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The utilitarian object as appropriate study for art education: An historical and philosophical inquiry grounded in American and British contexts

Sproll, Paul Anthony, Ph.D.

The Ohio State University, 1990

Copyright ©1990 by Sproll, Paul Anthony. All rights reserved.

UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106 NOTE TO USERS

THE ORIGINAL DOCUMENT RECEIVED BY U.M.I. CONTAINED PAGES WITH PHOTOGRAPHS WHICH MAY NOT REPRODUCE PROPERLY.

THIS REPRODUCTION IS THE BEST AVAILABLE COPY. THE UTILITARIAN OBJECT AS APPROPRIATE STUDY FOR

ART EDUCATION: AN HISTORICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY

GROUNDED IN AMERICAN AND BRITISH CONTEXTS

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the

Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By

Paul Anthony Sproll, Cert.Ed., B.A., M.A.

*****

The Ohio State University

1990

Dissertation Committee: Approved by

Kenneth Marantz

Nancy MacGregor

Arthur Efland Adviser Department of Art Education Copyright by Paul Anthony Spro 1990 To My Mother, Margaret, & Son Toby

ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to record my sincerest appreciation to my adviser Dr. Kenneth Marantz. His letters to me in England, while I was considering mapping a new career path, spoke of the Department of Art Education at The Ohio State University being able to offer me the learning experiences I sought. I was informed that I would be able to select courses from an

"extensive menu" of "educational dishes," university wide.

I have now created my meal, and feel veritably nourished. I thank Dr. Marantz for his encouragement, and his insightful guidance, throughout my studies. Thanks also go to my

Committee members: Dr. Arthur Efland and Dr. Nancy

MacGregor. To Professors, Margaret Brand, Donald Duncan, and

Noel Mayo, for their valuable support. To Sandra Aska for her assistance with photography. To Roger Williams for a marvelous opportunity to talk with him about his chairs. To

Roger Hickey in Brighton, England, for providing me with photographs of his chair sculptures. Further, I wish to recognize the support of three special people, to Cheryl

Williams for her friendship and counsel in my "journey" from proposal to defense; to Clark Magruder for his careful editorship and whose presence in the program was a constant

iii reminder that careers don't have to come to an end when one reaches 40; and to Jill Markey who was without doubt the best "desk partner" around. I wish also to thank the following for their cooperation: The Institute of

Contemporary Art, London; Herman Miller, Inc.; Functional

Furnishings, Columbus, Ohio; and the Fergus Jean Gallery,

Columbus Ohio. I am also indebted to the following for their generous permission to reproduce images:

Blueprint, London

Dover Publications

Knoll International

The Museum of Modern Art, New York

The New Yorker

Thonet Industries

iv VITA

1987 - 1990 ...... Graduate Teaching Associate/ Department of Art Education, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

1988 ...... M.A., Art Education The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

1971 - 1986 ...... Head of Art and Design Department, The John F. Kennedy School, Hemel Hempstead, England

1984 - 1985 ...... Visiting Fulbright Art Teacher, Orono High School, Orono, Maine

1980 ...... B.A., History of Art & Design The Open University, Milton Keynes, England

1968 - 1971 ...... Art Teacher, Oxford School, Oxford

1966 - 1968 ...... Art Master, Lindisfarne College, Ruabon, Wales

1966 ...... Certificate in Education., Bath Academy of Art, Corsham England

FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field : Art Education

v TABLE OF CONTENTS

DEDICATION ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... iii

VITA ...... v

LIST OF PLATES ...... ix

LIST OF FIGURES ...... xi

PROLOGUE ...... 1

CHAPTER PAGE

I. BRITISH GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION IN ART EDUCATION 1832-1854 MATTERS OF TASTE MATTERS OF COMMERCE . 24

1835 Parliamentary Debate: Arts and Manufactures. 24 1835 Select Committee on Arts and Manufactures . . 31 The Great Exhibition London 1851 ...... 44 The Exhibition's Legacy: The Victoria and Albert Museum ...... 70 Notes: Chapter I ...... 77

II. AMERICAN ART & INDUSTRY THE PHILADELPHIA CENTENNIAL AND A REPORT TO CONGRESS ...... 82

The 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition ..... 85 The Centennial and Art Education ...... 109 Centennial Exhibits and the Smithsonian ...... 112 The Centennial Closes: Outcomes ...... 114 Isaac Edwards Clarke: A Report to Congress...... 120 Drawing in Public Schools: Industry's Handservant ...... 124 Isaac Edwards Clarke and "The Democracy of Art" . 132 Notes: Chapter II ...... 135

III. "UNINTENTIONAL MODERN" MACHINE ART AT THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART ...... 143

Architecture and Design at The Museum of Modern Ar t ...... 154

vi A Blue-Ribbon Panel of Judges for Machine Art at M O M A 16 2 Philip Johnson's Exhibition Design ...... 1G8 The Objects: Utility and Aesthetics ...... 170 Notes: Chapter III ...... 181

IV. ART & EVERYDAY LIFE AMERICAN & BRITISH ART EDUCATION CURRICULA 1920's & 1930's ...... 187

Bureau of Education: Industrial Education Circulars ...... 190 Art Education and Consumerism ...... 198 The Owatonna Art Education Project ...... 202 British Currents: The Council for Art and Industry ...... 223 Notes: Chapter I V ...... 229

V. THE OBJECT OF UTILITY MATTERS OF PERCEPTION MATTERS OF TASTE*...... 235

Matters of Definition ...... 237 Institutional Forces ...... 245 Matters of Value ...... 252 The Aesthetics of Utility: The Chair ...... 254 Perceptual Gymnastics ...... 263 The Product Designer as "Artist" ...... 273 The Fine Artist as "Designer" ...... 280 The Promotion Maze ...... 282 Notes: Chapter V ...... 305

VI. REFLECTIONS & REDIRECTIONS ...... 312

Domain Inquiry Model ...... 322 Let's Look at a Chair ...... 324 Epilogue ...... 347 Notes: Chapter VI ...... 350

APPENDICES

A. Conversation with Artist Roger Williams ...... 357

B. Members: Select Committee on Arts and Manufactures ...... 364

C. Witnesses: Select Committee on Arts and Manufactures ...... 366

D. Museum of Modern Art, New York: Personnel, Departments of Design ...... 369

E. Museum of Modern Art, New York: DesignExhibitions 1933-1947 ...... 371

vii F. Museum o£ Modern Art, New York: Machine Art Exhibition March 6 to April 30 1934 Examples of Objects Exhibited ...... 375

G. Industrial Art a National Asset: A Series of Graphic Charts Published by Department of Interior Bureau of Education ...... 379

H. Staff of The Owatonna Art Education Project ...... 384

I. Home Report for The Owatonna Art Education Project 386

J. Publications of The Owatonna Art Education Project 388

K. Summer School Enrollment 1935-1936 The Owatonna Art Education Project ...... 390

LIST OF REFERENCES 39 2

viii LIST OF PLATES

PLATES PAGE

I. Maxi Bell 1988. Designed by Ekornes Design Team. Manufacturer: J. E. Ekornes ...... 11

II. Roger Hickey. Chair ...... 13

III. Le Corbusier. Chaise Longue Functional Furnishings, Columbus, Ohio ...... 14

IV. Design Expo 1988. Functional Furnishings, Columbus, Ohio ...... 17

V. No.4 cafe Daum (No.1830), Michael Thonet c. 1849 Manufacturer: Thonet ...... 62

VI. Judging the exhibition "Machine Art". March 5 - April 29, 1934. The Museum of Modern Art, New York ...... 163

VII. Aluminium Company of America, Company Design. Outboard Propeller ...... 165

VIII. Wlngquist, Sven. Self-A1igning Ball Bearing. 1929 ...... 166

IX. Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Hill House Chair... 249

X. Winsor chair ...... 250

XI. William Morris. Sussex armchair ...... 251

XII. Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe. "Barcelona" Chair. 1929 ...... 255

XIII. Marcel Breuer. "Wassily" Chair ...... 256

XIV. Robin Day. Polyprop chair ...... 258

XV. Charles Eames. Dining Chair. 1946 260

XVI. Roger Williams. Chair...... 262

ix XVII. Robin Day. Polyprop stackable chair ...... 264

XVIII. Rodney Kinsman. ''Omstack" ...... 265

XIX. Gerrit Rietveld. "Red and Blue" Chair ...... 271

XX. Pentti Hakala. "W" chair ...... 274

XXI. Harry Bertoia. Armchair 1952 ...... 277

XXII. Robert Venturi. Chair ...... 279

XXIII. Advertisement for KnollStudio ...... 289

XXIV. Advertisement for Karastan area rugs ...... 291

XXV. Advertisement for Karastan area rugs ...... 292

XXVI. Marcel Breuer. Wassily chair...... 325

XXVII. Marcel Breuer. Side chair...... 328

XXVIII. Wassily chairs at The Institute of Contemporary Art, 1988 ...... 341

XXIX. Marcel Breuer. Long chair, 1932-35 ...... 345

x LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURES PAGE

1. Blueprint Cartoon ...... 21

2. Revolving chair, The American Chair Company, of New York. Shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851 ...... 59

3. Table, Michael Thonet, of Austria. Shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851 ...... 61

4. The "Day Dreamer" papier mache chair designed by H. Fitz Cook and made by Jennings & Betteridge, of London & Birmingham. Shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851 ...... 64

5. Chair, Mr. G. Collinson, of Doncaster. Shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851 ...... 66

6. The International Exhibition of 1876, Ground Plan ...... 93

7. The International Exhibition of 1876, view of Main Building from the Jury Pavilion ...... 95

8. Main Building, Central Avenue looking West ... 96

9. Machinery Hall from the Jury Pavilion ...... 97

10. The International Exhibition of 1876, Bent-Wood furniture: Austrian Court ...... 101

11. Water-Pitcher: Reed & Barton, Taunton ...... 104

12. Cartoon from The New Yorker April 14, 1934 ... 177

13. Chart No.10 from Industrial Art: A National Asset ...... 194

14. Blueprint cartoon ...... 301

15. Domain Inquiry Model ...... 322

xi PROLOGUE

As I embarked on this inquiry, I became increasingly aware that the proposal I present in this dissertation that utilitarian objects are appropriate study for art education, was not some arbitrarily concocted academic conundrum, but something very much born out of personal experience. While

I reflected upon choices made throughout my academic and teaching career, I detected some common strands which have become interwoven almost imperceptibly into my decision-making processes. It was during a retrospective analysis of these strands that I was able to make some sense of what might appear to some to be an esoteric interest in the study of the objects of utility. "What, then, are these strands?" and "Why should I be interested in utilitarian objects? ".

It intrigued me that in my three years at the Bath

Academy of Art not once did I, nor for that matter, did any of my fellow students trespass beyond our designated courses of study. My area was painting and printmaking, and that was to be my world for the duration of the program. In spite of there being a number of other very inviting Academy programs, graphics and product design among them, a 2 mechanism did not exist for interdisciplinary study. It would take the student unrest of the late sixties, so epitomized by the "Hornsey Affair," to shatter at least temporarily, those artificial barriers to exploration which existed at that time in British art schools. Perhaps it was here that the seeds of discontent regarding the foolishness of the battles of "turf," which seemed to be so endemic in education (and art education in particular), were first sown.

Could my interest have been sparked even earlier, during

those halcyon days at the Academy? It now seems tantalizing to credit a childhood encounter with one of my father's books as having been a seminal influence. My reading of

Walter Gropius's The New Architecture and The Bauhaus(l) provided me in my teenage years with what I found to be a seductive vision of a new age. And now, some twenty-five years later, I have renewed my acquaintance with this book

but found that it was not the images of "modern" structures

in glass and concrete which attracted me, but Gropius's

concerns regarding the separation of art and life:

There is a widespread heresy that art is just a useless luxury. This is one of our fatal legacies from a generation which arbitrarily elevated some of its branches above the rest as 'Fine Arts', and in doing so robbed all of their basic identity and common life.(2)

My interest in the tension between the so-called "Fine

Arts" and utilitarian forms was further developed as a 3 result of my studies with the Open University. Study units in the relationship between art and industry and the

industrialization of culture at the turn of the twentieth century teased my interest in inquiring further into the relationship between art and the machine. Additional studies in the history of art, architecture, and design between 1890-1930 proved to be excitingly complementary.

They, indeed, gave me the opportunity of carrying-out some research on aspects of Modern Movement architecture. My work centered on what Nikolaus Pevsner called a

"refreshingly modern" building,(3) designed by the Swiss architect Otto Salvisberg, for the pharmaceutical company

Hoffman La Roche and erected in Welwyn Garden City, England, in the late 1930's. My encounter with this building enabled me to see Gropius's theories take physical form. I was able to see Salvisberg's exercise of control, not only of external elevations, but also of the internal architecture.

In this commission, the stair rails, door furniture, light fittings, and boardroom furniture, all carried the architect's signature. It was most apparent in this enterprise that it was impossible to separate art from utility.

My studies with the Open University ran concurrently with my work as Head of the Art and Design Department in a

Hertfordshire comprehensive school. "Design" was, (and still is) the buzz word in art education circles. 4

Government played no small role in encouraging schools to provide more socially responsive curricula. "At all levels there are demands for greater accountability; and for the curriculum to be more 'relevant'; relevant perhaps to the

Government's perception of national economic health rather than the educational health of the nation."(4) Art education according to Sir Keith Joseph, a former Secretary of State for Education and Science, had a role to play but only if it was "directly concerned with the process of design."(5)

But at a time when design was (and continues to be) riding on the crest of a wave in art education programs in

Britain, little attention was given to a consideration of a utilitarian object's aesthetic qualities, or indeed the social implications surrounding product and graphic design.

Concern in the school curriculum was clearly on design problem-solving. To that extent, "design education" has been assimilated into the process-orientated model of

British art education. There were, unfortunately, no more than a handful of visionaries who identified a need to break the strangle-hold of the process-orientated curriculum model. Ken Baynes was one who acknowledged a need to step beyond production in order that students might assess the significance of the utilitarian object within culture:

The evidence for what has happened and what might happen is a living thing to be found in people's memories and aspirations and in the objects and 5

buildings they have made or hope to make. All these are eloquent about the interrelationships between technology and culture and about the political, social, and economic realities of the designer's work. They are waiting to be heard and seen in education in many different parts of the curriculum. (6)

This study is also inextricably connected to, and is in many ways a development, of my masters thesis:

A Study of British Government Involvement in Links

Between Art and Manufacture 1635 - 1864 : The Genesis of a Systematic Programme of Art Education in England. (7)

Here, through historical inquiry, I traced those events and attitudes which would ultimately shape a national curriculum. This research unearthed a number of social, political, and economic issues which had their counterparts on this side of the Atlantic. Indeed, one of the players in the British game, Walter Smith, became a key strategist in

American art education. It seemed finally, to be more than appropriate to ground my dissertation in British and

American contexts. For, in this way, I was able to draw upon my art teaching experience in England and Wales, together with my Fulbright year in Maine, and of course my studies and teaching at The Ohio State University.

As I seek to broaden the scope of art education I have benefitted from having been able to teach and observe practice on both sides of the Atlantic, more and more, I began to wonder exactly whv it is we teach what we do. Why is it that the content of art education relies so heavily on 6 the study of such a limited range of objects? Has this always been the case, or have there been times when art education attended to more than fine art? What have been the motives which have su 'ounded the elevation of certain objects for serious study'. Have there been any discernible parallel instances of comparable curriculum content in

Britain and America? What role does the museum of art play in determining subject matter for art programs?

My masters thesis research revealed that in mid to late nineteenth century England, there was intriguingly not too different climate of debate (to that which currently exists in Britain and America) as to what were the merits, content, and purposes of art education. The testimony of William

Wyon, for instance, presented before the 1835 Select

Committee on Arts and Manufactures could have been taken from any current advocacy statement produced by the National

Art Education Association:

Do you not think, as reading and writing are made a portion of education, and as music is made a portion of elementary education, you might also educate the eye ... it has been a source of very great regret to me, that at our universities, the arts of design are not considered an essential part of education.(8)

The British Government's encouragement of design education in the schools of the 1990s, as a means toward providing better-designed and more competitively-priced products, appears, also, to be a stance not too dissimilar from that adopted in 1830s. The following extract from an 7

1836 British government report Arts and Manufactures

indicates such similarities: "Yet, to us a peculiarly

manufacturing nation, the connection between art and

manufactures is most important ... and for this merely

economical reason (were there no higher motive) it equally

imports us to encourage art in its loftier attributes."(9)

Britain's success in harnessing art education to address the

commercial interests of manufacturing industry was much

admired by Americans who sought to replicate such

initiatives on these shores. But, as Isaac Edwards Clarke,

the compiler of America's first Congressionally-mandated

report on the state of art education, indicates, not all

were as receptive to these developments as one might have

hoped:

If the Government and the people of Great Britain are wise, in thus annually increasing their expenditure for the promotion of the industrial art education of the people - and their results have fully justified their policy in this respect - what reasons can be advanced to justify the continued apathy of American legislators, and communities, in regard to the relations that exist between the industrial art training, and the industries and manufactures, of a people.(10)

It seemed to me to be irresistible not to delve further

into the history of our field to examine such commonalties.

A purpose of the historical component of this research was,

to identify any common threads, as they related to art education in Britain and America between the 1830s and the e

1930s, in four specific areas: 1) The relationship between government, art, manufacture, and art education,

2) International Exhibitions as barometers of a nation's commitment to art education, 3) Shifts in the artworld to accept the utilitarian object as art, and 4) Curriculum initiatives developed for schools, directed at making connections between art and everyday life. I believe these areas to be interrelated, and while their investigation is undertaken within the realm historical inquiry, a number of issues have inherent philosophical ramifications to one who is anxious to expand the scope of art education curricula.

A complementary purpose of this study is to wrestle with questions regarding the perception of the utilitarian object as an aesthetic object and as such appropriate study in art education programs. The presumption is that currently, the study of utilitarian objects is not considered to be "appropriate" content. My belief is that such exclusion is rooted in attitudes shaped by philosophies established with a specific notion of "function". It will therefore be another purpose of this study to examine the nature of function not only with regard to objects of utility, but also in the contexts of works of "fine art".

For, I believe attention needs to be paid to the concepts of

"useful" and "useless," as they undoubtedly guide our perception of things, and in doing so, contribute to 9 decisions surrounding the construction of curriculum content.

An examination of these problematic areas is intended to provide better understandings of the nature of the object of utility as a communicative and an expressive phenomenon, and as such, a more than worthy candidate for study in art education. The purpose of such exploration is to present a challenge to those in our field, who, to use a particularly appropriate statement by the painter Fernand Leger, "would be sensitive to the beauty of common objects without artistic intention, if the preconceived notion of the object d'art were not a bandage over their eyes. Bad visual education is the cause of this tendency."(11) While these questions could be discussed purely in terms of aesthetics, such a focus would tend to isolate the utilitarian object from society at large. It is therefore my purpose to constantly connect the object to the sociological and cultural contexts in which it was created and promoted.

Such answers as may be revealed will provide, hopefully, a cogent argument for a reconfiguration of the content of art education curricula.

This study plainly has its roots in my teaching experience in Britain and the United States. I have wondered why, in Britain, the content of art education programs in schools took a definite shift awav from concerns of personal self-expression toward a curriculum which was 10 unabashedly part of a larger agenda, intended to give

"relevancy" in terms more easily understood by the politician than by the art educator. I have wondered why,

in the United States, the currently most visible agents of change within the field of art education are promoting an approach to the teaching of art which Is clearly based on a elitist fine art aesthetic. In both countries, there are of course dissenters who passionately challenge these new directions. But I wondered whether such apparently "new directions" were not merely latent issues resurfacing to be grappled with by a new set of "authorities." I have wondered why an object, because it has practical value, is so easily dismissed from any serious consideration as appropriate study for art education. I suspected that the questions of today may well have their origins in the questions and assumptions of yesterday. It will be an objective of this study to subject my quandaries to the scrutiny of historical and philosophical analysis.

This study is intended to draw attention to art education's neglect of the object of utility. While my proposition is that art education curricula need to attend to a whole range of things as diverse as buildings and teaspoons, Sony Walkmans and "57" Chevys, for the purposes of this dissertation, I have used a single object, namely the "chair," as a motif throughout the study, to reflect in more concrete terms the nature of different aspects of a 11

Plate I. Maxi Bell 1988. Designed by Ekornes Design Team Manufacturer: J. E. Ekornes Fabrikker A/S Norway 12 particular argument. I use the chair as device with which I examine the relationship between the everyday world and the artworld. The chair is a particularly poignant object; it has the capacity to run the gamut of interpretive possibilities. At one end of the scale, it can be considered purely for its utility and obvious "chairness", as a piece of household furniture. (Plate I). At the other end of the continuum, the concerns of its maker can flout utility, as is evident in a ten-foot-tall chair by British sculptor, Roger Hickey. (Plate II) It is an exemplar of tnos tension which can exist between an object's form and function, a tension which results both in it being used for practical purposes and it being canonized as a "work of art." This intriguing dichotomy is evident in Le

Corbusier's and Charlotte Perriand's 'Adjustable reclining chair' 1927, which is part of The Museum of Modern Art's design collection, and a version of which is still in mass-production.(Plate III)

The questions posed in this dissertation are multi-dimensional, so while the study has been grounded specifically in historical and philosophical contexts, I have not considered these to be mutually exclusive modes of inquiry. They are but two possible lenses through which I might search for some resolution to my ponderings. They are the binoculars through which I have viewed this study; but 13

Plate II. Roger Hickey. Chair 14

Plate III. Le Corbusier. Chaise Longue Functional Furnishings, Columbus, Ohio 15 as the occasion arose, supplementary filters were added to gain a sociological perspective.

In my research I have utilized both primary and secondary sources. The Ohio State University Libraries,

Inter-Library Loan, and The British Museum have been especially bountiful resources in terms of parliamentary and congressional records, reports, and papers. In addition, contemporaneous newspapers, magazines, and journals, have been used as windows to varieties of opinion. I readily acknowledge that my interpretations of the events and issues discussed in this dissertation, as well as those opinions of the authors I quote, are inevitably value-laden. The reader should be advised that I take full responsibility for the selection of material from primary and secondary sources.

Further, my use of a particular quotation should not imply my agreement with the totality of that author's viewpoint.

As the study has necessitated explorations of literature beyond the immediate confines of art education, the

investigation has also been concerned with the object, not merely as a representation but as a physical phenomenon. In terms of the object of utility being exhibited as art, research has been undertaken in a number of museum settings.

In New York, I carried-out research in The Museum of Modern

Art's Design Collection, its Library, and Photographic

Archive. Visits were also made to view the American furniture collection and the design and architecture 16 exhibits in the Lila Acheson Wallace Wing of The

Metropolitan Museum of Art. In London, I visited the

Twentieth Century Study Collection at the Victoria & Albert

Museum and The Modern Chair exhibition at The Institute of

Contemporary Arts.

