Take an ad in the show for a 1935 Sears Coldspot refrigerator. “Less color and clutter, and more movement,” explains Mahoney, adding that in Chicago, “our strong suit was really product design, with graphics as a close second.” The style was characterized by long horizontals and nautical motifs. Michael McArdle designed this coffee set, made by the Chicago Flexible Shaft Company, in 1935. Most of the objects are from the museum’s own collection.
Howell Company to ingenious appliances made by Sunbeam and even toy trains. Her exhibition gives us not towering buildings but many eye-level and human-size items, from tubular steel furniture designed by Wolfgang Hoffmann for the Illinois-based W.W. “Architecture is our calling card, but we made huge contributions in these other areas,” says Mahoney. Nevertheless, notes Olivia Mahoney, the History Museum’s senior curator and the organizer of “Modern by Design,” the show has to overcome the common perception that skyscrapers are Chicago’s big contribution to design in the first half of the 20th century. Nowhere is the importance of Chicago’s role as cultural nexus better exemplified than in Streamline Moderne. “This idea of its being a crossroads and a place to exchange ideas is so important,” says Glassman. In addition to completed works, the show includes process pieces, like this late 1930s design drawing for a tubular steel chair produced by the Howell Company.Ĭhicago’s location in the middle of the country and its status as an early rail hub - along with the cultural ramifications of those facts - are threads that run through the shows. “We know how great it is here, and we need to get that message out,” says Elizabeth Glassman, the president and chief executive of the Terra Foundation for American Art, which is largely underwriting Art Design Chicago, to the tune of some $6 million.
It can be thought of as a Midwestern version of Pacific Standard Time, the popular Los Angeles–focused mega-show that has so far had two iterations.Īrt Design Chicago has a huge diversity of components - on view this fall is also an exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago about the 1960s group known as the Hairy Who?, as well as a couple of looks back at the metropolis’s 1893 World’s Fair - but its overall point is clear: The Windy City is owed some attention and is finally getting it.
AS BUILT DRAWING COMPANIES IN CHICAGO ONLY PLUS
This broad and scholarly show, comprising more than 300 works, is part of Art Design Chicago, the omnibus 2018 event that features more than 25 exhibitions mounted in various institutions, plus hundreds of public programs. All photos courtesy Chicago History Museum Top: A wall clock designed by George Stephens and made by the Hammond Clock Company, 1938. A new show at the Chicago History Museum reveals the major role the Windy City played in the late Art Deco design movement known as Streamline Moderne and showcases such objects as this stainless-steel electric mixer made by A.F.
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