In last month’s Short Story, Jodi Rodgers discussed the drawings of Robert Frederick Blum and the purveyance of American drawing through the Cooper Union Museum’s collection. This month, we address the “Who is Cooper?” and “Who is Hewitt?” and “Why Carnegie?” questions that often accompany introductions of Cooper Hewitt’s name and location. We investigate and...
In celebration of Women’s History Month, March Object of the Day posts highlight women designers in the collection. Judith (Judy) Seigel (1930-2017) received a certificate in Art from Cooper Union in 1954 and received a MFA degree in Photography from the Pratt Institute in 1980. Based in New York City, Seigel was as an illustrator...
In last month’s Cooper Hewitt Short Story, wallcoverings curator Greg Herringshaw introduced different styles of wallcoverings collected by the Hewitt sisters that are now housed in Cooper Hewitt’s expansive collection. This month, Forrest Pelsue, publishing master’s fellow in the History of Design and Curatorial Studies at Parsons Paris, takes us on a journey to 1939...
In last month’s Cooper Hewitt Short Story, the exuberant personality of Robert Winthrop Chanler unfolded in a large gift of illustrated books to Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Library. May’s Short Story celebrates the curatorial vision that brought a professional edge to the Cooper Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration, that of Calvin Hathaway. Margery...
This figure study of a nude male depicted from the rear in contrapposto, bears the geometric massing and imperfect proportions of the work of a student. Made in 1957, the drawing is a vestige of the collegiate days of renowned artist Eva Hesse (b. Hamburg, 1936-1970). From 1954-1957, Hesse was a student at the Cooper Union...
Last month in Cooper Hewitt Short Stories, we explored a world of textiles encapsulated in a generous gift to Cooper Union by J.P. Morgan. In January’s short story, written by Gail Davidson, former Curator and Head of Drawings, Prints & Graphic Design at Cooper Hewitt, the work of three important American artists come together to...
“Can you help us in identifying where our birds were made?”[1] This inquiry is one of numerous others regarding two fowl from a 1968 letter from Catherine Lynn Frangiamore, then an assistant in the Department of Decorative Arts (now Product Design and Decorative Arts) at Cooper Hewitt, to Lino Sandonnini, then director of the Museo...
In Meet the Hewitts Part 15, Au Panier Fleuri—possibly the first ever museum shop—flourished. The store sold objects created by students from the Cooper Union Women’s Art School inspired by designs in the collection of the Cooper Union Museum of the Arts of Decoration. In this snippet of “Meet the Hewitts,” we meet some students...
Collegiate-gothic wood panels, a matching china cabinet stocked with warmly tinted salmon and blue plates, a wallpaper frieze evoking an endlessly rolling copse… A pleasing air of big-house formality and anticipated social gaiety pervades this dreamy circa 1909 scheme for a private dining hall. It’s one of the class assignments Izabel M. Coles (1890-1964) completed...