During the course of this study I have established contacts with three particularly significant furniture manufacturers: Herman Miller Inc., Knoll International, and

Thonet, all of whom still have in production chairs which have become classics of furniture design, and many of which have found their way to the holdings of major museums of art. My study has also taken me to the commercial furniture retail outlet to view chairs placed on pedestals with all the accouterments befitting a museum setting (Plate IV) and the gallery of art, on occasions when furniture has been exhibited as utilitarian object and art subject. And in this latter context, I have interviewed artists who have made chairs; the transcript of my conversation with one such artist, Roger Williams, appears in Appendix A of this study.

Study Overview

Chapter One describes the events and motives surrounding the appointment in England of a Select Committee to assess the state of art education. The chapter analyzes the initial parliamentary debate, the Select Committee's report, the evidence of witnesses, and the Committee's Plate IV. Design Expo 1988 Functional Furnishings, Columbus, Ohio 18

recommendations. The report proves to have a marked effect

on art education, manufacturing industry, and museums in

Britain. The chapter focuses on the establishment of museums of manufacture and the origins of international expositions of art and manufactures. Particular attention

is given to British and American contributions to the Great

Exhibition held in London in 1851.

Chapter Two transports the reader to America, where

Britain's success with the establishment of the Schools of

Design and the Great Exhibition had not gone unnoticed,

particularly by the municipal authorities of Philadelphia.

It was they who sought Congressional support to stage an

international exhibition to mark the anniversary of American

Independence. The chapter describes the rationale, planning, and realization of the project. Exhibition

judge's reports and Walter Smith's book Masterpieces of the

Centennial. have been utilized to describe British and

American contributions. The chapter shows that the

Centennial did much to encourage the belief that art education could be extremely valuable to America's manufacturing industries. I discuss the United States

Bureau of Education's involvement in promulgating such

ideas. Specific attention is paid to Volume 1.

(Drawing in Public Schools) of Isaac Edwards Clarke's

report: Art and Industry. Finally, this second chapter reflects upon the relevance of this report, published in 19

1885, to the contemporary art educator in Britain and

America.

The Great Exhibition of 1851 and the Philadelphia

Centennial of 1876 witnessed a romance between art and manufacture. It appeared that aesthetic and commercial gains could be accrued from the partnership. But, what if one looked at the product of the machine, not for its utility, but as "art"? Chapter Three explores the origins of a Machine Aesthetic, particularly in America during the

1920s and 1930s. Special consideration is paid to the impact of the 1934 landmark "Machine Art" exhibition held at

The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The exhibition, inspired by the Museum's youthful Director, Alfred Barr, and Philip

Johnson, the Chairman of the Department of Architecture, challenged traditional notions of what could be called art.

The staging of this exhibition was undeniably a bold stroke, but as the chapter reveals, the path may well have been prepared in London in 1851 and in Philadelphia in 1876.

Chapter Four continues to wrestle with The Museum of

Modern Art's premise that the utilitarian object can be art, but this time in the contexts of defining roles for art education in America and Britain in the 1920s and 1930s.

The chapter examines American industrial art education circulars published by the Bureau of Education between 1919 and 1927. A detailed account is provided of the origins and working of the Owatonna Art Education Project (1934-1938) 20 instigated by Melvin Haggerty, and supported by the Carnegie

Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Carnegie

Foundation of New York. This project sought to bridge, in a small Minnesota town, a perceived gap between art and everyday living. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of Frank Pick's report "Education for the

Consumer" which was commissioned in Britain by the Council for Art and Industry. The report made strikingly similar recommendations to that put in practice by the Owatonna

Project staff.

Chapter Five examines the study's assumption that utilitarian objects can be aesthetic objects and subsequently have aesthetic value. The concepts of aesthetic object and aesthetic value are scrutinized from various points of view, but particularly that of the ph ilosopher, the critic, the historian, the psychologist, and the maker. The "chair" is used a motif throughout the chapter as a device with which to examine the various stances. Particular attention has been paid to an investigation of what separates aesthetic objects from other things. The chapter deals with aspects of perception theory and puzzles as to whether one can view a common object simultaneously for its utility and its aesthetic value.

Institutional theory is examined in order to provide understandings of how objects come to achieve symbolic status. The chapter further explores various opinions ■tmrwxt toscsncmtSj Hi tXJcEATIW c i / n v t r SOME OfA/AS ftrr B ulea^ „ HAVo HA^vS Of 'THE (asyovuaejo M r o f ir r r W chat* CAU-THCrj) CcfsvL TAo/cy, torewTRtfT HlXM t FoA MAW f& M E CHAIRS KIMS tHVwX fKtlS, MUE hTFM MStTT COMMoMTSE, imaimnlglgj* f t H U E HA T HOUSE K r * T E W SfANtoWAHF lY/M jO /rm NOYUi FLOOR - B o r FOR m M A CHA/A W A S U K E A ftec e CF UT€AATITRE-AM> HE HAD 5ATHCK0 A SA1AU. U iA A fY OF

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Figure 1. Blueprint Cartoon Courtesy Blueprint, London 22

regarding the sociological models of inquiry as a means to

understand the social dynamics which elevate certain objects

to a symbolic status.(Figure 1) This fifth chapter

concludes with a plea for art educators to become more

cognizant of their role in accepting and defining the value

of the content with which they construct their curricula.

Chapter Six reflects on the interconnection between the

stances which have effected, and which continue to have an

Impact on art education in Britain and America. A

conceptual inquiry model consisting of conceptual &

productive, and analytical & reflective domains is presented as one means of integrating design within an art education curriculum. The chapter moves into the seldom charted (for the art educator) territory of the design historian and critic. An essay on Marcel Breuer's "Wassily" chair is presented as an example of an investigation undertaken within the analytical & reflective domain of the conceptual model. The chapter concludes with an epilogue which calls upon art educators to broaden the scope of the content of art education curricula, and in doing so to reestablish bridges between art and life. 23

NOTES: PROLOGUE

(1)Walter Gropius, The New Architecture and the Bauhaus. Translated by P. Morton Shand. (New York: Museum of Modern Art).

(2)Ibid.,39-40.

(3)Nikolaus Pevsner, 1978. The Buildings of England, Hertfordshire. 3d ed. Middlesex: Penguin Books.

(4)John Steers, 1986. "The Hi-Jacking of Design." The Times Educational Supplement (March),29.

(5)Ibid,24.

(6)Ken Baynes, 1982. "Beyond Design Education." Journal of Art and Design Education. 1(1):105-114.

(7)Paul Sproll, 1988. A Study of British Government Involvement in Links Between Art and Manufacture 1835-1864: The Genesis of a Systematic Programme of Art Education in England. Unpublished Master's thesis. The Ohio State University: Columbus, Ohio.

(8)United Kingdom. Sessional Papers. 1835. Arts and Manufactures. Select Committee Report., vol 5. (Illinois: Readex Microprint),130.

(9)United Kingdom. Sessional Papers. 1836. Arts and Manufactures. Select Committee Report., vol 9. (Illinois: Readex Microprint),iii.

(10)Isaac Edwards. Clarke, 1885. Art and Industry: Education in the Industrial and Fine Arts in the United States, part 1. Drawing in Public Schools. (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office),xxviii.

(11)Fernand Leger, 1924. The Aesthetic of the Machine. In H. B. Chipp, ed., 1968. Theories of Modern Art: A Source Book by Artists and Critics. (Berkley: University of California Press),277.

(12)Clement Meadmore, 1975. The Modern Chair: Classics in Production. (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company). CHAPTER I

BRITISH GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION IN ART EDUCATION 1832-1854

MATTERS OF TASTE MATTERS OF COMMERCE

1835 Parliamentary Debate; Arts and Manufactures

The establishment of the 1835 Select Committee in

England is the first documented account of government intervention in British art education. The Committee was appointed by the House of Commons on a motion from William

Ewart, a Member of Parliament for Liverpool, who was also to chair the Committee.(Appendix B) Ewart brought the motion before the House that:

A Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the best means of extending a knowledge of the Fine Arts, and the principles of Design among the people - especially among the manufacturing population of the country; and also to inquire into the constitution of the Royal Academy and the effects produced by it.(l)

It is important not to view the creation of this Select

Committee on Arts and Manufactures as if it were an isolated event. In order to best understand its significance it ought be considered against a background of other political and social demands for change. Indeed such was the level of reflection and re-assessment of many aspects of British life that this period of the nineteenth century would be dubbed

24 25

"The Age of Reform". Enlightened individuals were slowly but surely coaxing a somewhat reluctant parliament to extend governmental influence on a national scale. In the field of education, grants made to the two major charitable organizations for the building of schools led to the beginning of a state education system. The 1835 Select

Committee was to be an important milestone in the development of art education in Britain. Here for the first time key questions were being publicly debated. The issue of the value of art to the individual, its usefulness to the manufacturing industry, the economy, and society as a whole was for the first time discussed in relation to art education. What was to emanate from this dialogue would be commitments, for the establishment of a Design School, and for the introduction of drawing into elementary schools.

Recommendations would follow which would result in the fine arts becoming far more accessible to the general population.

And perhaps most significantly Ewart's proposal would become the catalyst for an examination of the relationship between the fine arts and commercial manufacture.

It becomes very apparent on reading William Ewart's opening remarks in the 1835, July 11th debate, that there was considerable concern in Parliament that England lagged far behind France in encouraging the fine arts amongst its citizens. France, it was stated, had, since the reign of

Louis XIV, created an environment conducive to the 26 development of a respect for the arts. This encouragement, it was argued, helped create designers who had greater sensitivity to the needs of manufacturing industry. The key to France's success in creating an informed public was, in

Ewart's opinion, due to that nation's establishment of teaching programs and the popularity of exhibitions. The

French had, it was argued, managed to produce, as a result of these Initiatives, both informed producers and consumers.

This was unfortunately not the case in England; Ewart believed that the Government needed not only to consider developing "among the people of this country a taste for the

Arts,"(2) but also to enhance the status of artists within the community. A status, which according to Ewart, "stood in a lower degree than that of almost any country whatever."

(3) Not all present, however, agreed with Ewart's contention that England had failed to recognize its artists.

Lord Francis Egerton believed that one "could not, however estimate the merits of our professors at a lower degree than those of foreign artists, nor could he admit that there was any want of encouragement of art in this country."(4) Lord

Sandon took an equally patriotic stance and was more than a little defensive, suggesting that in spite of the absence of any national scheme for assistance British artists were indeed highly sought after by other countries. In a somewhat self-congratulatory statement he argued that

"without a single encouragement being given to the arts by 27 the establishment o£ a public schdol our artists exceed those of other countries who were petted and fostered in national academies."(5) Sandon further displayed his prejudices stating that he "preferred the landscapes of

British Artists to the stiff and academic figures of Rome and Milan."(6) Ewart’s admonition of the country was supported by a Mr Wyse M.P. for Waterford who seconded the

Motion, and argued also "that artists in this country were t not sufficiently appreciated."(7) Sandon developed his argument suggesting that, indeed, if patronage did exist it was more to do with the patron than it was an act directed at furthering art itself. The implication is clear: it was according to Sandon " not the love of art which prompted that encouragement; it was merely vanity in individuals or some other causes equally unconnected with a due appreciation of the arts."(8)

The debate must also be considered in the context of a society very much enshrined in rigid class structures. The defensive and indignant stance upheld by many Members of

Parliament who believed in the paramount position of British artists is exemplified in a statement by Sir Robert Inglis, who, with a degree of aristocratic smugness, contended that he "could point out many artists of eminence who, in addition to the applause of Europe, received in this country those more substantial rewards which their talents deserved."(9) The Chancellor of the Exchequer was equally 28 emphatic in his denial of Ewart's proposition concerning the status of the artist, stating that "generally, however, talents, in this country, obtain a certain and large reward."(10) The debate further focused on issues arising out of a lack of a coordinated approach to the teaching of art in England. Considerable time was spent in making comparisons with the procedures that were in operation in

France, where even by 1834 linear design was mandated to be taught in every school. In many French towns art schools had also been established with the specific purpose of establishing a relationship between art and manufacture. Mr

Wyse stated that "it was observable that all these schools of art were carried on for practical purposes, and the designs were connected with the labour of silversmiths, upholsterers, sculptors, including every manufacture that came under the cognizance of taste."(11) Wyse's remarks about the impact of the interrelationship between the elementary school and art schools in France, with its central and regional schools, were to foreshadow the network in England which would ultimately spiral out from South

Kensington. He stated "the remarkable effect of this was, that in every canton, however remote they might be from the capital, a taste for the arts was perceptible in the pursuits and the general feeling of the inhabitants themselves."(12) Clearly in Wyse's view the French had established an effective program that had embued its people 29 with a taste for the arts, a quality which it was hoped would transfer with them from school to the work place.

France's success and Britain's relative uncompetitiveness in manufacturing was never so apparent as in the production of silks and cottons. In silks particularly, the French were market leaders. As a result of this, there had been many calls in Britain for heavier import taxes to be placed on

French goods (in order that British textiles could be protected from this competition). There was also a demand that more stringent efforts be made to curb the smuggling of

French silks into the country.

The manufacturing industry in Britain had not hitherto recognized the importance of employing designers. This was not, however, the practice in France, where, for instance, in Lyons there were "between 200 and 300 professional artists, acquiring an honourable subsistence by turning their knowledge to the use of manufactures."(13) Debate concerning Britain's apparent disadvantage in European competition was a matter not unknown to the British

Parliament. In 1832 Sir Robert Peel once before had spoken to the House of Commons on matters related to this issue, and had, at that time, been unequivocal in according blame for falling English exports on "incompetent designs". His recommendation then had been to provide funding for a

National Gallery of Art, in order to "instil a sense of design in the manufacturer and to elevate public taste."(14) 30

In 1835, Members of Parliament were once again discussing a

similar proposal. And on this occasion some members argued

that more could be done to use the Capital's churches and

cathedrals. Mr Potter M.P. supported a motion before the

House, which expressed "a wish that the public might be able

to see the specimens of the Fine Arts in Westminster Abbey

on a Sunday."(15) While agreeing that St Paul's presented a

magnificent exterior, its interior was undeniably

depressing. The situation in Europe was very different;

churches there, he explained, were filled with the most

exquisite examples of fine art. In the case of St Paul's,

O'Connell speculated that "would it not be better if fine

paintings replaced those emblems of war, and an opportunity

were afforded the people to admire within that splendid

building some of the noblest specimens of art."(16)

Churches had the advantage that they were accessible to the

entire population, no matter what their social class. The

thrust of O'Connell's hypothesis was that contact with such

beauty would result in both material and spiritual benefits

to the onlooker. Such contemplation, he suggested, had the

power to "raise and soften the public mind, religious

enthusiasm being mingled with an admiration of art"(17).

There was a general feeling however among some members of

parliament that the working classes were incapable of appreciating art, and would be likely to carry out acts of vandalism upon any works they disapproved of. Other members 31 however, not in agreement with such discriminatory and unsubstantiated remarks, charged the Select Committee to investigate the feasibility of introducing free admission to collections of art. Mr. Borthwick M.P. was such a proponent and suggested that the Motion, if enacted, would prove such criticism unfounded and could "rescue the character of the lower orders in this country from the charge of barbarism in disfiguring statues and works of art such as were respected in other countries."(18)

1835 Select Committee on Arts and Manufactures

The debate in the House of Commons reveals three major concerns: 1). The status of art, particularly in its relationship to manufacture; 2). The need to develop an aesthetic awareness among the general public; 3). The generally superior position of fine art. These concerns were to form the basis of the Select Committee's investigation,as the Committee's minutes record:

The Committee began its labors by dividing the subject into the following parts: (i). The state of art in this country and in other countries as manifested in their different manufactures. (ii).The best means of extending among the people especially the manufacturing classes, a knowledge and a taste for art. (ill) The state of higher branches of art, and the best mode for advancing them.(19) 32

Some twenty-eight witnesses were called before the

Committee; their backgrounds were fairly diverse. (Appendix

C) Manufacturers, retailers, wholesalers, artists, and architects, were called to give evidence from which it was hoped a clearer picture would emerge as to the state of art and its relationship to industry in Britain. In reading the record of the House of Commons debate of July 14th, 1835, it becomes manifestly apparent that in the minds of many

Members of Parliament the situation in Britain was deplorable, especially compared with her European neighbors, and most notably France and Prussia. The witnesses called before the Select Committee would, it was hoped, provide some clues as to how the situation could be best remedied.

Their evidence did indeed confirm the Committee's worst suspicions. One after another, the witnesses cataloged a succession of failings; these related both to the quality of

English design and manufacture, and to the availability of art to more than just an elite few of the population. A recurrent theme which interweaves the testimony of many of the witnesses was a general feeling that the situation had arisen out of a lack of positive government support for art.

And it was argued that intervening action was desperately required if the country wished to reverse the appalling state of affairs.

Charles Cockrell, architect to the Bank of England and

Associate of the Royal Academy indicated that it was some 33 surprise to him that in a nation "where the cultivation of taste only is wanting to give superiority over the world", that the Government should be so indifferent to "the subject

[art] which materially concerns the honour and character of

England ... and which is of paramount commercial and national importance in a manufacturing country."(20)

Cockrell was quick however to point out that blame should not only be apportioned to the Government, and that

« manufacturers also share some responsibility for failing to encourage innovation in design. It was his belief that

"manufacturers are not sufficiently impressed with the necessity of a higher culture of design; they generally dabble themselves and put things together from books; they purchase books of design with audacity."(21) Samuel Wiley, a representative of Jennings and Betteridge, a firm of

Birmingham japanners, adds a third group for criticism: the indifferent consumer. He stated that he could "frequently sell bad articles, bad in execution and design, for the same money I could sell the best."(22) Many witnesses agreed that

Britain's predicament was not caused by a deficiency of qualified personnel. Cockrell declared that there was "an abundance of talent, but a want of opportunity of obtaining more correct knowledge of design."(23)

There existed in England no comprehensive and integrated program for the training of artists for industry as there was in Prussia. The evidence given to the Committee 34 by Dr. Gustave Friedrick Waagen, Director of the Royal

Gallery in Berlin, indicated just how far Britain lagged in art and design education. Waagen described in some detail the structure of art education in Berlin. Since 1810 a network of art schools had existed in Prussia. In Berlin two institutions complemented each other, the Royal Academy, with its emphasis on the teaching of the fine arts, and the

Gwerb Institut, with its emphasis on the arts in relationship to industry. Each institution maintained its independence yet supported the mission of the other.

Students from the Institut were free to study anatomy at the

Academy, or life drawing, should they feel it necessary.

What is more, students who chose to attend the Institut were given a free education, paying only for board and lodging.

While the program Waagen described does betray the maintenance of a hierarchical distinction between the branches of the fine arts and the applied arts, there is, however, at least a recognition of the value of unifying, within the educational experience, aesthetic and functional dimensions. He states that:

The object of the institution is to unite beauty and taste with practicability and durability, and so to form the imagination and taste of pupils as artists, by studying drawing after beautiful models, that each may be enabled with facility to make discoveries in the branch which he particularly knows.(24)

It is important to note that in Prussia at this time, drawing was a compulsory part of the curriculum in the 35

national schools. The 'popular schools' were allocated

small amounts of time, but this was increased in the

'gymnasia'. In the Prussian system it was possible to

detect potential talent within a region, and talented

students could then be directed to the central Gwerb

Institut. It is possible in Waagen's evidence, perhaps more

than in any of that of any of the other witnesses' accounts,

to catch a glimpse of the model on which the British Design

Schools would eventually be built. The Prussian

infrastructure, with its central school controlling regional affiliates, and programs of drawing in the national schools, was indeed to be the blueprint for the South Kensington

System. There were some misgivings expressed that such centralization could result, if unchecked, in the establishment of an adopted mechanical style. George

Rennie, the sculptor, warned that "great caution is required that too much should not be done. The effect of what I allude to would be to establish a sort of central or general mannerism by too much legislative interference."(25)

William Wyon, the chief engraver at the Royal Mint, and an Associate of the Royal Academy, saw the necessity of introducing drawing into elementary education. He believed very strongly that drawing was a fundamental subject.

Wyon's words, though spoken over a century and a half ago, could have well been uttered by any contemporary art educator advocating a more visible role for art within the 36 general curriculum of all schools. A fact that is at one level intriguing, but equally, it is bound to be of serious concern to those of us who feel that Wyon's appraisal of the situation rather alarmingly mirrors the current status quo; and who wonders what, if any, progress has been made in enhancing the stature of art education over the last century and a half. Wyon poses a question, and makes an observation.

Do you not think, as reading and writing are made a portion of education, and as music is made a portion of elementaryeducation, you might also educate the eye - It has been a source of very great regret to me, that at our universities, the arts of design are not considered an essential part of education.(26)

Many of the witnesses who came before the Select

Committee saw the development of museums and galleries as having enormous, but as yet unrealized potential. Such institutions could, it was thought, assist both the producers and consumers of art. Product design could be improved if designers were able to study exemplars of decorative art, and further, exposure to fine objects would, it was argued, be a means by which to encourage taste in a wider range of the population. George Rennie foresaw a scenario in which a central museum was established in

London, with branch museums in the provinces. In Rennie's proposal the central and regional museums would establish an inter-museum loan scheme with objects being constantly transferred from museum to museum. John Martin, the eminent 37

English painter, also saw the museum playing a central role in the training of the designer; and he proposed a master/apprentice type program with its focus very much on the museum as a resource. The museums, however, that did exist served only an elite section of the population. In some museums which were open to the general public an entrance fee was charged; while others were only open to subscribers. Dr. Waagen was in favor of making admission charges, arguing that there would be greater respect shown by visitors if they had to make a financial contribution.

Other witnesses sought the development of provincial museums which reflected in their collection the manufacturing base of the town or city in which the museum was established.

William Wyon advocated such museums for Sheffield,

Manchester, and in his own town of Birmingham; he also called on the Royal Society not only to advance the fine arts but to "direct the attention of that society to that species of decorative design required in the manufactures of the town.”(27) It was his contention that there was nothing in Birmingham which instructed the artisan in art and design as it related to their area of manufacture.

