American design 🇺🇸

The last 150 years of American Decorative Arts and Design have been marked by a fascinating evolution. From the Arts and Crafts movement of the late 19th century to the Art Deco style of the 1920s and 30s, American designers have consistently pushed boundaries and experimented with new materials and techniques.

The mid-century modern movement of the 1950s and 60s brought sleek lines and a focus on functionality, while the postmodern era of the 1980s saw a return to ornamentation and historical references. In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in sustainable design and a focus on incorporating technology into everyday objects.

Throughout this history, American decorative arts and design have reflected changing cultural values, social trends, and technological advancements. As we look towards the future, it will be exciting to see how designers continue to innovate and push boundaries in this dynamic field. 

A picture of Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone dancing

I saw La La Land this weekend and Damien Chazelle musical is brilliant and emotional tribute to the 1950’s musical. Visually stunning eye candy for my inner graphic designer. Not so much a visual re-imaging of Los Angeles as a opportunity to see it through an artists eye. Chazelles last film, “Whiplash”used Jazz as a tool to explore ambition, the price of achieving excellence. Read More →

Candace Wheeler cover art

Candace Wheeler rose to prominence as the top late-nineteenth-century American textile designer by educating herself to match and eventually surpass the achievements of advanced European designers. She transitioned from needlework to fabric and interior design.Read More →

Eames Bird design classic

The collage-like interior of Charles and Ray Eames’ private house, the Eames House, was supplemented with countless objects and accessories brought back from their travels. Read More →

Rolodex rotary card featured image

There are few office equipment products more iconic than the Rolodex (the name comes from a combination of the words rolling and index). In the past, companies organised their contacts in Rolodexes. Rolodex is constructed as a cylindrical rotary card file on a tubular metal frame that contains A-Z index cards to store business contacts.Read More →

Billy Wilder chaise lounge, model ES106

The Wilder Chaise 1968 Lounge is a masterpiece of design created by Charles and Ray Eames, featuring a nylon-coated cast aluminium frame and base with a leather-covered polyurethane foam upholstered seating section. It is functional and adds elegance to any living space.Read More →

Daniel Mack chairs featured image

Daniel Mack creates fine custom furniture, architectural detail, and decoration from wood as close to its natural form and texture as possible, frequently incorporating glass, metal, or stone.Read More →

Administration building Rhode Island School of Design - featured image

Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. It was founded in 1877 and now offers bachelor’s and master’s degree programmes in 19 different fields. It is affiliated with Brown University, with which it shares a College Hill campus.Read More →

Florence Koehler in studio featured image

Florence Koehler was an American artist, craftsperson, designer, and jeweller, professionally active in Chicago, London and Rome. She was one of the best-known jewellers of the Arts and Crafts movement that flourished in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In Chicago, Koehler’s jewellery in a crafts style was fashionable in artistic circles. Koehler became one of the American crafts-revival leaders in jewellery, related more to French than English styles.Read More →

Tammis Keefe (1913–1960) was an American textile designer. She designed everything from dish towels to glassware in her airy Dorothy Leibis Studio. Her work can be found at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cooper Hewitt and the Fashion Institute of Technology.Read More →

In 1951, he became a member of Knoll’s design development group. Initially, he collaborated on the wire Diamond sitting collection with Harry Bertoia. Schultz designed the Petal table in 1960, steel-wire lounge chairs in 1961, and outdoor Leisure Collection seating and tables in 1966 for Knoll. He designed a 1981 collection of outdoor furniture while pursuing his passion for the outdoors.Read More →

Hilda surprised by a goat behind her by Duane Bryers

One of my favourite pinup artists was Minnesota born Duane Bryers, creator of the famous Hilda, a pleasingly, popular and plump pinup girl. Bryers’ background was as interesting as his illustrations. Born in northern Michigan, he excelled at acrobatics as a child. His family moved to Virginia, Minnesota, at 12 and he soon had the neighbourhood gang putting on the “Jingling Brothers circus, complete with burlap-sack sidewalls.Read More →

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe: Esplanade Apartments and Lake Shore Drive Apartments

Alfred H. Barr Jr. coined the term in 1931 in conjunction with Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock’s 1932 “Modern Architecture: International Exhibition” (along with the accompanying book International Style: Architecture Since 1922) at the New York Museum of Modern Art, where Barr was director.Read More →

Russel Wright featured image

Wright’s design philosophy was based on the idea that the table was the heart of the home. He developed everything from tableware to larger furniture, architecture to landscaping, all of which promote comfortable, informal living.Read More →

Vendo 44 - Vending Machine

The Vendo 44 Coca-Cola bottle vending machine was produced between 1956 and 1959. Despite being only 16 wide, 15.5 deep, and 58 high, it could fit 44 bottles of coke. It has a white top and a heavy gauge steel case with bright red enamel.Read More →

Douglas Donaldson Copper Dish

Donaldson taught design, metalwork and jewellery at numerous schools in and near Los Angeles, including his first position, director of manual arts, Throop Polytechnic (succeeded by Rudolph Schaeffer). Subsequently, he was a teacher at the new Chouinard School of Art and head of the art department, Los Angeles Manual Arts High School. Read More →

James Evanson stools

James Evanson has been at the forefront of the “functional art” movement around the world. His work has travelled worldwide since his first exhibition in 1979 at the Art et Industrie Gallery in New York. For the Memphis Collection in Milan, new work was created just for the occasion. The “Lighthouse” lamps gained international acclaim and became an icon of the 1980s.Read More →

Peace was first published as Lukova’s visual commentary on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times, and later the artist reinterpreted it as a serigraph poster. Arguably one of Lukova’s most well known and most copied images, Peace asks a question: do we protect peace by creating endless wars? Read More →

Longhorn Table by by Lisa Krohn

Lisa Krohn studied three-dimensional form with Rowena Reed Kostello, New York, between 1985 and 1986. From 1985 to 1985, she studied art history and visual arts at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. From 1988 to 1988, she was a student at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.Read More →

Ruth Reeves Carpet featured image

Her works were influenced by current innovations in France, such as Cubism, when she returned to the United States in 1927. The American Designers’ Gallery in New York hosted Reeves’ debut exhibition, which featured textiles. Read More →

Standing over four feet tall, this towering console of satin chrome and mirrored cobalt glass is a commanding example of the styling of items to meet the Machine Age ideal of the 1930s. The Nocturne radio, built by Walter Dorwin Teague, one of the premier industrial designers of the 1930s, is one of the most striking manifestations of the merger of art and technology. Read More →