INTERIORS & INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
July 1947
Francis de N. Schroeder [Editor]
Francis de N. Schroeder [Editor]: INTERIORS & INDUSTRIAL DESIGN. New York: Whitney Publications, Volume 106, no. 12, July 1947. Original edition. Quarto. Perfect bound and sewn printed illustrated wrappers. 150 pp. Illustrated articles and trade advertisements. Cover diagram by Herbert Bayer. Wrappers lightly worn and soiled, but a very good copy.
9 x 12 magazine with 150 pages of color and black and white examples of the best modern American interior and industrial design, circa 1947 -- offering a magnificent snapshot of the blossoming modern movement after World War II. A very desirable, vintage publication in terms of form and content: high quality printing and clean, functional design and typography and excellent photographic reproduction make this a spectacular addition to a midcentury design collection. Highly recommended.
Contents include:
- Notes On Exhibition Design; Herbert Bayer’s Pioneering Work. Massive 20 page Feature on Bayer’s Exhibition Design for the Museum Of Modern Art and the Container Corporation of America.
- The House Of Italian Handicraft: 4 pages of Murals by Constantino Nivola.
- Armstrong Cork Exhibition Space
- Dorothy Wright Liebes; First Lady of the Loom
- Van Keppel-Green furniture: tubular steel, cord and glass
- Architectural Panels Of Harriton Carved Glass
- Linoleum
- Alexander Kostellow and Industrial Design at Pratt Institute
- Newsreel: Vladimir Kagan, fabrics, lamps, tables, tableware, accessories, wallpapers, furniture, etc.
- Advertisements for the Herman Miller Furniture Company, Century Lighting, Drexel Furniture, Dunbar Furniture Corp., Lightolier, Baker Furniture, Laverne Originals, and many others.
- and much more.
Of all the artists to pass through the Bauhaus, none lived the Bauhaus ideal of total integration of the arts into life like Herbert Bayer (1900 - 1985). He was a graphic designer, typographer, photographer, painter, environmental designer, sculptor and exhibition designer. He entered the Bauhaus in 1921 and was greatly influenced by Kandinsky, Moholy-Nagy and El Lissitzky. He left in 1923, but returned in 1925 to become a master in the school. During his tenure as a Bauhaus master he produced many designs that became standards of a Bauhaus "style." Bayer was instrumental in moving the Bauhaus to purely sans serif usage in all its work. In 1928 he left the Bauhaus to work in Berlin. He primarily worked as a designer and art director for the Dorland Agency, an international firm. During his years at Dorland a Bayer style was established. Bayer emigrated to the United States in 1938 and set up practice in New York. His US design included work for NW Ayers, consultant art director for J. Walter Thompson and design work for GE. From 1946 on he worked exclusively for Container Corporation of America (CCA) and the Atlantic Richfield Corporation. In 1946 he moved to Aspen to become design consultant to CCA. In 1956 he became chairman of the department of design, a position he held until 1965. He was awarded the AIGA medal in 1970. Bayer's late work included work for ARCO and many personal projects including several environmental designs.
George Nelson famously served as Editorial contributor to Interiors, where he used the magazine as his bully pulpit for bringing modernism to middle-class America. Interiors was a hard-core interior design publication, as shown by their publishing credo: "Published for the Interior Designers Group which includes: interior designers, architects who do interior work, industrial designers who specialize in interior furnishings, the interior decorating departments of retail stores, and all concerned with the creation and production of interiors-- both residential and commercial."
Interiors during its peak in the 1950s was the most beautfully designed and printed American Interiors magazine I have seen. An amazing vintage mid-century resource, not to be missed. Excellent vintage resource for wallpaper, rugs and floorware, funiture, lighting, decorative objects, etc.