Any analysis of the minutes of the 1835 Select

Committee and the Hansard record of the House of Commons debate which gave life to that Committee and its subsequent report needs to take account of the impact that class had in the arguments which were being put forward. Many witnesses 38

agreed that there were problems of social inequity, but it

appeared from the unwillingness to propose any truly radical

reforms that such problems that existed would have to be

solved without challenging the fabric of the English class

system. James Skeine, Secretary of the Board of Trustees

for the Encouragement of Manufactures in Scotland observed

that unlike in Europe, taste in Britain was an attribute of the few:

I attribute very much the proficiency that exists in foreign countries in the knowledge of design, and the higher scale of taste that exists amid the middling classes of society abroad, compared to what it is in this country, for here it seems to be confined to the higher class alone almost.(28)

Witnesses generally concurred with Skeine's belief, and yet calls for greater accessibility to the fine arts by working people were tempered with caution. For implied in these witnesses' statements were beliefs that the encouragement of greater contact with the fine arts could well induce the artisans to lose sight of their "place" in society. It is very obvious from Skeine's evidence that he was, indeed, making a clear distinction between the "higher" and the "useful" arts, and that the artisan ought only be directed toward the useful arts. Skeine was anxious that any program initiated for the artisan should be constructed in such a way as to narrow the student's focus primarily on the areas of design directly related to manufacture. The fear being, and it was not altogether unfounded, that if the 39 artisan was allowed to pursue the fine arts he might jettison the useful arts in favor of becoming an artist. A statement by Charles Cockrell is an example of the inherent nature of British social stratification. Cockrell's analysis of an individual's aesthetic capacity is clearly resultant of the benefits of social class.

there is a wide distinction between art and fine art; in the latter the knowledge of artisans whose bread is earned in laborious work, must always be very limited, compared with those who have an original genius for it, and have been brought up in the highest schools, and with the best opportunities of instruction.(29)

The 1835 Committee interviewed their last witness,

William Wyon, on September 4 after which proceedings were halted. It was not until February 9, 1836 that Parliament ordered the Committee to reconvene; this time with only fourteen members, a reduction of some thirty-six from the earlier committee. The interruption of the inquiry had been brought about because of the number of Private Bills introduced into the previous session. This leaner group concentrated their attention almost exclusively on the state of affairs of the Royal Academy. Many of those called described the Academy as being somewhat akin to a private club, a place of privilege with a jealously guarded membership. Stuart MacDonald suggests that the Academy was not a place where art education, per se, was considered of much importance; indeed teaching came a very poor second to the professional development and advancement of the 40

Academy's own members.(30) The teaching positions were not held in high regard and were therefore either given as a perk to senior members or as means of income supplement to elderly associates. Benjamin Haydon, John Martin, and

George Rennie, all gave evidence which supported the notion that the Academy was being controlled by "a select aristocracy."(31) All three artists considered they had been unfairly treated by this all powerful elite. Haydon in particular was still enraged over the Academy's handling of his work Dentalus, which in the 1809 RA Exhibition, had been removed to a dark spot in an anteroom, after initially being hung in the premier room. Haydon realized only too well that the Academicians had the power to make and break reputations and he understandably felt impugned. His continuing sense of outrage at the Academy's system is very evident in his reply to a question regarding Academy practice.

The Academy is a House of Lords without King and Commons for appeal. The artists are at the mercy of a despotism whose unlimited power tends to destroy all feelings for right and justice...It is extraordinary how men brought up as Englishmen, could set up such a system of Government. The holy inquisition was controlled by the Pope, but these men are an inquisition without a Pope.(32)

The final Report of the 1835-1836 Select Committee published in August 1836, provided, as Quentin Bell argues,

"the first rude shock that persuaded the public about the business of creating art schools."(33) The Report's 41 recommendations had been to a certain extent pre-empted by the Government's own allocation of 1,600 pounds to establish a Normal School of Design. This was a development which was certainly motivated and accelerated by the concerns expressed by witnesses at the 1835 Select Committee. The final Report was, however, an extremely comprehensive compilation of a considerable weight of evidence; much of which clamored for initiatives to be taken that would draw art closer to manufacture. The negative effect of the continuing separation between art and design in England was a fact agreed upon by all of the Committee's members. Their motivation to instigate change was however unabashedly in the economic rather than the aesthetic realm, as is clearly indicated in the following extract.

Yet, to us a peculiarly manufacturing nation, the connection between art and manufactures is most important;- and for this merely economical reason (were there no higher motive) it equally imports us to encourage art in its loftier attr ibutes.(34)

The Committee had clearly been impressed by evidence which indicated that more sophisticated levels of taste were apparently the norm among European workers. It was reported that the French had the advantage of State encouragement, and that the people there had greater and freer access to museums. While the Committee was critical of the British

Government's lack of encouragement for the arts, they were equally critical of a woeful lack of systematic art 42 instruction. Evidence brought before the Committee decried the fact that in Britain the working class were not only denied access to the fine arts but also to instruction in skills which would assist them in their employment. The

Report suggested that "this scanty supply of instruction is the more to be lamented, because it appears that there exists among the enterprising and laborious classes of our country an earnest desire for information in the Arts."(35)

The Committee had been extremely impressed by the publications authored by H. Beuth, the Director of the Gwerb

Institut. They saw inexpensive publications as a means of reaching a large audience of artisans. The Committee did acknowledge the value of the independent publications such as the Mechanics Magazine. The Penny and Saturday magazines.

The Penny Magazine was, according to Patricia Anderson, "the first successful effort to popularize knowledge about art: an Inexpensive, mass circulation pictorial miscellany"(36)

In the absence of art schools for formal art education the

Committee believed that:

Such instruments may be said to form the paper circulation of knowledge; and while friends of education lament that people are yet most insufficiently provided with places of instruction they are somewhat consoled by the reflection that these works convey instruction to the very dwellings of the people.(37)

The Report was ardent in its demand for a comprehensive program of art education to be instituted in England.

Education, it was now recognized, was vital to an 43

improvement in Britain's aesthetic development. And the

Report proposed that "the principles of design should form

the portion of any permanent system of national

education."(38 ) As to what should be taught, the Committee

favored adopting the geometric precision much enamored by

the Prussian design schools. Very much with the Prussian

model in sight, it was suggested that a central school

should be established which would be linked directly with a

number of regional affiliates. Each of these regional

schools would develop its own character based on the

manufacturing emphasis of the area in which it was located.

The adoption of such a blueprint would, it was argued,

enable the arts to "strike root and vegetate with vigor."(39)

The Government's intervention in art education in 1835, was undoubtedly the seminal development in the establishment

of a national art education program in England. It was responsible for the birth of the Royal College of Art, and the network of art schools and departments of art within

Polytechnics and Colleges of Higher Education that to this day cover the country. The initiation in the 19th century of a national curriculum in elementary drawing with standards controlled by a central authority is the embryo of contemporary British public examination systems. And in addition to paving the way for a systematic national art education program, the report is directly responsible for 44

the growth of museums of art and museum education. The 1836

Select Committee's closing remarks reverberates with

sanguine expectation:

It will give Your Committee the sincerest gratification if the result of their inquiry (in which they have been liberally assisted by the artists of this country) tend in any degree to raise the character of a profession which is said to stand much higher among foreign nations than, in our own; to infuse, even remotely, into an industrious and enterprising people, a love of art, and to teach them to respect and venerate the name "Artist".(40)

The 1835/1836 Select Committee on Arts & Manufactures and

the successive parliamentary reports would have an impact

upon Britain in three particular, and interrelated areas:

1). Art Education, 2). Manufacturing Industry, 3). Museums.

These were the elements, the alliance of which, it was

hoped, would enable beleaguered British manufacture to rise

phoenix-like from years of aesthetic neglect.

The Great Exhibition London 1851

In the period between 1835 and 1849, the year when His

Royal Highness Prince Albert is recognized as having

originated the idea of holding an international exhibition

of manufacture in London, much had happened in the area of the relationship between arts and manufactures to make such a proposal particularly timely. By 1849 the Schools of

Design had been well established, though at this time they clearly lacked both a unified pedagogic philosophy and

inspired leadership. British manufacturers had begun to 45

accept that their undoubted world leadership in machine

technology was not sufficient in itself to command

commercial success. There was a realization that in order to

compete successfully with European nations, much greater attention would have to be paid to design. The 1849 Select

Committee on the Schools of Design had also concluded that museums of manufacture were a means by which the taste of

both producer and consumer could be enhanced. This was then a period in England when various notions of design theory abounded, and Nikolaus Pevsner suggests that "to understand a spirit which can express itself in the Crystal Palace as well as the style of the objects shown in it, it may be

useful to look for a moment at the pre-history of the Great

Exhibition"(41). Henry Cole, a civil servant with the

Public Records Office, arguably did more than any other to

improve the design quality of British manufactures. He is also often identified as being the key figure in the establishment of the Crystal Palace Exhibition. This point

is contested however by S . C. Hall, the editor of the

Art-Journal. who in the wake of the closure of the

Exhibition acquiesced when Prince Albert was given credit

for its creation but was outspoken when the accolade was bestowed on Cole. In a lengthy letter to subscribers, Hall outlines his own case as the originator of the event:

I take this step because I find the merit of originating the Exhibition given in some public journals to Mr. Henry Cole, C. B.; and especially . I 46

read in The Times newspaper - the great authority of the world - allusions to this gentleman as the " earliest promoter of the Exhibition," who "especially stands to the Prince with regard to it;" and an inference drawn that, but for Mr. Cole, the Exhibition would never have taken place. I have elsewhere observed that, repeatedly, since the year 1844, I have advocated the policy of an Exhibition of Industrial Art in England; but at the close of 1847, I had many reasons to believe the time was approaching when such a project might be effectually carried out: and in the Art-Journal for January 1848, I printed an article entitled "PROPOSED EXPOSITION OF BRITISH MANUFACTURES."(42)

Who then was this figure whose blossoming reputation appeared so to antagonize the editor of the Art-Journal?

Henry Cole's initial flirtation with design for manufacture was in the form of his prize winning tea-service, manufactured by Mintons and submitted by him to the Society of Arts. This according to Fiona MacCarthy generated in Cole

"the idea that an alliance between fine art and manufacture would promote public taste."(43) Cole was extremely critical of the haphazard, eclectic nature of British design. There appeared to him to be no attempt on the part of either the designer or the manufacturer to resort to what

Cole considered were universal principles governing all design. Indeed in his own prize winning design he had sought inspiration from Grecian vases in the British Museum.

It was however not his intention to merely imitate an earlier style, but to extract those classical principles which would be equally as appropriate in contemporary society. Cole acted as somewhat of a magnet to which others 47 who shared his philosophy were drawn. Augustus Welby

Northmore Pugin and Owen Jones were two key figures in the development of concepts which would shape attitudes to design. Pugin published in 1841 the influential True

Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture and

"established his own workshops, anticipating Morris and all the Arts and Crafts."(44) Owen Jones, a young Welsh architect, and theorist, would eventually in 1868 publish

The Grammar of Ornament, a treatise in which he established a series of propositions concerning general laws that he believed appertained to all design. The book, though providing a theoretical model, was intended to have very practical effects, Jones states:

I might aid in arresting that unfortunate tendency of our time to be content with copying, whilst the fashion lasts, the forms peculiar to any bygone age, without attempting to ascertain, generally completely ignoring the peculiar circumstances which rendered an ornament beautiful, because it was appropriate, and which, as expressive of other wants when transplanted, as it entirely fails.(45)

Jones and Pugin joined Cole in his brainchild "Summerly

Art Manufactures", and would assist him in preparations for the 1851 Great Exhibition. MacCarthy suggests that

Summerly's products "were hardly epoch making; to a very large extent, they were products of their time with a craze for ingenuity"(46). MacCarthy argues that Cole's reputation as a designer is of secondary importance to his « persuasiveness; she dubs him "the first great propagandist 48

for design"(47) . The spirit of reform which so characterized

this period in 19th-century Britain, the desire for change which was so apparent in socio-political and economic

realms, was no less pervasive in the sphere of art/manufacture. Henry Cole certainly was the pivotal

figure in the dissemination of proposals for new attitudes

toward the relationship between art and industry; and he

used his publication The Journal of Design and Manufactures,

to spread the word. The general public were well served with publications keeping them informed of developments in art and manufacture. The Art Journal, formerly the

Union Journal, and a rival of Cole's magazine, played a significant role in developing the public's consciousness of the aesthetics of the every-day object of utility.

This was a period when the designer's skills were eagerly sought; it appeared that there was a nigh

inexhaustible range of applications to which the designer's talent (or lack of it) for styling could be applied. Just about anything was fair game for the artisan designer's embellishment. It was a time when an abundance of views of what indeed constituted an "appropriate" style were in circulation. Britain's eagerness to achieve international recognition for design had unleashed upon the country a legion of stylists who were bent on applying their multifarious design concepts to almost everything in their 49 sight. The scramble inevitably caught the attention of the satirical magazine Punch, which had a field day examining, with more than a little tongue in cheek, a range of issues from the design proposals for a statue of the Duke of

Wellington, to aristocratic women defending British manufactures with unbridled patriotism, and to suggestions that examples of fine art should grace the walls of stations. Punch contributors took special delight in lampooning the new ’’artists of manufacture." An 1848 article entitled "Art Manufactures" delights in describing how noted artists of the time were fast becoming embroiled in a world hereto quite remote from their previous exper ience.

A laudable attempt is being made to apply the Arts to the domestic utensils required of every-day life, and a mustard pot of ETTY has already been advertised. A sugar basin from designs by PICKERSGILL is to come next; and an illustrated boot jack is we believe, now on the easel of an artist, whose name we are not at liberty to mention. LANDSEER is to be entrusted with a commission for a set of pudding basins, and FRANK STONE has a Bath brick placed in his hands, with a carte blanche to do what he likes with it ... REDGRAVE has got a shirt in active preparation, with a domestic incident on each cuff, a scene of home affections on the bosom, and a bit of charming landscape on the collar. We are glad to hail this laudable desire on the part of FELIX SUMMERLY to introduce High Art to our wardrobes and our dwellings by pursuing the spirited course we have called attention to.(48)

Though Punch * s commentary is quite obviously intended to be humorous, and while the exuberance of many designers did result in travesties of design, this ought not overshadow what was a philosophically sound reappraisal of 50

the role of art in British manufacture. The Zeitgeist was

such that the fact that Prince Albert should have in June

1849 met with T. Cubitt, H, Cole, F. Fuller, and J. Scott

Russell of the Society of Arts to discuss his proposal for a

collection of works of Industry and art to be exhibited in

1851 appears to be have been most timely. The Art Journal,

on January 1st, 1850, expressed with almost missionary zeal

their support of this enterprise; support which is all the

more highlighted considering the barrage of negative

criticism that they constantly showered on matters relating

to the Schools of Design: They state:

October 17th, 1849, will be a day often referred to in the history of the Progress of Industrial Art. It will be said, "a Prince, the descendant of a race among the first to achieve and defend the freedom of the mind, the foundation of all real progress, had that day summoned the 'magnates' of the city, - by its wealth and commercial intercourse for more the metropolis of the world, than from these circumstances alone the capital of Great Britain, - to consider and determine upon a plan for the exhibition of works of Industry and Art, the result of the genius or the skill of every clime, manufactured from the produce of the globe.(49)

Prince Albert's Initiative certainly caught the

imagination of educators, manufacturers, and public alike.

The entire project was a masterwork of creative

organization; and as such, Janet Minihan argues that it

provides the researcher with a unique opportunity to analyze

the dynamics of socio-political and economic 19th-century

Britain. She suggests however that three aspects of this

relationship have specific significance: 1). The 51 exhibition's financial backing, 2). The place of the arts in the Crystal Palace, and 3). The influence the spectacle ultimately exerted on British art education.(50) From its inception, it was decided that the project would be funded entirely by private enterprise. Indeed, it was recognized by all involved that the Government would be unwilling to grant any subsidies to such a private venture. State intervention and the granting of funds to initiatives managed privately was something that the Government was extremely charry about, as one could see from their more than tentative steps into the field of general education.

British manufacture though, was at last beginning to blossom, and Cole and Fuller who were designated to travel the length and breadth of Britain soliciting opinions and support from manufacturers were received most favorably.

The 1850, January 1st, edition of The Art Journal stated "the result was in all places the same, there was a uniform expression of gratitude to H.R.H. Prince Albert for the interest he showed in the commercial prosperity of this most favored land."(51) It was also decided by the planning committee that to encourage manufacturers' participation, and the possible development of products which under normal market conditions would have been unprofitable, they would establish substantial financial premiums. The links established between finance, art, and manufacture did more than just to facilitate an international trade exhibition. 52

Minihan argues that the relationships so formed, gave

further momentum to a philosophy which placed "value" on art

only where it could be shown to have a financial return; she

states:

The Great Exhibition gave considerable support to the attitude that demanded of art some profitable purpose or instructive lesson. The subordination of art to commercial ends, which first received official endorsement in the 1830s, became part of a widely shared public sentiment in the 1850s and 1860s.(52)

From the outset it was decided that the creation of a

Royal Commission to oversee the Exhibition would assist in deflecting any criticism of partiality, and the action would establish confidence in the organization. The Commission's tasks were threefold: 1). Deciding on the nature of the prizes, 2). Responsibility for awarding prizes, 3).

Decisions concerning the nature of the exhibition. The

Commission appears to have been both politically and diplomatically astute, as it insisted that judging panels should consist of manufacturers, artists, and "foreigners."

It is significant that the organizing committee spent considerable time developing criteria by which the works should be judged. Commentary in the 1850 Art Journal draws attention to the fact that the requisites that applied to excellence in art as applied to manufacture were indeed the same as those requisites for fine art. The Journal states

"in Fine Art we seek dignity, simplicity, truth; in

Manufactures, design, elaboration, both subservient to 53 uti1ity."(53) The 1836 Select Committee had publicly voiced concern about the quality of the British designer; and fourteen years on the same concerns were still being expressed. There was, however, a feeling that there was considerable latent potential which was as yet untapped.

The January 1st, ArjL.Jpurnal states:

We are afraid great misapprehension exists among many as to the capabilities of the English artisu, the manufacturer, and artisan. That they are inferior as to design in many respects cannot be denied; that they are so inferior as to imply what some seek to establish - their inability to excel - we utterly deny.(54)

The criteria so emphatically established by the Royal

Commission would appear to herald a period of greater sensitivity to ornament in manufacture. Its dictum of fitness for purpose would have been something which William

Morris and Walter Gropius could have supported. The

Exhibition pieces however, with very few exceptions, far from exemplifying the idea that ornament was "subservient to utility," appear to be the results of the manufacturers' determination to disguise utility beneath a dense spray of foliage. Ralph Wornum in his prize winning essay "The

Exhibition as a Lesson in Taste in Art-Manufacture," published in 1851 in The Crystal Palace Exhibition:

Illustrated Catalogue, clearly suggests that ornamentation of ordinary objects was a general tendency; he states:

For there is a stage when the mind must revolt at a mere crude utility. So it is a natural propensity to decorate or embellish whatever is useful or agreeable 54

to us. But just as there are mechanical laws which regulate all our efforts in pure uses, so there are laws of the mind which must regulate aesthetical efforts expressly in the attempt at decoration or ornamental designs.(55)

Wornum's essay, critical though it may be, displays considerable impartiality as he attacks the mishmash of eclecticism in design for manufacture without favor to country of origin. Much of what he saw he believed failed to measure up to his, and the Commissions' principles of good design: and when it did, the impact was even greater because of the context in which those designs were exhibited. This was particularly true of the products presented by Joshuia Wedgwood, which Wornum stated:

Appear more beautiful than ever, surrounded as they are by such endless specimens of prevailing, gorgeous taste of the present day, which gives the eye no resting place and presents no idea to the mind, from want of individuality in its gorgeous designs.(56)

Considerable disappointment was expressed publicly with regard to the level of the United States involvement. The

Illustrated London News on May 17th, 1851 reported that "the

United States make a very imposing outside show, with a space second only to France in extent, but unfortunately the performance does not come up to promise.”(57) Indeed

America had been allocated space which was second only to

France, but had according to the Art Journal insinuated that this would be insufficient to house all their exhibits. The

Royal Commission somewhat reluctantly increased the United

States original allocation by an extra five thousand feet, 55 an act which heightened the excitement and expectancy about

America's exhibition contributions. As it transpired however America's exhibits could not even fill the originally agreed amount of space, a fact which caused some resentment among Commissioners and reviewers alike. The Art

Journal on August 1st, 1851 in a lengthy article the ''United

States in the Great Exhibition" provided a detailed explanation of the possible political and commercial

Impediments to a larger and more representative American exhibit. But while acknowledging the undoubted problems surrounding American representation, the article concludes that:

The feeling of disappointment was as natural and as unavoidable as the expectations themselves, and our American friends, we say it in candor and kindness, ought to feel that they have themselves, in great measure to blame for the unflattering reception they have met from the great worlds public, assembled here, to pass a judgment (which will be, in the main, and as a whole, a just and righteous one; with all due allowance for national and personal prejudices and antipathies) upon the comparative advancement of nations in arts and civilization.(58)

The review of America's exhibits which appeared in the

1851 Art Journal is a comprehensive catalog of a nation's natural resources and raw materials. Iron ore from

Connecticut, red oxide from New Jersey, clay from Ohio, all speak of a country abundant with nature's gifts. And while such materials form the bulk of American representation, there was general disappointment that the staples of 56

American prosperity viz, cotton, tobacco, rice, and corn, were "represented but by a few bales and boxes of little meaning to the vulgar eye."(59) Though there was disappointment in the meagerness of the American show, one object created quite a stir. McCormick's Reaping Machine was significant enough for it to be included in Nikolaus

Pevsner's book High Victorian Design.(60) The I1lustrated

London News of July 19, 1851, in describing the machine, which had been awarded a gold medal from the American

Institute, reported that it was "seldom that two or three farmers and often farm laborers, are not to be examining, the details of its construction, and speculating upon its success in effecting the desired object."(61) In contrast with much design for Victorian machinery, the McCormick reaper possesses an economic elegance seldom observed in design of the times. It was of course a significant invention in itself, and Pevsner provides a quotation from the Journal of the Roval Agricultural Society, which was in no doubt of the importance of this piece of agricultural machinery: it was called "the most important addition to farming machinery since the threshing machine took the place of the flail."(62) The Reaper was devoid of any unnecessary ornamentation, a fact which placed it very much among the minority of such exhibits in the Machinery Hall. For here there was ample evidence that even "the steam engine could still in 1851 masquerade in the nineteenth century Empire 57

Style.”(63) This was a time when Gothic and Egyptian references appeared to generally be the vocabulary with which the Victorian designer would set about their task. Such ornamentation techniques would in effect camouflage the machine and, as a consequence, would according to Pevsner, de-emphasize its inherent brutality.

