settings and fashion, and vintage commercials.
George Nelson’s 1956 Marshmallow Sofa
© Johnna Arnold
Henry Dreyfuss’ 1959 Princess Phone
Network Connections
What is perhaps the most interesting element of the exhibition, is an interactive infographic map of “Network Connections” between US-born and émigré designers and artists and the nonsectarian arts and education organizations that linked them all together. A national network of design professionals were connected through organizations that served as important hubs for Jewish artists, architects, and designers fleeing Europe. Take, for example, the working relationship between Jewish American-born Julius Shulman and Viennese immigrant Richard Neutra; their combined interest in Midcentury Modernism and talents of architecture and architectural photography were fostered through the Los Angeles-based Art and Architecture magazine.
As the infographic shows, the publication was one of six art and education organizations across the States — the Museum of Modern Art and the Walker Art Center and lesser-known Pond Farm, Black Mountain College, and the Institute of Design — that served as portals for Jewish, American, and foreign-born architects and designers to enter mainstream American design and architecture, and in turn the mainstream American lifestyle.
1945 Photo of Richard Neutra’s Desert House; photo by Julius Shulman
Ludwig Yehuda Wolpert’s 1958 Hanukkah Lamp
A series of programs follow the opening of the exhibit, which include: a talk with the curator, Donald Albrecht, on April 1st at 7pm; weekly tours during the month of May from guest lecturers on Sundays at noon; and the free Symposium on Jewish Culture and Modern Design put on by Parsons The New School for Design and Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum’s History of Design and Curatorial Studies Masters Program, featuring talks from leading scholars Alice T. Friedman and Jenna Weisman Joselit.
Designing Home: Jews and Midcentury Modernism will be on view through January 2016.