In these situations styling would deflect any consideration of the working conditions under which such machinery was operated. This Pevsner argued was the "sinister side of the age [which] appears ... as a dark shadow behind the exhibits.”(64) In contrast America's design often reflected concerns more for utility than for ornament. Commissioner

Edward Riddle in his report on the United States which appeared in the Official Catalogue of the Great

Exhibition.(65) developed this theme, suggesting that

American industry possessed a particularly distinct character. His reasoning being that "the expenditure of months or years of labor upon a single article, not to increase its cost or its estimation as an object of virtu, is not common in the United States. "(66) Riddle's speculation concerning the reasons behind America's poor ' showing of manufactured goods is supported by the Art

Journal. which portrays the United States as a young nation in the process of carving an existence in a new land:

Where physical obstacles have to be overcome, forests felled, mountains levelled, roads and bridges constructed, farms cleared, towns and cities built, the 58

demand for labor for such purposes is so great that it cannot be diverted to the manufacture of articles which can readily be supplied from abroad.(67)

The Art Journal further notes that in a letter regarding the Crystal Palace Exhibition, which was circulated by the American central committee throughout the

United States that there was "no pretension to the arts of design and taste in which Europe excels. The committee seem willing to place the reputation of their country upon the only foundation on which it can justly stand - her natural resources and inventive ingenuity."(68) America's propensity for the novel caught the attention of a reviewer for the Illustrated London News who in an account of the

United States exhibits describe:

An army of chairs constructed in a very costly manner, on a principle that enables the sitter not only to rock but to roll in almost every direction, attest the advances of one kind of luxury among our transatlantic brethren. These chairs chiefly of iron, will not we imagine be allowed to go back.(69)

Though not particularly evident in the United States contributions to the Great Exhibition, this was a period of high activity for the American inventor. The Art Journal records that in the two years prior to the Great Exhibition an average of 1,000 patents had been granted by the American

Government.(70) The inventions ranged from the bizarre to the inspired. One such was the revolving chair exhibited by the American Chair Company of New York. This manufacturer's chairs were called "novelties" by the compilers of the Art 59

America has long been noted for the luxurious music stools, betw een which and the sent the orounosn nf its chnirs. which coinhino in them*Brmtio is inserted ; this wo exhibit in our first pelves nil the menus of gratification a Sybarite cut. It will nlloxv of the greatest weight and could wish. The AmkiucahC f t A i n Comi'ANT, of freest motion 011 all sides; the scat is also made New York, exhibit some novelties, which oven

increase the luxury and convenience of this necessary nrtirlo of furniture; instead of the ordinary legs conjoined tocncli nngloof the scat, they combine to sup|>ort a stem, as in ordinary

to revolve on its axis. The design mid fittings of these chairs ore equally good and elegant, and certainly wc have never tested a more cosy and commodious article of household furniture.

Figure 2. Revolving chair, The American Chair Company, of New York. Shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851 60

Journal1s illustrated exhibition catalog. Pevsner in his

book High Victorian Design singles out these exhibits as

being "a specially enlightening case of how to be

technically adventurous in artistic terms."(71) However in

his book Pevsner includes an illustration of a swivel chair

which has a particularly incongruous back to it, a feature

which he describes as an "exuberant and useless

excrescence."(72) The chairs illustrated in the Art Journal

catalog are versions without this inappropriate addition.

From these more streamlined forms it is quite easy to see

how the American Chair Company could with some justification

be considered to be the progenitors of the ubiquitous office

chair.(Figure 2) The compilers of the Art Journal catalog

though they included a table by the Austrian manufacturer

Thonet, failed to recognize the technological impact of the

table's legs which they described as being "bent from the

solid piece."(73) (Figure 3) Thonet had exhibited other

furniture, and indeed had been awarded a Prize Medal for the

Thonet No 5 chair.(74) This design of would ultimately develop into the classic bentwood cafe chair which is still

in production today.(Plate 5) John Gloag notes that the

Thonet chairs were overlooked by the editors of The Art

Journal.

Nobody apparently suspected that during the rest of the nineteenth century they would revolutionize the form of mass-produced seat furniture, compete with the popular traditional American forms of rocking chair, and challenge the use of cast iron for such household in bronze at the foundry ofth e Prince of Sabos by Mien vei, T iio n e t , of Vienna, its topin clabo- *t Vienna. It in executed with considerable mtely inlaid with woods of various colours; ne ability, an good an cxamph- of manufacture an> give of ono half of thin to displayth e boautv and dcni^ti. both being in their own way excellent. ! intricacy of tho design. Thin top lift* and a The T a h i .r on the upper portiono ofu rpage is | receptacle beneath of a ecmi-nphci ical form ri

opened which has name peculiarities of con­with tho leant ponsihlo material. Tho legs nro struction : it in formed of rosewood, no bentsimilarly bent frorn tho solid piece; tho tnblo tliat tho grnin of the wowl invariably followsbeing entirely constructed of rorowood and tho lino of tho ctirvo and nhapo required,walnut, by slightly inlaid with delicnto lino* of which moan* lightness and elasticity in gainod,brasawork, ns an outlino to tho principal forms.

Figure 3. Table, Michael Thonet, of Austria. Shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851 62

Plate V ' Daupi (No.1830), Michael Thonet c. 1849. Manufacturer: Thonet 63

furnishings as hat and umbrella stands.(75)

If the Art Journal editors could be admonished for their lack of foresight in recognizing the potential technological significance of bentwood and the concept of a revolving chair, a novel means of manufacture which did arrest their attention was papier-mache. Far from being greeted with curious disbelief, products made from this material received critical acclaim. Pevsner argues that papier-mache was in its time "exactly on the same plane as our use of furniture of bakelite and other plastics."(76)

Papier-mache products reproduced in the Art Journal catalog range in dimension from Bielefeld's architectural moldings, and tea-trays by Spiers to McCullum & Hodgsons highly ornate cabinets. In the area of papier-mache according to some enthusiastic supporters, there was "no question that England stands unrivalled in this branch of industrial art."(77) A papier-mache chair reproduced in the Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue is an object worthy of serious consideration.(Figure 4) Gloag believes it to be of

"original style".(78) Pevsner also considers this chair of particular significance, believing it to be "a key-piece for the understanding of the spirit of 1851, in its appearance as well as in the generous admittance of the figure sculpture, and especially its name ... The Daydreamer."(79) Figure 4. The "Day Dreamer" papier mache chair designed by H. Fitz Cook and made by Jennings & Betteridge, of London & Birmingham. Shown at the Great Exhibition 1851 65

Pevsner argues that it is the conferment of a title to a utilitarian object which makes this chair particularly noteworthy. The chair acquires status by this action, which

is further reinforced by the catalog description which accompanies its reproduction in the Official Catalog.

Surely all potential purchasers must have realized that they were acquiring more than just an armchair.

The chair is decorated at the top with two winged thoughts - the one with bird-like pinions, and crowned with roses, representing happy and joyous dreams, the other with leather bat-like wings - unpleasant and troubled ones. Behind is displayed Hope, under the figure of the rising sun. The twisted supports of the back are ornamented with poppy, heartsease, convolvulus and snowdrop. In front of the seat is a shell ... and on either side of it, pleasant and troubled dreams are represented by figures. At the side is seen a figure of Puck, lying asleep in a labyrinth of foliage.(80)

The Daydreamer chair is according to Pevsner an object which is indicative of a period in design history when utilitarian concerns surrendered to "elaborate allegorical apparatus."(81) This particular chair exemplifies for

Pevsner "the inner-most core of mid-Victorian taste."(82)

Yet another example of the extravagance of Victorian design is evident in the chair made by Mr. G. Collinson, of

Lancaster, from three hundred year old timber. (Figure 5)

It might be argued that a design aesthetic which succumbs to notions extraneous to comfort and utility is the somewhat dubious legacy contemporary designers and consumers have inherited from the masterpieces of the Great Exhibition. The CiMin engraved l»e)ow is made by Mr.0 . Dun oiit-fall drain, then being dug at Arksey, CoLMrooif, of Doncaster. Independent of it*near Doncaster, by Mr. W. Chadwick, of that merits as an example of rustic furniture, there place,i* for whom, we believe, the chair has been a little history attaching t<» it, which enhancemanufactured. It is presumed, by thoso ac­ its interest About throe years since, two oakquainted with the locality where these trees trees, measuring together two hundred feet ofwere found, that they must hare been buried timber, wore found Iwdow the floor of the riverin the soil upwards of two thousand yeAre.

Figure 5. Chair, Mr. G. Collinson, of Doncaster Shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851 67

In any review of the Great Exhibition one cannot fail

to grapple with the question of the Exhibition's

significance. Contemporaneous views tend to be more positive

than critical analysis which has been constructed after the

event, and with the benefit of hindsight. The Illustrated

London News which circulated a weekly Exhibition supplement alongside its newspaper, while in the early days of its

opening would encourage the United States "to try again, and do better next time."(83)

On June 28, 1851, in a report titled "A New Result of the Great Exhibition," the paper declared that much of the

Exhibition's previous adverse criticism had been silenced and that the Exhibition had "been shown to be a great Peace movement, a great moral movement, and a great industrial movement."(84) The concept of the Exhibition as an agent of peace was a theme developed by participants and observers similarly. Henry Cole in a lecture to the Society of Arts commented somewhat wishfully that the event had "tended to make ourselves a less quarrelsome and meddlesome people with other nations than we have been accustomed to be."(85) A contributor to the Art Journal in November, 1851, in a final review of the Great Exhibition, would reflect far more on the social implications of the event than they would discuss actual exhibits arguing that:

in the present state of the world, Art can only flourish among a people whose moral and intellectual tastes are healthy, pure, and elevated, and that to 68

expect refined productions to arise in the midst of a brutish mass is absurd.(86)

This writer while apologizing for his own lack of

qualifications to ascertain the actual impact of the

Exhibition on national taste does observe that "no one, I

think, who has listened attentively to the remarks of the crowd, and observed what especially called forth the admiration, can be very confident of the success of the

Exhibition as an instructor of aesthetic culture."(87) The writer concludes that the visitors tended "to be attracted by some incidental peculiarity of an object, than by either

its beauty or its utility."(88) It indeed only requires a cursory glance through either of the Exhibition's

illustrated catalogs to realize that mid-Victorian taste was titilated by the novel, the sham, and the indulgently ornate. Yvonne ffrench, in her book The Great Exhibition:

1851 holds back no punches arguing that the event provided

"examples of the bastardization of taste without parallel in the whole of recorded aesthetics."(89) It is, however, far too easy for the historian to apply current design aesthetics to objects from the Great Exhibition. Such a transfer will inevitably cause the observer to see no more than a grotesque confusion of style, and justice will not be given to the context within which these objects had been created. What is so often lost sight of is the recognition 69 of the Exhibition's role in reflecting the birth of an industrial age.

It is not altogether surprising in the circumstances that at a time when hand made was giving way to machine made, that more than a little confusion would arise as to what would be appropriate design for the new conditions of manufacture. It is perfectly understandable that a craftsman's aesthetic would linger for some time, like King

Canute attempting to prevent the Inevitable. Andrea Branzi views the exhibition as "the first comprehensive demonstrations of what was taking place, as result of mechanical production, throughout the West."(90) She argues further that this event which exhibited machine and product alongside each other, is significant in that it caused debate which sought to examine the product as a social phenomenon. And while the objects were often by any measure bizarre, and were rightfully condemned, there existed a spirit of reform. In such a climate challenges and rebuttals would cause individuals of differing persuasions to, as Branzi argues "question the relationship between industrial production, culture and society - a controversy that is still of fundamental importance in modern design."(91) 70

The Exhibition's Legacy; The Victoria & Albert Museum

The Exhibition having been finished, and Cole having been released from his responsibilities, there could have been no more opportune time for him to embark upon his grand design for a national, systematic program of art education.

The Exhibition had been a major catalyst for a new awareness of the importance of art as it related to industry. 5,000 pounds were set aside for the purchase of instructional examples from the Exhibition to support those already in the possession of the School of Design. The museum was now to play a key role in the education of both producer and consumer. Cole's ascendancy to the Super intendency of the

Schools of Practical Art in 1852 would not only change the face of mid-nineteenth century England, but his continuing involvement in the affairs of the Great Exhibition would provide the legacy which would ultimately become the

Victoria & Albert Museum.

Though Cole more than any other is credited with founding the V & A, his efforts had roots which extended to

1836. It was as a result of the Select Committee Report of that year that the Board of Trade made advances to the

Treasury to establish a School of Design which was related to a museum. The committee suggested that this institution

"should contain the most approved of modern specimens, foreign as well as domestic, which our extensive commerce would readily convey to us from the most distant quarters of 71 the globe.”(92) The museum was seen by them as being an ideal vehicle for both informing, and training the artisan/designer, and in elevating the taste of the general public. The Select Committee pressed hard a claim that the

School of Design should have "everything, in short, which exhibits in combination the efforts of the artist and the workman."(93) By the time Cole had actually taken over the

Super intendency of the Schools of Design, the collection of objects in its possession were scattered throughout the rooms of Somerset House. He had, in effect, inherited a collection which according to Stuart MacDonald was "found in a neglected and ruinous condition, practically inaccessible in use and uncatalogued."(94) Cole immediately set about the task of systematizing the collection and was encouraged in this undertaking by Prince Albert, who himself was devising plans for a national institution for the arts. A letter which appears in the appendix to the 2nd Report of the Commissioners for the Exhibition of 1851. indicates the scope of the Prince's vision:

We should now have a most valuable record of the last hundred years, in fact a great industrial museum of the whole world, not a mere magazine or store house in which natural productions and ingenious contrivances are piled up in endless confusion, where they may remain buried for ages; but a practical, useful, and well arranged, series depicting past progress, and leading to future improvement, a place of reference, in which useful knowledge of all arts would be accessible to everyone, and at all times available for purposes of instruction.(95) 72

Prince Albert's influence was such that funds were made available by the House of Lords to the Board of Trade, for the express purpose of selecting items of textiles, ceramics and metalwork from the Great Exhibition. It was Cole,

Richard Redgrave, Owen Jones, and Augustus Welby Pugin, who had the task of spending the 5,000 pounds which was allocated for the newly formed "Museum of Manufactures" which was housed in Somerset House. The curators took particular care to select items which in their opinion reflected the principles of good design. The 1st Report of the Department of Practical Art published during 1852-53 reports that:

Each specimen has been selected for its merits in exemplifying some principles of construction or ornament, or some feature of workmanship to which it appeared desirable that attention of our students of manufactures should be directed .(96 )

It was, though, soon to become only too apparent that the space afforded by Somerset House would be insufficient to house the ever expanding collection of objects of manufacture. Prince Albert was instrumental in securing

Queen Victoria's permission to use rooms in Marlborough

House. The Museum opened here on May 17, 1852, and while the opening was intended to be a private affair, its inauguration was attended by Queen Victoria and Prince

Albert. Such a seal of approval did no go unnoticed and

MacDonald indicates that "The Illustrated London News reported that with such sympathies for the cause of industry 73 and art,'we need have no fear for the f uture 1 .11 (97 ) The

Museum was an outstanding success with the public. Physick states that "in 1852 it was open 54 free days during which time 42,134 visitors were admitted.(98) The 'Museum of

Manufactures' was not intended to be isolated from the visitors own experience, from the outset it was designed to be a place of learning for the general public and the student/designer. The establishment of a public museum would in some measure meet one of the original goals of the

1836 Select Committee, namely, the enhancement of the levels of taste of the general population. The museum had effectively become an arm of art education for the masses.

The 1852-53 Report records:

A museum presents probably the only effectual means of educating the adult, who cannot be expected to go to school like the youth, and the necessity of teaching the grown man is quite as great as the child. By proper arrangement a Museum may be made by the highest degree instructional if it be connected with lectures, and means are taken to point out its uses and application, it becomes elevated from being a mere unintelligible lounge for idlers, into an impressive schoolroom for everyone.(99)

The core of the collection would be items purchased from the 1851 Great Exhibition, and many of those figures involved in setting up the Exhibition took prominent roles in purchasing and establishing the philosophy under which the Museum would operate. The Royal Commission established for the 1851 Exhibition, was kept intact, and Queen Victoria authorized by the use of a "Supplemental Charter", the spending of the profits generated from the Exhibition for

entirely art educational purposes. It is important to note

that at this stage in the Museum's development that major

funding stemmed from private, rather than governmental

sources. As objects were purchased, so a comprehensive

catalog was devised, it was Intended to be very much an

instructional device with which to support viewing and

possible handling of the object. The catalog references

were indeed quite substantial, indicating both each object's

strengths and weaknesses in relation to the "principles of

good design." The education of "taste" was not only to be

achieved by exposing visitors to the acquisitions that

exemplified all that was good in design, but also by

confronting the public with objects that were severely

lacking in these pre-requisites. A room was set aside for

these "Examples of False Principles in Decoration," the exhibit soon became known as the "House of Horrors". An unforeseen problem in the creation of this particular exhibit was the amount of attention it received, often rivaling attention to the serious objects in the collection,

the 1852-53 Report states:

This room appears to excite far greater interest than many objects the high excellence of which is not generally appreciated. Everyone is led at once to investigate upon which his own carpet and furniture may be decorated, and the greatest benefit to manufacture may be looked for from the investigation.(100 ) 75

Though the "House of Horrors" may have been popular with the public, the manufacturers were not too enthralled. Minihan indicates that "the venture was short-lived, for victimized manufacturers complained loudly; yet it left no doubt of the dogmatic certainty with which the Department set about its business."(101) Pevsner in discussing the "House of

Horrors", provides a wonderful quotation from Charles

Dickens' Household Words, which more than a few of the exhibits visitors could identify with. Dickens' character

Mr Crumpet is speaking:

I could have cried, Sir. I was ashamed of the pattern of my own trousers, for I saw a piece of them hung up there as a horror. I dared not pull out of my pocket-handkerchief while anyone was by, lest I should be seen dabbing the perspiration from my forehead with a wreath of coral. I saw it all; when I went home I found that I had been living among horrors up to that hour. The paper in my parlour contains four birds of paradise besides bridges and pagodas.(102)

By 1853, "125,000 people visited the Museum at

Marlborough House."(103) While receiving somewhat luke warm support from the Government, it was seen as very practical evidence of a new spirit in art education. The 1853 Art

Journal stated that "the most satisfactory state of this museum cannot fail to be a subject of congratulation to all interested like ourselves in the progress of British

Art-Manufactures.(104) By 1854 space at Marlborough House was at a premium, and the Museum only had the use of the house on a temporary basis. Prince Albert, though, had sufficient foresight to have begun to plan for alternative 76

accommodation. He invited Cole to Buckingham Palace during

February 1854 and presented him with ideas for a bold

architectural solution to be constructed in iron. The

"Brompton Boilers”, as they were rather derisively to be

called, would become the foundation of the world renowned

Victoria and Albert Museum. 77

NOTES: CHAPTER I

(1)United Kingdom. Hansard Parliamentary Debates, 3d ser., vol.29 (1835), 555.

(2)Ibid.,554.

(3)Ibid.

(4)Ibid.,560.

(5)Ibid.

(6)Ibid.

(7)Ibid.,557.

(8)Ibid.

(9)Ibid.,558.

(10)Ibid.

(11)Ibid.,556.

(12)Ibid.

(13)Ibid.,559.

(14)Fiona MaCarthy, 1979. A History of British Design 1830 - 1970 (London: Allen Unwin),8.

(15)Parliamentary Debates, 560.

(16)Ibid.,561.

(17)Ibid.

(18)Ibid.

(19)United Kingdom. Sessional Papers. "Arts and Manufactures Select Committee Report." vol.5 (1835) (Illinois: Readex Microprint, The University of Illinois)

(20)Ibid.,102.

(21)Ibid.,103. 78

(22)Ibid./23.

(23)Ibid.,103.

(24)Ibid./3.

(25)Ibid., 68.

(26)Ibid.,135.

(27)Ibid.,127.

(28)Ibid.,87.

(29)Ibid.,104.

(30)Stuart MacDonald, 1970. The History and Philosophy of Art Education (New York: American Elseiver)

(31)Ibid.,66.

(32)United Kingdom. Sessional Papers. "Arts and Manufactures Select Committee Report." vol 9. (1836) (Illinois: Readex Microprint, The University of Illinois), 93.

(33)Quentin Bell, 1963. The Schools of Design (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul),60.

(34)Sessional Papers. (1836): iii.

(35)Ibid.

(36)Patricia Anderson, 1987. "Pictures for the People: Knight's Penny Magazine an Early Venture into Popular Art Education." Studies in Art Education 28(3): 133-40.

(37)Sessional Papers. (1836): iv.

(38)Ibid.,vi.

(39)Ibid.,v.

(40)Ibid.,xi.

(41)Nikolaus Pevsner, 1951. High Victorian Design: A Study of the Exhibits of 1851 (London: Architectural Press),12. 79

(42)The Art Journal/ 1851. "The Origin of the Great Exhibition" (New York: D. Appleton & Co),301-302.

(43)MacCarthy, History of British Design,8.

(44)Ibid.,11.

(45)Owen Jones, 1868. The Grammar of Ornament. (London: Bernard Quaritch).l.

(46)MacCarthy, History of British Design,10.

(47)Ibid.

(48)Punch or the London Charivari, 1848. "Art Manufactures." (Mich, Ann Arbour: Xerox University Microfilms),102.

(49)The Art Journal, 1850. (New York: D. Appleton & Co.),1.

(50)Janet Minlhan, 1977. The Nationalization of Culture: The Development of State Subsidies to the Arts in Great Britain (New York: New York University Press),99

(51)The Art Journal, 1850, 1.

(52)Minihan, Nationalization of Culture,100.

(53)The Art Journal, 1850, 2.

(54)Ibid.

(55)The Crystal Palace Exhibition Illustrated Catalogue. 1851. (London: George Virtue for the Art Journal; reprint ed. 1970. New York: Dover),XXX***.

(56)Ibid.,V***

(57)I1lustrated London News, May 17. 1851. 432.

(58)The Art Journal, 1851, 208.

(59)Ibid.

(60)Pevsner, Victorian Design,22.

(61)Illustrated London News, 1851. 89.

(62)Pevsner, Victorian Design,22.

(63)Ibid. 80

(64)Ibid.,28.

(65)Official Catalogue of the Great Exhibition. 1851. vol 3. (London: World Microfilm Publications).

(66)Ibid.,1431.

(67)The Art Journal, 1851, 212.

(68)Ibid.

(69)I1lustrated London News, 1851, 433.

(70)Art Journal, 1851, 208.

(71)Pevsner, Victorian Design, 49.

(72)Ibid.

(73)Crystal Palace, Catalog, 296.

(74)Dover Publications, 1980. Thonet Bentwood & Other Furniture: The 1904 Illustrated Catalogue (New York: Dover Publications),vii. Christopher Wilk provides the introduction to this republication of the original 1904 Thonet catalog.

(75)Crystal Palace, Catalog, xi.

(76)Pevsner, Victorian Design, 39.

(77)Crystal Palace, Catalog, 156.

(78)Ibid., xii.

(79)Pevsner, Victorian Design, 40.

(80)Ibid., 112.

(81)Ibid., 113.

(82)Ibid., 114.

(83)Illustrated London News. 1851. 433.

(84)Ibid., June 28.

(85)Yvonne ffrench, 1950. The Great Exhibition: 1851. (London: Harvill Press),279.

(86) Art Journal, 1851. 294. 81

( 87)Ibid.,293.

(88)Ibid.

(89)ffrench, Great Exhibition, 230.

(90)Andrea Branzi, 1984. The Hot House. (Boston: MIT Press)

(91)Ibid., 12.

(92)Sessional Papers. (1836),v.

(93)Ibid.

(94)Stuart McDonald, 1970. The History and Philosophy of Art Education. (New York: American Elseiver Publishing) 178.

(95)United Kingdom. Sessional Papers. "Second Report of the Commissioners of the Exhibition of 1851." (1851). (Illinois: Readex Microprint, The University of Illinois),30 .

(96)United Kingdom. Sessional Papers. 1852-53. Department of Practical Art: First Report. (University of Illinois: Readex Microprint),229.

(97)MacDonald, History of Art Education, 178.

(98)John Frederick Physick, 1982. The Victoria & Albert Museum: The History of its Building. (Oxford: Phaidon, Christies) 17.

(99)Sessional Papers, (1852-53),30.

(100)Ibid., 33.

(101)Minihan, Nationalization of Culture, 113-114.

(102)Pevsner, Victorian Design, 152.

(103)Minihan, Nationalization of Culture, 114.

(104)Art Journal, 1853, 298. 82

CHAPTER II

AMERICAN ART & INDUSTRY THE PHILADELPHIA CENTENNIAL AND A

REPORT TO CONGRESS

International exhibitions fast became the major vehicle for countries world-wide, both to showcase their own products and to gauge stature in international competition.

The Great Exhibition of 1851 in London was the catalyst for the spawning of a series of trade and cultural expositions which were to crisscross the globe. In addition to the

London exhibition, exhibitions were held in New York and

Dublin (1853), London (1862), Paris (1802, 1806, 1819, 1823,

1827, 1834, 1839, 1849, 1855, 1867), and Vienna (1873).

Heady with the success of the London exhibition of 1851,

Henry Cole recommended the establishment of annual exhibitions to be held in London.(1) This idea eventually found a receptive hearing from Britain's commissioners to the Paris exposition of 1867, and with the support of the still extant 1851 exhibition commissioners, such an annual exhibition was established in South Kensington in 1871.

The concept of holding an international exhibition in celebration of one hundred years of American independence

82 83 had been mooted at various times by a number of distinguished personages. The Report to Congress by the

United States Centennial Commission in February 1873 briefly traces the background surrounding the proposals advocated by these individuals. The report indicates that a Mr. John

Bigelow, of New York, who was a former minister of the

United States to France was reported to have "excited much approval of the idea of a national celebration, in its magnitude and grandeur far beyond anything of the kind which had been witnessed in this country."(2) Cognizant perhaps of the political and economic benefits that could be accrued from staging such an event, General Charles B. Norton, who had served as a United States Commissioner to the Paris

Universal Exposition, had early in 1866 similarly suggested an international exhibition as a most appropriate way to mark this momentous anniversary in the nation's history.(3)

Proposals such as Norton's may well have been made to in some way to redress some of the deficiencies displayed in the United States's sections of previous international exhibitions. For while it was universally accepted that

American manufacturers could be commended for their originality and inventiveness, their products generally were concerned more with function than with form, and as a result, according to critics, had lacked the aesthetic qualities that were evident in much European merchandise.

The United States Commissi oners at the 1851 London 84 exhibition had indeed been so startled by the pre-eminence of European application of the fine arts to industry, that a major purpose in the staging of the New York World Fair in

1853 was "an expression of a desire to make a more just and equally-sustained exposition of our resources, industry and arts. "(4) British commissioners at the New York exhibition, while acknowledging the undoubted skill of the American mechanic, were critical of the eclectic nature of American design, considering it to be devoid of a national style and owing much to European parentage. Such criticism appears somewhat ironic, coming as it did from a nation who itself only some seventeen years earlier, was expressing considerable dismay at the influence of continental designers on its products.

The British commissioners castigated American manufacturers for adopting "European designs for totally different purposes to those which they were originally intended"(5), this approach having in their opinion been taken merely for "the vague seeking after novelty."(6) The

U.S. Commissioners in their "Report upon the Character and

Condition of the United States Section" of the 1867 Paris universal exposition congratulated the American manufacturers on achieving the second highest percentage

(52.79) of awards to exhibitors, with France in first place

(55.57), and Great Britain and her colonies trailing

(26.10). American success was, though, attributed by the 85

U.S. commissioners to the combination of fitness for purpose and ingenuity which had become the hallmarks of American manufacture. U.S. Commissioner-General Beckwith at the

Paris exhibition (1867) admitted that:

The high position conceded by the verdict of the juries to American industrial products is not due in general to graceful design, fertile combinations of pleasing colors, elegant forms, elaborate finish, or any of the artistic qualities which cultivate the taste and refine the feelings by awakening in the mind a higher sense of beauty, but it is owing to their skillful, direct, and admirable adaptation to the great wants they are intended to supply, and to the originality and fertility of invention which converts the elements and natural forces to the commonest uses, multiplying results and diminishing toil.(7)

Beckwith, though obviously delighted with the American

manufacturers' performance, hoped that "our products will in

time acquire those tasteful and pleasing qualities which command more admiration and find a quicker and better market

than the barely useful."(8)

The 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition

By 1873 International expositions had become well established among the major trading nations of the world, and as such a most appropriate means to celebrate the centennial of American Independence. The Centennial

Commission report mentions the efforts of Professor John L.

Campbell of Indiana, and Colonel M. Richards of Philadelphia

in canvassing support for a centennial celebration.(9) The

1876 Exhibition was, however, to spring not from the actions

of these proponents but from a proposal received by the city 86 of Philadelphia’s municipal authorities submitted by the

Franklin Institute of Philadelphia in which it was suggested that Fairmount Park be used as the site for the celebration of the anniversary of American independence. The proposal was submitted to the select council of the city, who having given it their approval, created a committee to steer the project to fruition. This committee's first action was to seek congressional support, and they drafted a resolution which resolved that:

The Congress of the United States is hearby most respectfully requested and solicited to take such appropriate action as will carry into effect the celebration of the centennial anniversary of American Independence at the City of Philadelphia, in a great and truly International character, by an international exhibition of arts, manufactures, and products of soil and mine, as will fully demonstrate the rapid march of improvement.(10)

A United States Centennial Commission was established by reason of an act of Congress approved on March 31st,

1871, and which at the same time provided for the holding of an international exhibition to mark the centennial of

American Independence. The preamble to the act gives justification to the congressional action; it states:

Whereas the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America was prepared, signed, and promulgated in the year of seventeen hundred and seventy-six, in the city of Philadelphia; and whereas it behooves the people of the United States to celebrate, by appropriate ceremonies, the centennial anniversary of this memorable and decisive event, which constituted the fourth day of July, anno Domini seventeen hundred and seventy-six, the birthday of the nation; and whereas it is deemed fitting that the completion of the first century of our national existence shall be 87

commemorated by an exhibition of the natural resources of our country and their development, and of its progress in those arts which benefit mankind, in comparison with those of older nations; and whereas no place is so appropriate for such an exhibition as the city in which occurred the event it is designed to commemorate; and whereas, as the exhibition should be a national celebration, in which the people of the whole country should participate it should have the sanction of the Congress of the United States.(11)

Joseph R. Hawley, the President of the Centennial

Commission, made it very clear in the Commissioner's report

to Congress in February 1873 that considerable national

pride was riding on the success of this undertaking. He

stated that "the commission is convinced that the proposed

exhibition is, with but rare exceptions, heartily approved

by the people, and that a failure of the project would

excite feelings of profound regret, and be regarded as a

national humi1iation."(12) The Centennial's commissioners

were all too aware that the exhibition would give other

nations ample opportunity to compare each other's products, and that the manufactures of United States would undergo considerable scrutiny. It was distressing to some of the

U.S. commissioners that American critics had often looked with more favor on the wonders of European applied arts,

failing to recognize the inherent beauty of the American manufacture, particularly agricultural machinery and machine-tools. Orestes Cleveland, commissioner for New

Jersey, in a presentation to fellow commissioners, on March

11th, 1872, stressed the importance of using this exhibition 88

as an opportunity to celebrate products which incorporated a

uniquely American aesthetic. He suggested that:

Instead of tearing open the bosom of mother earth with the root of a tree, that we may feed on the bounties of nature, as the ancients did, the green covering rolls away with the perfection and grace of art itself from the polished molding-board of a Pittsburgh steel-plough. Machinery casts abroad the seed, and McCormick's reaper gathers the harvest. Whitney's cotton-gin prepares the fiber, Lyall's positive-motion loom takes the place of the old wheel, and Howe's sewing machine fits the fabric for the use of man. What had the ancients, I demand to know, that could compensate them for the want of these American inventions? ... The magi of the East never dreamed, in the wildest frenzy of their fruitful imaginations, of the wonders of these.(13)

There were many who argued that "in works of utility,

in endless contrivances and machines for the saving of labor and economical production, our countrymen will see [in the

Centennial Exhibition] what they expected that they are in general without rival."(14) But while such justifiable optimism abounded concerning the status of American machinery and agricultural products, there was no such degree of consensus when it came for the quality of American fine art. Indeed many Americans had been heard to declare

"that to obtain art from America was like planting pineapples in Skowhegan, and have loudly proclaimed their determination of never buying an American picture."(15)

While there were certainly those who contended that American painting could not compete with that from Europe some

Americans somewhat wistfully argued that the artists of this newest of nations inhaled that same "clear, pellucid air 89

which historians and philosophers have found the secret of

Greek superiority in classic art, and the lofty ambitions

which made them lay broad bases for eternity by immortal

works."(16) Such sustenance, it appeared was sufficient

creative nutrition to enable the American painters work to

hang on equal footing with any of the foreign works in the

Centennial Exhibition. American critics, while openly

admitting their "infinite astonishment that though we are

excelled by individuals in many countries," argued, that

they "excel[led] them all in one branch of art -

landscape."(17 ) European painting was according to some,

fast becoming an over-priced commodity, and while it was

argued that the serious American collector would continue to

purchase foreign works, it was noted with a certain degree

of self-satisfaction that "the market for furniture pictures

- for paintings of moderate prices to decorate walls - will not cease to exist here, for foreign artists - The charm thrown around pictures of Europe has received a death blow."(18)

The Centennial exhibition provided America with an opportunity for introspection, an occasion when

"civilization halts a moment, and "takes inventory" of her resources and measures her progress."(19) There were hopes expressed that this exhibition would be more than a mere forum for commercial interests. It was recognized that the

international exhibition had considerable potential for 90

altruism. William P. Blake, the alternate commissioner for

Connecticut alluded to this during an address to the

Centennial Commission. Though agreeing that they

[international exhibitions] ’’mark an era in industrial art,"

and speaking with particular reference to the New York World

Fair (1853) and the Paris Universal Exposition (1867), he

suggested that:

In their full scope and meaning they [international exhibitions] are by no means confined to the exhibition of natural and manufactured products, machines, and processes; but they include all that illustrates the relations of men to each other and the world in which we all live, all products of human thought and activity in all the arts and all the sciences.(20)

Blake was not alone in believing that the Centennial

exhibition was more than an occasion for nations to parade

examples of their natural resources, objects of manufacture,

and works of art before an international audience. Such

items were of course important in terms of any nation's

economic, technological, and cultural development, but they

could also be viewed as a means of being able to understand

the essential spirit of a nation. The exhibition,

therefore, had the potential of transforming itself from merely a commercial jamboree, into a celebration which

exalted not just the just product, but the fellowship of

man. Joseph Hawley, in a presidential address to the

centennial commission and municipal authorities from the

city of Philadelphia, spoke earnestly of the healing

potential of this forthcoming enterprise. 91

We are preparing to celebrate the centennial anniversary of the birth of the nation. It is significant and reassuring to observe that it has nowhere been proposed to use this occasion to display great armies and fleets, and parade the trophies of bloody conquest. But we invite all of the world to come here to see what God has wrought, and to assemble here all the wonderful things man has found in nature, either as he has found them or as he has magically transformed them.(21)

Though some of the Centennial's commissioners spoke

with near missionary zeal about the exhibition acting as a

force for international peace and cooperation there were

voices heard who argued with equal ardor for the exhibition

to be utilized to soothe, if not heal altogether, wounds which were closer to home. John S. Adams of Florida expressed such a hope and, not being afraid of confronting a

potentially sensitive issue, argued that "the men of the

South, while they do not wish to say, "We regret the past,"

"We are sorry for our sins," are eager for the opportunity which will enable them to meet the people of the North, and,

in a hearty reunion, to wipe out all the remembrance of what has occurred to separate them."(22) While commissioners were profuse with optimistic utterances, an entry in the New

York Times published on the exhibition's opening day, 10

May, 1876, warned of treating the occasion as if in some way it was the panacea for all national, and indeed international ailments. The paper's caution was not unreasonable considering the realities of the aftermath of the Great Exhibition. 92

The big show in Hyde Park was not as enthusiasts fondly dreamed, the portal through which mankind was to enter the long-deferred era of peace and brotherhood. Its doors were hardly shut before the second French Revolution went down before a charge of the cavalry in the streets of Paris, and its litter had hardly been swept away before the Turks and the Russians were opening on the banks of the Danube a series of the greatest wars which the worlds has seen. The twenty years of human strife and bloodshed which elapsed between the beginning of the Crimean war and the close of the struggle between France and Germany form an epoch of history whose characteristics were precisely the reverse of those dreamed of by the promoters of the Exhibition of 1851.(23)

Ever since the London exhibition of 1851, a certain degree of consternation had been expressed regarding the selection of juries and the awarding of prizes at international exhibitions . The Centennial commissioners were determined to avoid the kind of criticism which had been levelled in London, Paris, and Vienna. In Philadelphia the secrecy which had hitherto shrouded the judging process would be lifted. Such secrecy may well be appropriate in the legal arena, but was according to this commission "ill adapted to the subject of awards upon industrial products brought together voluntarily for open and fair comparison, and wholly alien to the frank and manly spirit which should characterize such competitions"(24) The method adopted dispensed with International juries, and the previously preferred graduated medal system. These would be replaced by juries of specialists, who would produce written reports attesting to a particular products merits. Such a system, the Director-General of the exhibition believed would inject Figure 6. The International Exhibition of 1876, Ground Plan 94

"individual responsibility, professional judgment, and personal character, and implies the emodiment and publication of a great amount of trustworthy information equally useful to producers and consumers."(25) The classification system adopted by the exhibition planners was also conceived very much with the general public in mind.

Seven major departments were established, and these were housed in the exhibition's five principal buildings (Figure

6) viz, Main Building,(Figures 7 & 8) Machinery Hall,(Figure

9) Art Gallery, Agricultural Hall, and Horticultural Hall.

The Main Building actually housed three departments viz,

Mining and Metallurgy, Manufacture, Education and Science.

Articles within a particular department were, in order to facilitate judging, classified by groups (1 - 26). An examination of the reports of judges, exhibition catalogs, and contemporaneous journals and newspapers, provides the inquirer with descriptions and judgments of a panoply of exhibits. Whether it be "plastic and graphic art,"

"machines and apparels used in sewing," or "furniture, upholstery and wooden ware," such documentation provides invaluable insights into the attitudes and values of those individuals most closely related to the assessment of

America's development in art and industry in comparison to the other nations of the world. The Centennial exhibition had numerous benefits, "not only in its influence upon special branches of industry represented, but also as an Figure 7. The International Exhibition of 1876, view of Main Building from the Jury Pavilion 96

■«ar^I

Figure 8. Main Building, Central Avenue looking west Figure 9. Machinery Hall from the Jury Pavilion 98

educator in decorative art. "(26) The exhibits represented

advances in technology certainly, but equally important,

they disclosed a growing concern that in order to be

successful, products required an aesthetic dimension.

Beauty was no longer seen to be the sole prerogative of fine

art.

Addison Boyden, a chairman of judges at the Centennial,

indicated that there was increasing evidence of the general

public's desire for something "beyond the demands of mere

necessity and use." This he argued "marks a new era in

popular taste, healthy in its tone and elevating in its character."(27) This may well have represented, as Boyden suggests, a "new era" in America, but ever since the French had stolen the show at the London exhibition of 1851,

Britain at least, was determined to pay greater attention to the design of her utilitarian products, least she lose her competitive edge, and that she be judged a nation without taste.

The Centennial exhibition provides a lens through which to view the burgeoning field of industrial design. Walter

Smith in Masterpieces of the Centennial Exhibition describes industrial art as that "middle ground between Fine Art and mere mechanical execution."(28) This definition as it stands could encompass the totality of human manufacture; but Smith delimits it, stating:

The application of art to industry, while affecting all 99

branches o£ manufacture , has found its chief expression in the direction of textile fabrics, whether by stamping a pattern on, or weaving it on to the material; in ornamental printing and bookbinding; in furniture, upholstery, paper hangings and papier mache; in the manufacture of iron, steel and copper, and especially in braziery; in working the precious metals and their limitations, as in jewelry, and in the production of glass and pottery.(29)

The judge’s report for Group 7 (furniture, upholstery, woodenware, and baskets) identifies, from within the furniture exhibits, characteristics which were peculiar to a particular exhibitor viz "the solidity of the English, the gracefulness of the French, the detail of the Austrians and

Germans, the elaborateness of the Chinese and Japanese and the machine ware of the Americans"(30) Walter Smith concurs with the noteworthy quality of the household furniture; and declares that in the English exhibits " the influence of the

South Kensington Museum and of the Schools of Industrial Art which derive their stimulus from that Museum is nowhere so apparent."(31) Though recognizing the impact of Design

Schools on British manufacture, Smith suggested that

"pending the establishment of similar institutions in this country, we have some good work to show"(32) He singles out a bedstead manufactured by the New York company of Herts, as an example of furniture where the "richness and character of the ornamentation are exceedingly striking"(33) If the judges of the 1851 Great Exhibition could be called to task for failing to recognize the significance of bentwood furniture, no such censure could be attached to Walter Smith 100

and the Centennial judges. Smith includes an illustration

of a group of Austrian furniture from the Austrian

court,(Figure 10) and unlike the editors of The Art-Journal

Catalog (1851), who seemingly were unaware of the

implications for future design for the very reason that the

legs of a table that they did include were f,bent from a

solid piece"(34) Smith describes the method of

construction in some detail:

We illustrate a group of BENT-WOOD FURNITURE, from VIENNA, which attracted universal attention by its novelty and the excellence of its construction. The name by which this style of furniture is known suggests the method of its manufacture. A tough-fibred wood like our hickory, is thoroughly seasoned and then bent into the required shape. Considerable ingenuity and construction skill is shown in making the several articles which, as seen ... are exceedingly light and graceful appearing. Moreover the several pieces are astonishingly strong, and the very elasticity of the parts enables them to bear an amount of rough usage that would break really stronger furniture all to pieces.(35)

The furniture illustrated is not identified by manufacturer; it could be Thonet, as it is strikingly

similar to that shown in their 1904 price-list.(36) It

could also well be the work of Jacob and Joseph Kohn, rivals

of Thonet, who received recognition from Centennial judges

who commended Kohn's furniture "for its utility, strength,

beauty,and comfort. Its style is varied, finish excellent,

and expense reasonable."(37) Walter Smith's inclusion of

Austrian bentwood is somewhat intriguing, as few items in

his catalog of "masterpieces" are as blatantly utilitarian Figure 10. The International Exhibition of 1876, Bent-Wood furniture from: Austrian Court 101 102 and devoid of the surfeit of decoration which shrouds the vast majority of Centennial objects selected for

illustration. The only other chairs included are done so in order to showcase the art of tapestry and needlework. An

English embroidered chair is chosen to illustrate the adroitness of the Royal School of Needlework. The upholstery of a chair by R. Mazaroz of Paris obviously delights Smith's eye, because it has more than a single function and is

"calculated to adorn and be as much an integral part of the furniture as the carving on the frame."(38)

But what of American furniture? While singularly absent from the pages of Smith's "masterpieces", American manufacturers are well represented in the Centennial judges' reports on awards. Shaker chairs by Robert M. Wagan of

Mount Lebanon, New York are commended "for good workmanship and quality of material; also for lightness, strength, and modest beauty."(39) Wagan's chairs, indeed, attracted praise not dissimilar to that received by the Austrian bentwood. Much of the American furniture received commendation however more for ingenuity of construction and practicality than for aesthetic considerations. The judges identified such exhibits as "specialties" and agreed that

"most belonged to the United States section, and, being almost entirely unknown abroad, their striking novelty and practical usefulness awakened a marked interest among foreign visitors."(40) Chairs designed to relieve lumbar 103 pressure, oscillating chairs, patented rocking chairs, adjustable chairs, folding chairs, and sofas which, as if by magic, transformed into beds, were examples of the American penchant for things mechanical.(41) Even Walter Smith was not adverse to the seductive appeal of American ingenuity and skill. The swinging pitcher he concluded was "a capital and novel idea. In this country where the use of ice is almost universal, and where it is consumed in quantities that astonish foreigners."(42) (Figure 11) It is hard to believe that this highly ornate object which Smith agreed would grace any sideboard on which it was placed is the progenitor of the ubiquitous ice bucket which has become so much part of contemporary American domestic life.

The British pottery Doulton received universal acclaim for their exhibits. The Art Journal in the first in a three part series featuring the Centennial Exhibition, delights in

Doulton's potter's ability to "show what perfection the Art of modelling in ordinary potter's clay has been brought in

England. These objects are the common stoneware of commerce, but are made to assume importance and interest owing to their artistic treatment."(43) Doulton's success was attributed by American critics to the closeness of the relationship in Britain between manufacturers and art schools. The Art Journal noting that many of Doulton's workers had indeed received their training at the Lambeth

School of Art.(44) Walter Smith's admiration for Doulton is figure 11. Water-Pltcher: Reed . Barton Taunton 105

apparent by the numerous illustrations of their products

which appear in Masterpieces of the Centennial Exhibition.

He suggested indeed that ’’the supply of fresh objects for

their famous ware is practically inexhaustible"(45) The

catalog for the British section provides evidence of the

diversity of this manufacturer's product line. Terra cotta,

salt glazed stoneware, and earthenware span the conceivable

range of purposes to which this ceramic ware could be put

to. And all of which display, whether it be the common

drain pipe, or the most majestic of architectural

sculptures, more than a trace of artistic activity.

While Doulton was being accorded considerable praise

for its productions, praise for American ceramic ware was

much less forthcoming. Charles Wyllys Elliott writing in

the Atlantic Monthly of November 1876, acknowledges the work

of several Trenton potteries.(46) Galloway & Graff & Gossin are commended for having exhibited an excellent collection

of terra-cotta intended for outdoor use; and the Laughlin

Brothers of Ohio are praised for their decorative dinner ware. Elliott is, however, still extremely tentative in his

praise for the American ceramic manufacturer stating that

"it is not in one who is not a potter to say they are not better than the old English house of Doulton."(47) Elliott hoped though that American ceramic products would eventually

"find their reward in the pecuniary praise of their own people, which we well know it is hard to get. "(48) It is 106 quite apparent that Elliott believed that occidental ceramics were touchstones through which man was able to communicate with earlier civilizations. And ultimately what was so tantalizing about the craft was, he argued, that "it has from the commonest material - the dust under our feet - made some of the most delicate and beautiful things we know."(49) He was saddened though that a medium that had the capacity to be so impregnated with the maker's

"perception of the useful and beautiful more than any other material man can use,"(50) was so little understood by the

Amer ican.

That we in this country are so little able to comprehend all this is partly owing to that necessity which has compelled us to pass our lives in hewing down trees, damming rivers, killing bears, cheating Indians; and partly to the fact that we have had no examples of pottery or porcelain in the country.(51)

Not all Americans were so engaged in survival activities as to be blind to the pressing need for America to learn from the lessons of others. The Art Journal of

1875 reported Baltimore City College committee's resolution to provide "for the introduction of architectural, mechanical, and artistic drawing into the course of study, as an extension of the system adopted for primary and grammar schools."(52) Dr. Hancock, one of the committee members, argued that it was Britain's realization of the significance of drawing in general education, to manufacturing industry, that had been the single most 107 important factor in her being able to improve on the lowly position she found herself on the occasion of the Exhibition of 1851. Hugh Willoughby Sweny, Assistant Superintendent for the British Section of the Centennial, provides, in the

British Catalog, an outline of the origins of international exhibitions. He traces the world-wide proliferation of museums of art and industry directly to "South Kensington

[who] is the parent acorn of all these oaks"(53) and further argues that:

As for the benefits that the art-industry of every country has derived from these several museums they are patent, and manufacturers everywhere agree that for the future in all marts of the world commerce must go hand in hand with taste.(54)

The doctrine of South Kensington was indeed to be made manifest in America. The establishment of the Massachusetts

Museum of Fine Arts, and the introduction in that state of drawing into the school curriculum was testament to the impact of the British Design Schools. Massachusetts was not alone in adopting British methods. The Art Journal describes the financial support for the establishment of a

University of Arts and Trades in Toledo, Ohio. This report included an extract from the Toledo Blade which is almost word for word an echo of the concerns expressed by witnesses in Britain who appeared before the 1835 Select Committee on

Arts and Manufactures.

A school of this sort is greatly needed at the West. Until recently, nothing has been done in this country to instruct the masses of mechanics in this, the very 108

alphabet of success in their calling. The originals of all our designs for nice work have come from abroad. The silverware and jewelry exposed for sale along our streets, the carpets, tapestry, and furniture, if manufactured in America, were designed by men who cannot speak our language.(55)

The Philadelphia Centennial marked, alongside the

introduction of drawing into the school's curriculum, the establishment of art schools which actively sought closer

cooperation with manufacturing industry, and finally the

founding of museums of art & industry; yet a further example

of America's commitment to meet the challenge of foreign

industrial competition. As Britain had discovered before her, art education could be a powerful tool in reversing the tide of foreign imports, and in the establishment of a national identity in the field of industrial design. Walter

Smith in Masterpieces of the Centennial argued that "among all the educational movements which have arisen in this decade, none has seemed so completely in harmony with the spirit of the times as education in the elements of industrial arts."(56) He speculated on why, even with the severest of trade tariffs in operation, the American home was still to be found decorated with foreign manufactures.

America, he agreed, was fortunate to possess abundant natural resources, but what was required was a major investment in the development of educational programs which would improve both the quality of her design and production skills. This was, according to Smith, "a matter of the 109

highest importance, and its general development and

application the surest material foundation for a nation's

prosper ity."(57)

The Centennial and Art Education

The recognition of education's essential role in

advancing Timerica's stature as a manufacturing nation would,

one would have imagined, have led to particularly careful

consideration of her educational exhibits (Group 28). But

according to John W. Hoyt, acting chairman for this group

this, sadly, was not the case. Hoyt's report reverberates

with stringent criticism of American representation.(58)

While acknowledging her impressive contribution in the

industrial groups, he was caustic about the levels of national, city, and local representation. He surmised that the situation was born out of "a tardy Congress and an over-confident procrastinating people, less appreciative of education, notwithstanding their claims on this score, than proud of their material progress and power."(59) Hoyt's dismay with the government echoes throughout his

introduction to the judge's reports for Group 28

(Education). His account of America's educational policy describes a range of contradictory behaviors. The government established Bureau of Education, whose widely respected

Reports on Education had provided "indispensable"

information, in a country without a national education 110

system, to local communities. Twenty nine such reports were

produced between 1870 and 1875, and they included in 1874

the report Drawing in the Public Schools; the Present

Relation of Art to Education in the United States. But in

spite of the quality of the Bureau of Education's work Hoyt

found it "surprising it [the Bureau of Education] should be constantly hampered and embarrassed for want of adequate appropriatlons."(60) The criticism levelled at national government in Hoyt's introduction is, however, eclipsed to a great degree by positive reports on individual state's progress in education. A thread which is woven throughout these reports is evidence of encouragement given to the study of art and its application to Industry.

Massachusetts' impressive display was the magnet to which nationals and foreigners alike were immediately attracted.

The pioneering work of this state evidently amazed all who saw it. The question on the lips of visitors, was according to Hoyt: Could this really be the work of American children?

Was it imported work from the famous art-schools of Europe, - the Ecole des Beaux Arts, the great school of Kensington, or the noted schools of Germany and Italy? Or was it possibly done by American artists, trained in those great nurseries of Art? It certainly was not the work of Yankee school-boys and girls, with only such training as it is said they are getting in these latter days in the common schools!(61)

The Massachusetts exhibit was, indeed, the work of

"Yankee School-boys and girls" who were participants in a program legislated by that State in 1870. Hoyt records that Ill

the Massachusetts experiment so ably directed by Walter

Smith, himself a product of the South Kensington School,

came under scrutiny by many other States. He suggested that

"its benign influence is seen in nearly all the states, and

will soon manifest itself in the laws, institutions, and

results."(62) Walter Smith's name recurs throughout the

Report on Education. An extract from the Report to the

British Commission entitled "Common Schools in the United

States" authored by Sir Charles Reed (63) attests to Smith's

and South Kensington's influence. In spite of recognizing

America's progress Reed contended with some assurance that

"on the whole, England has nothing to fear in fair

competition with America."(64) Reed's satisfaction with

England's stature may well have been a reflection of

national contentment which resulted in English

representation in the educational exhibit totalling only

nine exhibits. This compared to the Commonwealth of

Massachusetts which, alone, occupied eight rooms in the

Exhibition's Main Building. Undoubtedly the most notable aspect of the Education exhibit was the evidence of how drawing in schools had caught international attention. J. M.

Gregory identifies drawing, and the methods of its

instruction, as being the most significant revolution in public education. He indeed declares that "drawing has come out of the catalog of merely ornamental studies or arts, and 112 has taken its place almost at the head of the practical and necessary branches of education."(65)

The Centennial Exhibition was a celebration of

industrial art the like of which Walter Smith argued had not been surpassed by previous exhibitions, with the exception of the London Exhibition of 1851. It was also a celebration of national identity, a fact which was generally lost on other participating nations, who perceived the event primarily from a commercial viewpoint. England and America, however, shared another agenda and he believed that there was "something like poetry in this fact that, one hundred years after 1776, the descendants of the men who lost and the men who won an empire should join together in true brotherly regard in celebrating the event."(66) The

Exhibition provided an arena in which industrial art, the theories of design which governed it, and the educational systems adopted to promulgate it, were available for scrutiny. It was a time when no single philosophy regarding the relationship between industrial and fine art reigned supreme. Industrial art was in its infancy and criterion for judgment was in the process of establishment.

Centennial Exhibits and the Smithsonian

Smith believed that the objects illustrated discussed in the catalog would provide a "permanent echo of the Centennial

Exhibition"(67) This would provide the living with a 113 permanent reminder of Philadelphia, and in the conclusion of

Masterpieces of the Centennial Smith looking to the future determined that:

Men who are yet unborn will recognize this permanent record of national triumph the evidence that, though one hundred years had somewhat changed the character of their ancestors, time had in no wise eliminated from the national heart a thoughtful care for posterity.(68)

The Philadelphia Centennial was widely recognized as having been a resounding success. Even in the planning stages consideration had been paid to what would be satisfactory outcomes. In December 1872, William P. Blake the Centennial's executive commissioner, reported that "a most valuable result which may be made to grow out of the exhibition of 1876 would be the establishment of a permanent museum of decorative art, similar to the very useful and attractive museum at South Kensington, in England.(69)

Blake was of the opinion that exemplar objects available from international exhibitions had great educational value, such objects he proposed:

beget a desire to have them kept constantly in view for the benefit of all classes, and particularly for those whose circumstances in life do not permit of them acquiring expensive luxuries, and to serve as models for the instruction of the artisans of the country.(70)

President Grant, impressed by many other nation's willingness at the closing of the Centennial to contribute exhibits to the United States, suggested that Congress adopt a resolution to establish such a museum. In A. T. Goshorn's 114

final report as Director-General of the Exhibition he

indicates that thirty four nations contributed their governmental exhibits and in addition many exhibitors

American and foreign alike had presented sufficient material

"to prove the foundation of an instructive and valuable museum".(71) The Smithsonian, the most likely institution to house such a collection, had insufficient space and as a result a proposal was presented to establish a new museum in

Washington DC. The Smithsonian's assistant secretary,

Spencer Baird had (much to the dismay of his superior Joseph

Henry, and according to Lynne Vincent Chaney) committed the

Institution to housing the donated Centennial exhibits.(72)

According to Chaney, Henry was much more interested in developing the institution's research activities and opposed the idea. Acting independently Baird undertook to accept on behalf of the Smithsonian responsibility for the artifacts and it was, Chaney suggests, that it was ultimately "perhaps the lineup of boxcars packed with Centennial items [which] convinced Congress of the necessity for a new Smithsonian

Building".(73) Congress enacted a bill in 1879, and in 1881 the Smithsonian's Arts & Industries Building was opened.

The Centennial Closes; Outcomes

The Centennial created in the community at large, a new and rapidly growing demand for objects of taste and beauty. The question now pressing for solution is will the American people train up their sons and daughters to produce these articles, or will they 115

condemn them to the thankless life of unskilled laborers.(74) Isaac Edwards Clarke, 1885.

The doors of the Philadelphia Centennial were brought to a close without the fanfares of state which had accompanied its inauguration. It would be erroneous, though, to infer from the absence of surrounding ceremonial that the

Exhibition's importance had diminished in the eyes of organizers, participants, visitors, or indeed the reporting press. Its final days had been eclipsed by suspicions of electoral wrong doing in Presidential elections; and the New

York Times of November 11th, 1876 reported that "... in the midst of a prolonged political excitement ... we cannot speed the parting guest with the same cheerfulness which met him when he first came."(75) The guest may well have taken his leave but not without first bequeathing to a nation celebrating its independence, an abounding sense of optimism. The Centennial had given occasion for this fledgling country to measure her accomplishments in the arts and industry against global competition; and the consensus was that in this task, she had acquitted herself admirably a fact that was, according to the New York Times, "creditable to us, but is surprising to many of the more intelligent of our foreign visitors."(76) The Exhibition had showcased new technologies, manufactures, and inventions, and America was influenced by the object lesson, just as England had been in her response to the Great Exhibition of 1851. The 116

Centennial to a great extent acted also as cultural barometer; it measured not only taste as it related to fine arts, but according to Joseph Hawley the President of the

Centennial Commission "textile fabrics, household furniture, and even in the making of useful implements and machinery."(77)

Among those who had been most intimately involved with staging the Exhibition the opinion prevailed that, while

America had revealed her deficiencies, she had benefited enormously from the exposure to the diversity of

international manufactures. But would the Centennial ultimately be no more than an elaborate birthday celebration, or had it sufficient potential to produce outcomes which would have long lasting effects in a nation's development? The Centennial Commission President's belief that an event like this, "breaks down prejudice, strengthens good will, [and] gives war an additional shade of horror,"(78) appears, with the benefit of hindsight, to have been a wildly idealistic claim for all but that brief sojourn in Philadelphia. There were, however, very tangible outcomes of which the Exhibition had been the catalyst. As

England had turned to France in 1851, so in 1876 America had perused the world's arts and artifacts, and as a consequence each nation had sought ways to improve the taste of its respective people, and the aesthetic qualities of its manufactures. Progress had been made Joseph Hawley in the 117

final Report of the United States Centennial Commission,

argued that:

The improvement in taste during the two years since it [the Centennial] closed has been clear and considerable. I have made known in all directions that I have indicated. There is a strong demand for more skill and elegance in the forms of decoration of pottery and porcelains and furniture, a better judgment in the fine arts and in architecture. This is recognized by the manufacturers, and the supply is answering the demand. The study of the arts of design has received a great impetus.(79)

The Centennial undoubtedly did much to advance the

study of art in relation to manufacture in America. But any

explanation of a significant expansion of demand for the arts of design, and any perceived improvement in taste in

those early post-Centennial years, ought not be ascribed to

the Impact of the Philadelphia Exhibition alone. For the progress discerned by Hawley can be traced to America's participation in the London Exhibition of 1851. Then the country was embarking on a voyage which would result in a shift from the agricultural focus upon which her economy was substantially based. Commissioners at the Great Exhibition were very conscious of such developments; using them as justification for America's poor showing, particularly with regard to the application of fine art to utilitarian objects, they noted that America had:

until within a short time, virtually disregarded, if not explicitly disowned, every other pursuit, and have left mining, trades, and manufactures, together with the resources and means for their prosecution, without encouragement either by state legislation or by 118

application of capital and labour to their development.(80)

America could, though, not afford to turn her back on

the tidal wave which was the Industrial Revolution. And her

participation in International Exhibitions provides a record

of a nation's struggle to compete in this new industrial age. United States Commissioners to the Paris Universal

Exposition of 1867, referring to the Reports of the English

Commissioners to the New York Exhibition of 1853, noted the criticism that "American manufactures have reached the point at which it has become desirable that originality of thought should be infused into them by means of the instructed designer81) The American commissioners responding to that criticism were cautious when describing the progress they felt had been made in the intervening years:

Although these observations were written 15 years ago and although American taste has in the interval vastly improved, yet the criticisms they contain still remain substantially true, and the United States still sustains a colonial, not to say provincial relationship to Europe in the matter of grace and ornamentation in articles and constructions of common use.(82)

International Exhibitions subsequent to the Great

Exhibition of 1851 had provided America with the means by which to gauge the effectiveness of her response to

improving the aesthetic quality of her manufactures. It was recognized that such occasions provided the country with

invaluable opportunities to learn all she could from observation and analysis of the merchandise of her trading 119

competitors. But the Atlantic Monthly in January 1877,

cautioned against indiscriminate eclecticism, wisely

proposing that it was "not by copying or imitating the

special styles of other countries and civilizations that we

shall reach a higher point of fuller development in our own

process of expansion."(83) America had been looking to

others in search of assistance in the development of her own

national style at least since Horace Mann's adoption of

Prussian drawing systems for Massachusetts schools in the

1840s. (84) America's quest would also result in the

importation of the methods so successfully pioneered by the

English Design Schools, together with Walter Smith, a

product of the South Kensington system, who was headhunted

to direct the Industrial drawing programs for Massachusetts

schools. But what, if any, evidence was there that such

commercial and educational developments had impacted upon

the nation's aesthetic training? And was there any evidence

of positive effects of such training on the design and

production of American products? Stephen Dobbs in an AERA

paper, Ihe__P_aradQX of Art .Education In the Public Schools: A

Brief History, indicates that such strategies were anticipated to provide "factories with a steady stream of

trained (at public expense) draftsmen and designers, who would glorify with their skill and taste products

Made-In-America."(85) But was this the case? 120

Isaac Edwards Clarke: A Report to Congress

A senate resolution submitted by Senator Justin Morrill sought some clarification to such questions.(86) The

Congressional Record for February 2nd 1880 indicates:

Mr. MORRILL submitted the following resolution; which was considered by unanimous consent and agreed to: Resolved, that the Secretary of the Interior be, and he is hearby directed to furnish the Senate with a statement containing all the information in his possession relative to the development of instruction in drawing as applied to the industrial or fine arts in the colleges of agriculture and the mechanic arts, and in the public schools and other institutions of the country, with special reference to the utility of such instruction in promoting the arts and industries of the people.(87)

The Bureau of Education which operated within the

Department of Interior had the responsibility to produce the

Report for the Senate. John Eaton, the then Commissioner for Education, directed Isaac Edwards Clarke to compile the document. Eaton's department had, however, already in 1874, published information regarding the state of art education in the United States. Circular No. 2, "Drawing in the Public

Schools; Art Education in the United States,"(88) proved to be a popular publication, and demand for it soon outstripped supply. The purpose of the "Circular" was, according to

Clarke, threefold: (1). to provide a history of art education in the United States, (2). to trace the development of art education in Great Britain and in continental Europe, (3). to provide a demographic account of 121

institutions of art education and public and private

collections of art within the United States. (89)

The "Circular" was initiated because it was generally

believed that there was a paucity of recorded information in

the areas detailed previously. Clarke was anxious to

disseminate material regarding developments in art

education, and in particular Massachusetts' adoption of

drawing as required study for elementary schools. The

information on British and continental European methods was

included to provide educational administrators and other

interested parties with a rationale for the implementation

of similar developments in the United States. Though the demand for "Circular No.2" was apparently considerable, the publication itself was not a completely comprehensive account of the development of art education in the United

States. Clarke noted that the educational statistics were

"meager and incomplete"(90) when compared with those which appeared in the Commissioner of Education's annual report.

The Bureau of Education considered publishing a revised edition of it in which material relating to industrial art education, higher education art training institutions, and details of public art collections, would be included. This idea was set aside in favor of the production of a more substantial work which would become the Bureau's Centennial contribution. Other priorities took precedence, resulting in the delay of the art education report and the publishing 122

of a report on libraries and the Commissioner's annual

report.

The Centennial having finished, it was once again decided to resurrect the idea of publishing a definitive account of art education in the United States, much in the manner in which the Libraries Report had been produced.

Clarke noted that "this implied, in effect a recounting of the history of art development of the country from the colonial period; in itself no small undertaking."(91) If, to add to what was already an ambitious undertaking, the

Centennial Exhibition's impact on attitudes, and art education in particular, had resulted in much increased amounts of data, Clarke argued that this additional information would inevitably add "not a little to the labor of preparation."(92)

Clarke's introduction to the Report proper describes the development of programs within elementary education which were intended to establish bridges between school, workplace, and higher education. Propagandists of such a philosophy were applying what Arthur Efland, in his paper

Art Education in the Twentieth Centurv: A History of Ideas, designates as a "scientific rationalism" toward teaching.(93) In such situations the elementary schools, in effect, became the nursery for a breed of more technically proficient students. With such training it was anticipated that a cadre of labor would be created, who could make a 123 significant contribution to the commercial and economic well being of the nation. The example of Boston's experiment with industrial drawing was highlighted to indicate the potential of such curriculum innovation. And as if to counter any arguments that manual training of this nature would physically overtax students of tender years, Clarke interjected that:

weak indeed must be the hand that cannot lift a pencil, weaker the mind that beginning at the beginning, cannot follow the graded and orderly steps, by which Walter Smith, basing his teaching on everlasting truths of geometry, has arranged his progressive studies.(94)

It is important to appreciate that drawing had existed in American schools before the arrival of Walter Smith from

England. George Nicols in his book Art Education Applied to

Industry, notes, however, that while drawing was a normal part of the curriculum instruction in most private schools for students of both sexes, it was included in relatively few public schools. And when drawing was taught, the experience was, according to Nicols, a virtually meaningless educational experience. He noted that essentially students were engaged in "making bad copies from shockingly drawn prints of Alpine views, portraits of Turks, sultanas, saints, and madonnas, poodle-dogs, cats, lions, tigers, and other tame and wild animals."(95) Nicols' condemnation of what he considered to be trivial activities was shared by

Walter Smith, who in 1872, was similarly unequivocal in his dismissal of such self indulgences, arguing that "perhaps 124 the most practically important view of the subject of art education is its value commercially. In an essentially utilitarian age, things are judged by the standard of usefulness, rather than sentiment."(96) Smith's belief in art education's power to increase the pecuniary value of manufactured goods must have appeared as manna indeed to a country anxiously seeking to improve their market economy.

Drawing in Public Schools; Industry's Handservant?

In "Circular No.2, 1874" (which appears in the appendices to Art and Industry). Isaac Edwards Clarke draws extensively upon Smith's book Art Education; Scholastic and

Industrial. to support the correlation between the

Introduction of Industrial drawing into general education and an improved commercial climate. Clarke, though, saw that the benefits of drawing were not limited to its impact on manufactures alone. Drawing, he argued, had the potential to create a more skilled workforce, and a more visually articulate citizenry. And he speculated:

To those whom art means higher things, as they suppose, than its application to every-day utensils and mere manufactures, who look for grand galleries of pictures and statues and to all the refinements of cultured art, it may be a suggestive reflection that, among a people ignorant of drawing and whose daily surroundings - as is true of most of the American people - afford few suggestions of art in any of its forms, high art must ever remain an exotic and native artists be rarer than the fabled phoenix.(97)

Clarke's sentiments express a desire for an improvement in America's aesthetic sensibility; but the Report itself 125

focuses more extensively on the commercial rather than it

does on the purely aesthetic benefits to be derived from the

introduction of drawing into public schools. Senator Justin

Morrill's resolution sought a comprehensive account of the

state of drawing as it related to the arts and industry in

the United States. And specifically the resolution invited

the Department of the Interior to provide evidence of the

efficacy of such drawing instruction upon America's artistic

and industrial production. The scope of the Senate request

was indeed considerable, a fact which to a marked degree determined the eventual form of the Report, which Clarke

acknowledged "is therefore, of necessity, of a very

miscellaneous character."(98) But from amid the miscellany

of collected materials Clarke presents a fundamental

educational proposal, viz, that a systematic program of drawing was, he argued:

an essential part of any general system of the public education of the people; and is equally necessary, whether the after training of the child is to be that of an artisan, an artist, or citizen engaged in any productive pursuit, or whether the child is to be situated as to be removed from the ranks of producers to those of consumers.(99)

Clarke's proposal for drawing to be introduced into

public schools on a national scale was influenced greatly by

his admiration of the Boston experiment, the work of Walter

Smith, that city's Director of Drawing, and the successes

reaped by Britain as a result of their introduction of a

national art education program. His recommendations for the 126

United States were essentially a carbon copy of those

objectives which had, in Britain, been published as part of

Henry Cole’s first Report of the Department of Practical

Art. (100) The objectives outlined by Cole were intended to

improve the relationship between the country's elementary

and secondary schools and the Government Design Schools.

Clarke's exhortation of the significance of industrial

drawing in elementary education clearly was sparked by

British initiatives in elementary education.

The proposed objects of the Department [of Practical Art] were classed under the respective divisions; 1st. General Elementary Instruction in Art, as a branch of national education among all classes of the community, with a view of laying the foundation of correct judgment, both in the consumer and the producer of manufactures; 2nd. Advanced Instruction in Art, with a view to its special cultivation; and lastly, the Application of the Principles of Technical Art to the improvement of Manufactures, together with the establishment of Museums, by which all classes might be induced to investigate the common principles of taste, which may be traced in the works of excellence of all ages.(101)

The proposition that drawing should form an essential part of an American student's elementary education was a concept eagerly endorsed by Boston industrialists, concerned as they were for tariff disadvantages and the country's lack of industrial competitiveness. The implementation of such a policy would, it was anticipated, produce a more skilled workforce. But according to Freedman and Popkewitz, in their paper Art Education and Social Interests in the

Development of American Schooling: Ideological Origins of 127

Curriculum Theory.(102) this was only the more obvious desired outcome of a more complex agenda. The impact of

industrial drawing, they argue, must be considered in the context of the development of a curriculum theory for general education directed toward modes of social control.

Freedman and Popkewitz therefore view Walter Smith's drawing program as an illustration "not only of a shift in the function of schooling but also in discourse about its purposes goals and interests."(103 )

The introduction into the public schools of a program of study which was to have a direct relevance to a student's life beyond the walls of schoolhouse was a concept very much in alignment with shifts in the perception of the nature and role of public schooling. Clarke includes in the appendices of Art and Industry a letter he received in April 1871 from

Andrew White, the President of Cornell. White ardently argues that "the first purpose of our public schools is to prepare our future citizens for their political duties."(104) This goal was, he maintained, "absolutely essential to the continuance of a republican form of government in our country."(105) White was concerned that emphasis in education on the literary disconnected students from the needs of industry. Education, even at the elementary level, needed he believed, to acquire, at least a rudimentary flavor of vocational relevance. His letter reveals an obvious admiration for the lead that 128

Massachusetts had taken in developing such an educational

philosophy.

Some branches should be grafted on the present system that will give the pupils additional aptitude in various branches of productive industry. I know of no branch more universally effective for this purpose than industrial drawing properly taught.(106)

The late nineteenth century evidenced changing

attitudes as to the mission and the curriculum content of

the public schools. Art and Industry explores in some

considerable detail the debate as it related to the State

and city schools of Massachusetts; and in particular the

programs of Boston's schools. Extracts included by Isaac

Edwards Clarke of annual reports of the Board of Education

reveal a growing dissatisfaction with educational programs

which failed to provides students with the skills necessary

to enable them to make effective political and productive contributions to society. While the concern for curriculum relevance caused a reappraisal of educational practices, the papers indicate a reluctance to withdraw lock stock and barrel all subjects that might a first sight be considered to have little that connected them to a student's life needs. Dr. J.W. Dickinson in the Board of Education's forty-third annual report sought a holistic approach toward curriculum structure:

An intelligent comprehension of what constitutes a complete education will not exclude the classic languages from our secondary courses of instruction, simply because they are not to be used as a common medium of communication; nor drawing from any course, 129

because a few only of the children will ever become artists .. . These branches would be introduced into every complete course of studies by an intelligent supervision, because they are necessary occasions for that knowledge which every educated mind should possess, and for that training of the powers which every mind should experience.(107)

Education was, according to Dickinson, not merely a matter of the practical; it was also an agent of aesthetic and moral development. And drawing in his opinion was significant in its potential to address a multiplicity of aspects of these educational dimensions:

In the minds of educated men there is an increasing appreciation of the value of drawing in the public schools. It furnishes the best means of training the observing powers, and of the imagination, upon whose culture the activity of taste depends; it enables the people of a State to run the race of life with the advantages that intellectual skill can add to physical force; and it elevates the morals by calling the mind to an intelligent study of the beautiful. Artists and artisans must be trained, that they may produce works of art and artistic work; all others, that they may be able to appreciate art and make a demand for its products.(108)

This first volume of Clarke's report on art education as it related to industry is subtitled Drawing in Public

Schools. The intent of the design of this first of a collection of four volumes which constituted the complete report to Senate was planned to trace the history of drawing

instruction in American public schools. This historical review was to include detail of instructional methods which were in operation before Walter Smith's arrival in

Massachusetts in 1870. In order to provide a detailed account of the innovative programs in Massachusetts public 130

schools, Clarke utilized extracts from official State and

city reports. The appendices of the Report are indeed

extensive; containing as they do a variety of papers

concerning the origins, the purpose, and teaching methods of

industrial drawing in public education in the United States.

In addition to this material, Clarke garnered together

documentation which related to the development of art

education in continental Europe and in Britain. He

justified his the inclusion of descriptions of British art

education programs, arguing that "to no people, does the

example of England offer more valuable suggestions, than to

the citizens of the United States; of the same lineage and

possessing much in common, there is no reason why the

experiment should not here result as successfully."(109)

As one peruses the near four hundred pages of Clarke's history of Drawing in Public Schools it is hard not to become all too aware of an inherent bias toward the programs adopted in Massachusetts. Efland, and Soucy, in their analysis of Clarke's motives in presenting this history as he does, declare that "to Clarke, the history of his home state, was the history of the entire country."(110) In the prevailing circumstances of a Republican government, shifting attitudes as to what should be taught in public schools, and with the enactment of the 1862 Land Grant Act, which, while establishing colleges of science and agriculture encouraged the teaching of drawing in public 131

schools as preparation for college courses, the focus on

Massachusetts is not altogether surprising particularly as

the drawing programs adopted in that State were unabashedly

connected to utilitarian purposes. Clarke does not overlook

other developments in the teaching of drawing prior to

Walter Smith's arrival though these are overshadowed by the

recalling of the Massachusetts story. He does give credit

to importance of these earlier developments, admitting that

the Boston initiative was "but the final successful outcome

of a long series of similar sporadic attempts in various

communities in the United States."(Ill) Clarke's all too

brief account of these events is a tale of discouragement and missed opportunities. William Bentley Fowle in Boston,

Rembrandt Peale in Philadelphia, William Minife in

Baltimore, and Jehu Brainherd in Cleveland, Ohio, all pioneered drawing programs in public schools, but each was met by far from cooperative administrations.(112) Clarke declared that "such is the everlasting history of conflict with light."(113) These programs did not make the connection between drawing and industry; their concerns were more for hand-eye coordination, and as a support to concepts

in geometry. In such circumstances drawing was perceived as a mere accomplishment and, as such, an educational frill.

Clarke speculated that "could Mr Peale's idea have been realized in a great mechanical and manufacturing city like 132

Philadelphia. I have no doubt it would have added millions annually to the productiveness of its artisans."(114 )

Isaac Edwards Clarke and "Thg_D_emQcracy .o.f__Art"

Art and Industry is indeed a weighty tome; in addition to Drawing in Public Schools, a further four hundred pages of appendices are provided by Clarke to present the reader with "such material as shall best enable one investigating a given topic to come to an intelligent conclusion."(115)

Clarke prefaces the Report with fourteen of his own

"original” papers which are presented under the banner title

"The Democracy of Art." These papers, in contrast with much of the subsequent material, often appear to stray from neutral reportage, and seem at times to reflect the opinions of the man; not a disinterested compiler. In composing the papers Clarke draws upon data gleaned from Drawing in Public

Schools. and the appendices; but these ideas are inextricably interwoven with personal ideology. The papers are pure advocacy; a clarion call intended, to use Walter

Smith's words, to make "the eagle scream, or the lion roar, for it is the only verdict that can be given by honest and competent judges."(116)

Throughout Clarke's discourse, art education and specifically industrial drawing is viewed in terms of a re-evaluation of the purpose and content of general education. There is no support for art as a mere 133 accomplishment; justification for its existence is wedded to the social, economic, and political well-being of the nation. It is in industrial drawing's service to these arenas of society that an irrefutable argument could, according to Clarke, be developed. He argued that "the economic test is a just criterion. Whether training in industrial art will repay its cost to the community is a pertinent question; if it will not, then it ought be condemned .11 (117 ) Clarke defended his concentration on economic factors, albeit at the cost he agreed perhaps at the expense that "Art is the Goddess Great,"(118) because, he speculated, it was only on this ground that possible detractors would be able to understand the rationale.

If this study of industrial art is really what it is claimed to be, if it has a right to enter in the prescribed course of our public schools, it must be because it will repay to the community all its cost; because it will enable children to earn more money when they take their place in the ranks of the producers than they could without it. (119)

In spite of Clarke's arguments for the inclusion of industrial drawing in public schools being constructed to appeal to an audience motivated by the appeal of direct financial gain, he does explore, with some eloquence, art as a necessary aesthetic dimension of an American's life.

Thus, then, this study is the vestibule through which the aspirant may enter the grandest temples of knowledge. Opening both to a knowledge of the world of nature, and of works of man, is not its claim to be included in any scheme of education, however elementary or however advanced, fully established.(120) 134

Efland and Soucy, reflecting upon the possible inheritance of Art and Industry, suggest that "perhaps now, one hundred years later this influence has begun to wane."(121) But ironically while this document may indeed not speak to current practice in the United States, a "high tech umbrella"(122) has cast its shade over art education in

Great Britain, as that country establishes a national curriculum for its primary and secondary schools. In a climate which favors a utilitarian curriculum "education in design [art and design, business studies, craft design and technology, home economics, and information technology, will form possibly the largest subject area in each secondary school] can also be justified on the grounds that good design is crucial to the national curriculum."(123) It is a familiar tune to those who have read Clarke's Report. And as Britain reconnects schooling with the needs of commerce and industry, it is tantalizing to speculate on how long it will be before the winds of change are felt on these shores. 135

NOTES: CHAPTER II

(1)United States. Centennial Commission, 1873. The National Celebration of the Centennial Anniversary of the Independence of the United States by an International Exhibition to be Held in Philadelphia in the Year of 1876 (Washington: Government Printing Office), 56-57. Report compiled and arranged by H.D.J. Pratt

(2)Ibid.,8.

(3)Ibid•,9.

(4)Ibid.,40.

(5)United States. Reports of the United States Commissioners to the Paris Universal Exposition, 1868. (Washington: Government Printing Office),4. English commissioners to the New York exhibition of 1853 are quoted in the document's report "The Fine Arts Applied to the Useful Arts."

(6)Ibid.

(7)Ibid.,248. These remarks are quoted in the document's report: "The Character and Condition of the United States Section."

(8)Ibid.

(9)U.S. Centennial Commission, National Celebration,9.

(10)Ibid.

(11)Ibid.,10.

(12)Ibid.,8.

(13)Ibid.,60.

(14)"The Centennial as a Study," The New York Times, June 4. 1876.

(15)"The Art of America," The New York Times, 1876, June 9.

(16)Ibid. 136

(17)Ibid.

(18)Ibid.

(19)U.S. Centennial Commission, National Celebration,38 J.R. Hawley, President of the Centennial Commission, in an address to the Commission on 6 March 1872.

(20)Ibid.,39.

(21)Ibid.,25.

(22)Ibid.,61. John S. Adams resigned as commissioner for Florida in 1875 and was replaced by T.W. Osborne, New York.

(23)"The Centennial Exhibition,” The New York Times, 1876, May 10.

(24)United States Centennial Commission, 1880. International Exhibition 1876. vol 1. (Washington: Government Printing Office),10 . Quotation from the report of Alfred T. Goshorn (Ohio), Director-General of the exhibition.

(25)Ibid.,12-13.

(26)United States Centennial Commission, 1880. International Exhibition 1876. vol 4. (Washington: Government Printing Office),728. From the report: "Furniture, Upholstery, Wooden-ware, Baskets," by Addison Boyden, Chairman of Judges.

(27)Ibid.

(28)Walter Smith, 1877. The Masterpieces of the Centennial Exhibition, vol.2. (Philadelphia: Gebbie & Barrie),4.

(29)Ibid.

(30JU.S. Centennial Commission, International Exhibition, 728 .

(31)Smith, Masterpieces of the Centennial, 27.

(32)Ibid.

(33)Ibid. 137

(34)The Crystal Palace Exhibition Illustrated Catalogue. 1851. (London: George Virtue for the Art Journal), reprint ed. 1970. (New York: Dover Publications),296„

(35)Smith, Masterpieces of the Centennial,422.

(36)Thonet Bentwood & Other Furniture: The 1904 Illustrated Catalogue, reprint ed. 1980. (New York: Dover Publications), 1.

(37)U .S. Centennial Commission, International Exhibition, 748.

(38)Smith, Masterpieces of the Centennial,169-170.

(39)U.S. Centennial Commission, International Exhibition, 732.

(40)Ibid.,729.

(41)Ibid.,731-740. Numerous descriptions of American ingenuity in furniture design is to be found in the judge's reports on awards.

(42)Smlth, Masterpieces of the Centennial,171.

(43)The Art Journal. 1876. (New York: D. Appleton & Co). 167. The Journal's artists were given access to the items which illustrate the first article of this three part series prior to the exhibition's opening.

(44)Ibid.

(45)Smith, Masterpieces of the Centennial,320.

(46)Charles Wyllys Elliott, 1876. "Pottery at the Centennial." Atlantic Monthly, Nov.,568-578.

(47)Ibid., 570 .

(48)Ibid.

(49)Ibid.,571.

(50)Ibid.

(51)Ibid. 138

(52)The Art Journal,1875. "American-Art Notes." (New York: D. Appleton & Co.).93.

(53)Philadelphia International Exhibition.1876. Official Catalogue of the British Section. Part 1. (London: George E. Eyre & William Spottiswoode),53. Sweney was Assistant Superintendent in charge of Catalogue and Official Publications.

(54)Art Journal. American-Art.93.

(55)Ibid. Trustees received a total of about $150,000: Jessup W. Scott gave $75,000, William Raymond gave real estate valued at $15,000, Corporation gifts totalled $60,000.

(56)Smith, Masterpieces of the Centennial,497.

(57)Ibid.,500.

(58)United States Centennial Commission. 1880. International Exhibition 1876. vol 8. (Washington:Government Printing Office)

(59)Ibid.,3. Quotation taken from: Report on Educational Systems, Methods, and Libraries.

(60)Ibid.,9.

(61)Ibid.,39.

(62)Ibid.,42.

(63)Ibid.,205-225.

(64)Ibid.,225.

(65)Ibid.,270. Quotation taken from Gregory's paper: "Leading Features of the Educational Exhibit."

(66)Smith, Masterpieces of the Centennial,509.

(67)Ibid.,521.

(68)Ibid.

(69)U .S. Centennial Commission, National Celebration,147. 139

(70)Ibid.

(71)United States Centennial Commission. 1880. International Exhibition, 1876. vol.l. (Washington: Government Printing Office),8.

(72)Lynne Vincent Chaney, 1976. "1876: Its Artifacts and Attitudes, Returns to Life at Smithsonian." Smithsonian, May., 37-47.

(73)Ibid.,43.

(74)Isaac Edwards Clarke, 1885. Art and Industry: Education in the Industrial and Fine Arts in the United States, part 1. Drawing in Public Schools. (Washington: Government Printing Office), cxxx. Quotation taken from Clarke's Seventh Paper: "Education in Relation to Social and Economic Changes."

(75)"Exposition Closed," The New York Times, 1876, November 11.

( 76)Ibid.

(77)Unlted States Centennial Commission. 1880. International Exhibition 1876. vol 2. (Washington: Government Printing Office), 14. Reports of the President, Secretary, & Executive Committee.

(78)Ibid.

(79)Ibid.

(80)Official Catalogue of the Great Exhibition. 1851. vol 3. 1431.

(81)Reports of the United States Commissioners to the Paris Universal Exposition. 1868. (Washington: Government Printing Office), 3. Quotation taken from the report on: "Fine Arts Applied to the Useful Arts", committee members: Frank Leslie, S.F.B. Morse, & Thomas.W. Evans.

(82)Ibid.,4

(83)"Characteristics of the International Fair," Atlantic Monthly, 1877, January (Boston: H.O. Houghton & Co),99. 140

(84)Stephen Mark Dobbs, 1971. The Paradox of Art Education in the Public Schools: A Brief History of Influences, Paper presented at AERA annual meeting, New York, microf iche

(85)Ibid.,3.

(86)Arthur Efland and Donald Soucy, 1989. "Who The Hell Was Isaac Edwards Clarke, Why Did He Do What He Did, & Why Should Any Of Us Care?" Paper presented at The Second Penn State Conference on the History of Art Education 12-14 October 1989.

(87)Congressional Record: Senate. 1880. Containing the Proceedings and Debates of the Forty-Sixth Congress, Second Session, vol 10. (Washington: Government Printing Office), 647.

(88)Isaac Edwards Carke, 1874. Drawing in Public Schools; Art Education in the United States. Bureau of Education Circulars of Information, No.2. (Washington: Government Printing Office).

(89)Isaac Edwards Clarke, A.M. 1885. Art and Industry: Education in the Industrial and Fine Arts in the United States, part 1. Drawing in Public Schools. (Washington: Government Printing Office), 15.

(90)Ibid.,16. Clarke provides a detailed analysis of the origins and delays in the Report's publication.

(91)Ibid.

(92)Ibid.

(93)Arthur Efland, 1987. "Art Education in the Twentieth Century: A History of Ideas." The Ohio State University. Photocopy, 1. Efland discusses what he considers to be two major streams of influence on the teaching of all curriculum subjects. He defines these as: (1). scientific rationalism, (2). romanticism.

(94)George Ward Nicols, 1877. Art Education Applied to Industry. (New York: Harper and Brothers).

(9 5)Ibid.,134.

(96)Walter Smith, 1872. Art Education: Scholastic and Industrial. (Boston: James, R. Osgood & Co),14. 141

(97)Clarke, Art and Industry,493.

(98)Ibid.,xi i i.

(99)Ibid.

(100)United Kingdom. Sessional Papers. 1852-53. Department of Practical Art First Report., vol liv. (Illinois: Readex Micropirint)

(101)Ibid.,2.

(102)Kerry Freedman and Thomas S Popkewitz,1988. "Art Education and Social Interests in the Development of American Schooling: Ideological Origins of Curriculum Theory." Journal of Curriculum Studies 20 (5):387 — 405.

(103)Ibid.,393.

(104)Clarke, Art and Industry,508. Quotation taken from a letter sent from Andrew D. White, LL.D. on April 30, 1971 to I. Edwards Clarke, Esq., U.S. Bureau of Education, Washington, D.C.

(105)Ibid.

(106)Ibid.

(107)Ibid.,97. Quotation taken Dr. J. W. Dickinson's special report in the forty-third annual report, for 1879. Dickinson was secretary of the Board of Education, his report dealt with the "present condition of the schools".

(108)Ibid.

(109)Ibid.,711. Quotation taken from Clarke's introduction to Appendix F. "Governmental Aid to Education in the Industrial and Fine Arts, in Great Britain."

(110)Efland & Soucy, Who the hell was Isaac Edwards Clarke,22.

(111)Clarke, Art and industry,3.

(112)Ibid.,

(113)Ibid.,14.

(114)Ibid.,16. 142

(115)Ibid.,xxix.

(116)Ibid.,xcv. Clarke quotes Walter Smith in his Fourth Paper Technical Education of a People.

(117)Ibid.,cxxxvi i. Quotation taken from Clarke's Eighth Paper: "The Situation in Europe and in the United States."

(118)Ibid.

(119)Ibid.,cxxxvi1i.

(120)Ibid.,cxxxix.

(121)Efland & Soucy, Who the Hell Was Isaac Edwards Clarke,37.

(122)Ian Nash, 1989. "Design Team Unfurls a High Tech Umbrella." The Times Educational Supplement, 23 June, 4.

(123)The Design Council, 1980. "Design Education at Secondary Level." (London: The Design Council),2. CHAPTER III

"UNINTENTIONAL MODERN"

MACHINE ART AT THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

We have been brought to realize that we, like every other generation, must create our own art if we are to exist in surroundings of beauty. It has at last dawned on us that beauty represents a new goal for each succeeding age, and the beauty of the twentieth century will be in the form molded by the machine, and therefore unlike the ideal of any other age.(l)

Philip Youtz's article "Art and Industry" which appeared in the August 1934 edition of the American Magazine of Art describes a society on the brink of a radically new age.(2) This was, in his opinion, the epoch when the schism which had long existed between art and industry was finally nullified. Youtz argues that while the Industrial

Revolution brought with it the excitement of both new modes of manufacture and artifacts, its development had been thwarted by Victorian sensibilities unwilling to relinquish the aesthetic of the hand crafted article. William Morris and John Rusk in saw the machine as some ominous specter capable, in its relentless cycle of production, of subsuming the spirit of the helpless artisan. Andrea Branzi in his book The Hot House, while discussing the social implications of the Industrial Revolution,

143 144

surmises that the attempts by protagonists to promote a

craft aesthetic in face of the inevitability of industrial

mechanization "was at one and the same time a restitution of

the value of manual skill from its humiliation in factory

labour, a defence of cultural values and an attempt to

rescue household objects from the uniformity of mass

production."(3)

Ruskin and Morris while taking distinctly adversarial

roles, had sufficient acumen to recognize that the

Industrial Revolution could not be reversed. Their criticism extended beyond the purely aesthetic to encompass what they

believed to be the inherent social dangers of a machine based society. Ruskin warned that the quest for mass production now unleashed by the technological advances made possible by the Industrial Revolution would necessitate, if unchecked, a landscape devoid of any soul. Success in financial terms would be gained, he argued, at significant cost to the quality of the environment. In a lecture in

1859 to students in Edinburgh, he predicted that "from shore to shore the whole island is to be set as thick with chimneys as the masts stand in the docks of Liverpool ... no acre of English ground shall be left without its shaft and

its engine."(4)

Morris, in a somewhat more accepting tone, wrote pragmatically that "if the necessary reasonable work be of a mechanical kind, I must be helped to do it by a machine, not 145 to cheapen my labour, but so that as little time as be possible may be spent upon it..."(5) And cautioning those who would dismiss the machine out of hand, he argued that

"it is the allowing machines to be our masters and not our servants that so injures the beauty of life nowadays."(6)

Morris admitting the Indispensability of the machine, while writing in the Fortnightly Review of November 1888, noted that he would "not shrink from saying bluntly that production by machinery necessarily results in utilitarian ugliness in everything which the labour of man deals with."(7) He argues that this proposition was something which could be acknowledged by all civilized persons, had they themselves not been aesthetically anesthetized to a position where "they cannot, in what concerns the sense of seeing, discriminate between beauty and ugliness."(8)

Morris despairs at a situation where economic considerations determines form, and where the legacies of the past are all too easily discarded in favor of objects which are blatantly inferior:

The art of making beautifully all kinds of ordinary things, carts, gates, fences, boats, bowls, and so forth, let alone, houses and public buildings, unconsciously and without effort has gone; when anything has to be renewed among these simple things the only question asked is how little it can be done for, so as to tide us over our responsibility and shift its mending on to the next generation.(9)

For Morris and Ruskin art and life were inseparable elements of the human condition. The one complemented the 146 other, but the harmony of handcraft had been severely disturbed by the advance of mechanization. And Branzi conjectures that in severing the relationship between man and object "human labour had ceased to be a constituent element of the object itself and was demoted to mere energy of production: the object was no longer a cultural vehicle but only a reproducible image of itself."(10) It was in an effort to maintain the integrity of the maker, that caused the Victorians to turn to decoration of the machine object, and indeed the very machine itself. Such devices, he argues, "became a sort of linguistic veneer, still capable of differentiating the object."(11) The maintenance of an

Arts and Crafts aesthetic in partnership with machine production was thus a means by which to soften the transition into an inevitably new age. The reluctance to relinquish the romance of tradition was understandable, if somewhat misguided. One does not however, as Lewis Mumford suggests, "make a machine more human by painting it with flowers"(12)

On numerous occasions during the first two decades of the twentieth century "heroic attempts were made to redesign machine production according to the canons of traditional art ... to make machine productions beautiful."(13) The beautification process was not limited to small utilitarian objects alone. Ornamentation with stylistic references to the Gothic and Baroque periods was applied to even the 147 newest of the twentieth century architectural forms: the skyscraper. The steel skeletons of the Woolworth Building and the Flatiron were engulfed in such whimsy, denying the possibility that the structure might speak its own

language.(14) By the 1930s however, Herbert Read's book

Art and Industry indicated that: "we are irrevocably committed to the machine age ... the cause of Ruskin and

Morris may have been a good cause, but now it is a lost cause."(15) Once any vestige of the plausibility of compatibility between handcraft and machine had receded into the mists of a utopian mirage, it was now necessary to establish new frames of reference suitable for an industrial age. The machine, so often viewed as the ogre by traditionalists, had been unjustly maligned, but there were those that argued that it was "not the machine that is responsible for poor quality work, but our incapacity to use

it effectively."(16) Equally the machine had been viewed as not being capable of producing artifacts which embodied the human spirit. But as new aesthetic theories were constructed to take account of technological change "it became possible for culture to break out of the traditional mold of humanism and to start working within the logic of industry and mechanical work, without abandoning its function as a testimony to civilization."(17)

It should be recognized that the concept of developing products according to Mumford's "logic of Industry" is not a 148

concept new to the twentieth century. An American aesthetic

was very much visible for instance in the products on

display in all the International Exhibitions since the

London exhibition of 1851. For it was in the machinery

halls not the art galleries that America really

distinguished herself and where the legacy of a machine

aesthetic was laid down. Mumford speaking of the attributes

of good design in the 1950's insisted that "the canons of

machine art are precision, economy, slickness, [and]

restriction to essentials."(18) These "canons" were

manifest in the most humble of hand tbols exhibited at the

Philadelphia Centennial in 1876. And John Kouwenhoven in

his book The Arts in Modern American Civilization recalls

how the British Commissioner to that exhibition extolled the virtues and superiority of the American axe, steel-spade, shovel, and manure and hay fork.(19) In these objects form was determined purely by the nature of function, with no recourse to ornament. In view of the far reaching influence of the Bauhaus, and its creation of a universal machine aesthetic, it is somewhat amusing that the "functional simplicity of American products"(20) was ill received by the

German delegation to that exhibition. They apparently took exception to American exhibits, stating that "certain objects of daily use which ought to be richly decorated,

like grandfather clocks, show the sad state of American taste by the complete absence of ornamentation."(21) The 149

symbiotic relationship of material, form, and function as

expressed in American Centennial exhibits, can be detected

as a factor in American design in the opening decades of the

twentieth century. The industrial and technological

environment would generate a cornucopia of forms which would

speak eloquently of a brave new age. The machine had proven

that it had an aesthetic "voice." Kouwenhoven argues that:

automobiles ... happen to be among the most beautiful objects which modern civilization has produced .. . Along with the skyscrapers, the grain elevators, the suspension bridges, and the huge transport planes, they are among the most aesthetically satisfying products of technology.(22)

The shaping of such objects, many of which have since

the icons of twentieth century design, occurred in unison

with a Zeitgeist which had penetrated many aspects of

social, technological, and cultural life. But all too often as Penny Sparke observes, in our eagerness to discuss the

object, these other contributory forces are overlooked:

In recognizing the limitations of this perspective and the need for a wider context, it remains important to take into account of the relationship between design and high culture (in particular fine art and architecture) in this period. This relationship influenced many designs, in an avant-garde and later a mass-environment context.(23)

One has only to look to the geometric reductionism of

Post-Impressionism, Cubism, and Constructivism; to the anarchy of Dada, and the energy of Futurism, to perceive what close partners they were to the doctrines of a Machine

Aesthetic. "Fine artists" in many ways were in the 150

vanguard, in terms of recognizing the aesthetic potency of

the machine-made form.

The Futurists, in particular, embraced the forms of

this new age as a means of escaping the clutches and

restraint of the past.(24) In an article written for the

Architectural Review, Reyner Banham suggests that in doing

so they [the Futurists] accelerated beyond the conservative

tendencies of the mainstream of the Modern Movement which

"came nowhere near an acceptance of machines on their own

terms or for their own sakes. That kind of acceptance had

to wait upon the poets, and particularly Filippo

Marinetti."(25) The Futurists' embrace of the machine fused

them to the energy of this new age; they had, according to

Jane Heap, "become impatient with the petrified copying of the dead and dying ... [and were] interested in things dynamic."(26) Heap and The Little Review would, in 1927, organize the Machine-Age Exposition; which was according to her "an experiment ... [that in] bringing together the plastic works of these two types of artist [engineer and

fine artist] has the possibility of forecasting the life of tomorrow."(27) Contributors to the exhibition catalog, among them the Russian Constructivist Alexander Archipenko testify with almost religious fervor to the significance of a machine aesthetic. However, in Archipenko's opinion the object's aesthetic value sprang from its potential symbolism

for the artist rather that from any residual value as an 151

object in its own right. It was the artist who interpreted

the dynamism of mechanical form "through movable forms and colors."(28) In Enrico Prampolini's contribution to the catalog he argues that not sufficient attention has been awarded to significance of the emergence of the machine and

its products as being new and vital aesthetic forces within society. He quotes a portion of Marinetti's first Futurist

Manifesto published in 1909 which contained, according to

Reyner Banham, a "pioneering value judgment."(30) The statement is significant, Banham argues, because it ranks an object of machine production above one which accords to all the canons of tradition:

We shall chant the vibrant nocturnal fervor of the arsenals and shipyards lit by their electric moons, the bridges like giant gymnasts striding the rivers, the daring steamers that nose the horizons, the full­ breasted locomotives that prance on the rails like enormous iron horses bridled with tubes, the gliding flight of the aeroplanes whose screw flutters in the wind like a flag or seems to applaud like an enthusiastic mob. The racing automobile with its exclusive breath and its great serpent-like tubes crawling over the bonnet -- an automobile that wizzes like a volley from a machine gun is more beautiful than the victory of Samothrace.(31)

Exhibitions such as the Machine Exposition of 1927 would continue to attempt to thrust the aesthetics of the machine and the utilitarian object into society's consciousness. Sheldon and Martha Cheney, in their book Art and the Machine, declared that "there is a new art, existent in machine-made mass products: industrial design. It is not an esoteric and precious manifestation but a practical 152

expression embodied in utilitarian forms increasingly

familiar in the daily life of the average person."(32)

These objects may indeed have been "familiar" to a wide

general audience as the Cheneys indicate, but the Modern

Movement did not effect in any significant manner any

democratization of art. Objects reflecting a Machine

Aesthetic only circulated in the relative affluence of an

elite strata of society. But would American society accept

the "familiar" to be of aesthetic value? The stratification

of the "fine" from the "useful" had been so successful, and

Kouwenhoven contends:

schools and museums and books and magazines had so long and so arduously taught people to despise the indigenous products of their environment that it was difficult to persuade them to cherish suddenly what they had so long ignored.(33)

Museums have indeed long been the arbiters of society's aesthetic consciousness; "they had been conceived and endowed as showcases for the cultural acquisitions of the affluent ... now they defined a new role for themselves as design resources for industry."(34) The Machine-Age

Exposition of 1927 was one of a number of responses by museums, galleries, and retailers, to the European Modern

Movement. New York though had been privy to an exhibition of industrial design within a museum of "art" some nine years earlier. The Metropolitan Museum had, in 1918, staged an exhibition of industrial objects, the objects being selected because of some connection which could be 153

established with existing museum artifacts.(35) The intent

of the exhibition was to make industry "conscious of its

blue blood members - the ones with ancestors in the

Metropolitan."(36) This connection was further examined in

eight succeeding exhibitions staged at the Metropolitan.

The exhibitions at the Metropolitan and that organized by

The Little Review were undoubtedly brought to fruition

because of the influence of the Exposition Internationale

Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes staged in Paris in

1925. While America did not participate in the exhibition,

a Commission was dispatched by the Department of Commerce to

report on the event and on its implications for the United

States. Don Wallance in Shaping America's Products notes

that the United States Commissioners in their report

"advised American industry to take note of the new styles

emerging in Europe and not be behind in this important

factor in the growing competition for markets."(37)

The Machine Aesthetic so epitomized in the clinical

severity of much American industrial design in the 1930s was an attempt, some would argue, by the industrial designer to

"bring order to the seeming chaos of the moment."(38)

Dianne Pilgrim in her essay "Design for the Machine"

proposes that "by the 1930s it seemed that the machine

represented the only means to a better future."(39) Arthur

Pulos concurs with this notion of the Machine Aesthetic 154

having the capability of lifting America from the Depression

of the 1930s:

The American public found hope in the Design Decade (as the 1930s had been aptly named by Architectural Forum) and began to look upon its modern manufactured forms and newly styled appliances for bathrooms, kitchens, and laundries, as indispensable to living in the modern world.(40)

1934 would witness three important New York exhibitions of industrial design, each of them having a quite separate mission. The Metropolitan Museum of Art installed an exhibit titled "Contemporary American Industrial Art" an exhibition as much about the designer as their designs, and which featured an industrial designer's office by Raymond

Loewy and Lee Simonson.(41) "Art and Industry" was an exhibit organized by the National Alliance of Art and

Industry, and held at the Rockefeller Center. This exhibition was staged to showcase the industrial designer's contribution to engineering; and was intended to indicate

just how more marketable the engineer's work could be with the cooperation of a product designer.(42)

Architecture and Design at The Museum of Modern_.Art

The third of the New York exhibitions was the landmark

installation "Machine Art" conceived by Philip Johnson for the Museum of Modern Art, then under the directorship of a young Alfred H. Barr, Jr.(Appendix D) Unlike the other two exhibitions, the MOMA show focused primarily on the object's form. The items were selected as mechanical expressions of 155

"forms so mathematically pure that the object 'loses all character and distinguishing marks of purpose43) The objects featured in the "Machine Art" exhibition were forms conjured from the diverse functions they were designed to perform; there was no attempt on the designer's behalf to disguise the nature of that function. In doing so, the objects became, according to Russel Wright, "unintentional modern."(44) Wright suggested that product designers could learn a great deal from aeronautical designers in terms of the relationship between form and function:

Everybody knows that the best modern design is to be found in the realm of aeronautics, where every line and every shape is dictated by the all-important fact that the object is meant to fly. And strangely enough, when construction has taken the path function dictated, the result is grace and sincerity which the designer of furniture and radios, and pots and pans emulates and envies.(45)

The exhibition of hundreds of the most utilitarian of machine-made objects, the vast majority of which being the work of anonymous designers, would have been a most unlikely event in all but a few American museums of art. However, the Machine Art exhibition at MOMA was very much in line with the Museum's policy of making modern art accessible to as large a public as was possible.(46) On the occasion of the museum's opening in 1929, Edwin Alden Jewell writing in

The New York Times indicated that the "announcement of the plan to establish such a museum constitutes perhaps the most significant piece of art news in this community in a 156 decade. "(47) And very much in accord with MOMA's mission to broaden the base for the appreciation of art, Jewell argues that "popular appreciation of art increases as people in increasing number explode for themselves, or see exploded, the shibboleth that art is something to be found only at rarefied altitudes where none save rarefied souls is able to breathe."(48) The holding of such an exhibition effectively was a manifestation of Alfred Barr's vision of what the

Museum might become. Barr had, while teaching at Wellesley

College, devised an innovative course in modern art; "the course not only dealt with twentieth century painting ... but also included film, photography, music, theater, architecture, and industrial design."(49) Barr's Wellesley course was, in essence, the prototype on which the plan for the development of MOMA would be based. He stated that

"this multidepartmental plan ... was simply the subject headings of the Wellesley course ... The Plan was radical

... because it proposed an active and serious concern with the practical, and commercial and popular arts as well as with the so-called 'fine arts'"(50) Alice Marquis's biography of Barr, Missionary for the Modern, describes his fascination with the aesthetics of utilitarian objects. In an article written (but never published) for the department store Marshall Fields, Marquis quotes Barr as describing refrigerators as "the finest examples of modern furniture - a machine for keeping food cold, but also to the eye a 157 beautiful and perfect object."(51) Barr's enchantment with the utilitarian pervaded his own lifestyle, and according to

Marquis, he refused the offer of furniture from his mother in law to furnish his and his wife's apartment in New York, preferring to wait until he could acquire pieces by Breuer, van der Rohe, and Le

Corbusier.(52) In the piece written for the department store Marshall Fields, Barr somewhat arrogantly apportions women with the blame for the proliferation of highly ornate furniture currently available. And presenting modern furniture as a machine which could only really be understood by men, whose "aesthetic judgment ... is most highly developed in the matter of whether the 1930 Buick is better than the 1930 Crysler," Barr suggested that when it came to furnishings, that the husband should "Let his wife buy the curtains, let him buy the chairs."(53)

The exhibition Modern Architecture: International

Exhibition installed at the Museum of Modern Art under the direction of Philip Johnson in February 1932, was the forerunner of a series of exhibits which would pave the way toward the establishment of the multidepartmental museum envisioned by Barr. Johnson's installation received considerable praise, and 33,000 people visited the show.(54)The reception, however, of the architectural principles exhibited in the models and drawings of architects such as Bowman, Gropius, Hood, Howe, Le 158

Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Neutra, Oud, and Wright, was

mixed. Russell Lynes's biography of MOMA, Good Old Modern.

indicates that while extensive press space was given to the

show, it appeared that critics were concerned with the

answer to a single question "Do you call this architecture?

This utilitarian, unornamented, beautiless, so-called

'functional building."(55) Such criticism seems almost an

inevitable reaction from an audience schooled in the canons

of traditional architectural practice. A theme developed by

Conger Goodyear, who hypothesized in his book The Museum of

Modern Art; The F irst Ten Years, that "faced with so

formidable array, [of works] most of the critics seemed to

be groping in an unfamiliar land."(56) The success of the exhibition was the catalyst for the formation in July 1932

of the department of architecture, with Philip Johnson as

its chairman. The inclusion of the department within the museum, Barr somewhat gleefully suggested, was "very different from what the noble gentry wanted."(57) The museum's trustees may well have had occasion to reflect on the wisdom of their decision to engage Barr as director, but as Marquis argues:

By hiring Barr ... the trustees were tangling with an evangelical whirlwind ... Because of him, their museum was moving toward becoming a center for all that was new and provocative in the visual arts, a missionary chapel proclaiming the gospel of Modernism, loudly and persistently.(58) 159

If the architecture show and the subsequent establishment of a curatorial department of architecture are considered the first of Barr's salvos in support of a need for the museum to attend to a more diverse range of aesthetic objects, the landmark Machine Art Exhibition of

1934, would be the projectile which would breach the bastion built to exclude all but the "fine arts" from within its walls. The exhibition marked a recognition of the absurdity of that peculiarly twentieth-century division between the

"fine" and "utilitarian" arts. The Modern Movement had cast its gaze upon the purity of form of the objects of the machine age and had been enraptured by the aesthetic potential of "electric light bulbs, silos, grain elevators, butchers' tables, steel girders, glass bricks, safety pins,

[and] paper clips ... objects, which, without meaning embody the essentials of contemporary design."(59)

The proposal to gather examples of such "apparently" mundane objects within the hallowed galleries of a museum of art must have appeared to some to have been an undeniably sacrilegious act. Conger Goodyear, the President of the

Board of Trustees, and committee member of the Machine Art

Exhibition, suggested that to certain individuals "the wedding of a machine to art spelled miscegenation."(60) But in his discussion of the museum's history between 1931-1934, he provides an eloquent testament to the rightness of Barr's direction for MOMA. 160

If it is not within the province of the museum to show the public that beauty is within the reach of those of modest incomes, that beauty can be made part of their daily lives and need not be confined to the walls and halls of our museums, whether modern or ancient, then those who have been interested in the activities of the Museum of Modern Art have a basically erroneous conception of such an institution's value. In any case the Museum is committed to excursions in the field of utilitarian art, which the anonymous artists of other days took as theirs, as well as the arts called "fine." Luristan bronzes, the pottery of ancient Greece and armour of the middle ages, all were utilitarian but all are nevertheless included in the wide field of art. And man's brain and man's design are as necessary for the direction of his machine as they are for his hands. A painter's brush is a machine and so is a sculptor's chisel.(61)

The Bulletin of the Mug.e.um._a£. Modern Art, the in-house

journal of MOMA, devoted the entire November 1933 issue to providing a background and details of the upcoming "Machine

Art Exhibition." It was discussed in effusive terms, promoted as a watershed event, and "a victory in the long war between the Craft and the Machine."(62) The issue extols the aesthetic virtues of a whole gamut of machine produced products, from the diminutive ball bearing, to the monumental grain silo. These are described in terms of their pure geometry, an aesthetic which Richard Wilson argues had "by the 1930s assumed an almost canonical posit ion."(63) The readers of Philip Johnson's exhibition catalog are left in no doubt as to the aesthetic lineage of this exhibition. Three quotations fill the page preceding

Alfred Barr's foreword, and graphically set the scene for all which is to follow: 161

By the beauty of shapes I do not mean, as most people would suppose, the beauty of living figures or of pictures, but to make my point clear, I mean straight lines and circles, and shapes, plane or solid, made for them by lathe, ruler and square. These are not, like other things, beautiful relatively, but always and absolutely. Plato: Philebus 51 c

For beauty three things are required. First, then, integrity or perfection: those things which are broken are bad for this very reason. And also a due proportion or harmony. And again clarity: whence those things which have a shining color are called beautiful.

St. Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae, I, q. 39, a. 8

Industrial civilization must either find a means of ending the divorce between its industry and its "culture" or perish.

L. P. Jacks: Responsibility and Culture (64)

The quotations by Plato, St. Thomas Aquinas, and L.P.

Jacks act as preface to Barr's foreword; which is in essence the catachysm which determined the appropriateness of an object for selection. In the foreword, he explores nine conceptual areas, in which the notion of Machine Art is provided with an historical and philosophical background; viz., Machine Art and Geometrical Beauty, Static and Kinetic

Rhythms, Technical and Material Beauty, Visual Complexity,

Function, Machine Art and the Designer, Machine Art and Fine

Art, Machine Forms and Natural Forms, and "Industry and

Culture."(65) To more fully explain his statements of aesthetic judgment, he also drew reference to photographs of specific objects contained within the catalog. Barr adopts an unabashed formalist philosophy, in which the purity of 162 geometry is an essential element against which the aesthetic value of any object is measured. He savors the inherent beauty of the elements of line and circle, and wonders at their transmutation by machine into solid form. He delights at the essential elegance of ball bearings manufactured by

SKF Industries, an outboard propeller manufactured by the

Aluminium Company of America, and a bearing spring manufactured by the American Steel and Wire Company.

A Blue Ribbon Panel of Judges for Machine Art at MOMA

Barr's admiration for these objects was to be shared by others. The museum had invited four dignitaries to make judgments as to what was the most beautiful object in the show.(66) (Plate VI) Prior to the public opening Amelia

Earhart, John Dewey of Columbia University, and Charles H.

Richards of the Museum of Science and Industry, gathered together at the museum to make their selection. A fourth judge, Frances Perkins, unavoidably detained in Washington, telegraphed her decision based on a review of the exhibition catalog. The Art Digest noted that the judging took approximately one hour the result being achieved with a certain degree of compromise.(67) The March 6 issue of The

New York Times in a column headed "Machine Art Seen In

Unique Exhibition," gave a detailed account of the jurors' deliberations. Emelia Earhart had selected a section of spring manufactured by the American Steel and Wire Company Plate VI. Judging the exhibition "Machine Art". March 5 - April 29, 1934. The Museum of Modern Art, New York: Miss Amelia Earhart, Professor John Dewey, and Professor Charles R. Richards, holding first, second and third prizes, respectively. Photograph courtesy, Museum of Modern Art, New York 164

(No.2) as her first choice. Professor John Dewey's first

choice was an outboard propeller manufactured by the

Aluminium Company of America (No.14), and Professor Charles

Richards selected (No.13),a group of steel balls for ball

bearings as his choice. (68) The April 1934 issue of Design

Indicated that Frances Perkins had selected the small spring

(No.l), the outboard propeller, and a brass plumb bob (352)

manufactured by Eugene Dietzgen Co, Inc., as her first,

second and third place choices respectively.(69) The result

of the jurors compromise established the section of spring

(No.2), the outboard propeller (No.14),(Plate VII) and the

ball bearing,(Plate VIII) as first, second and third most

beautiful objects in the exhibit ion.(70) Jewell in his New

York Times review of the selection process includes

statements made by three of the jurors' subsequent to their deliberations:

Miss Earhart: ''I think the exhibition a great step forward in that I believe people may see beauty in machines that so often we think of as only crude - which is not the case for any one who has eyes to see."

Professor Dewey: "I think it is somewhat extraordinary that modern machine production for industrial purposes should illustrate as well as it does the statement of Plato's regarding the abstract beauty of geometric forms, made before any such things as machinery existed. I hope all those who are skeptical about the esthetic possibilities of machine production will see the exhibition."

Professor Richards: "The natural office of the machine is not to produce ornament but to produce line that expresses function, process and material. Mass production when dealt with in this spirit can produce not only things appropriate to the machine but things 165

Plate VII. Aluminium Company of America, Company Design. Outboard Propeller, n.d. Aluminium, 9'' diameter. Collection, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of the manufacturer. Photograph courtesy, Museum of Modern Art, New York . 166

Plate VIII. Wingquist, Sven. Self-Aligning Ball Bearing. 1929. Chrome-plated AISI bearing steel, 1 3/4 x 8 1/2" diameter. Collection, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of the manufacturer: SKF Industries, USA. Photograph courtesy, Museum of Modern Art, New York . 167

of real beauty. This exhibition is a demonstration of these possibilities."(71)

And it wasn't only the distinguished jurors who were to

have an "official" opportunity to be involved in selecting

the "most beautiful object" in the exhibition. The public

were also invited to cast ballots for the object of their

choice. However, it was noted that there was a marked

diversity in the public's selections in what they deemed was

a most "unusual beauty contest."(72) At the time of going

to press Design recorded that a polished brass boat

propeller manufactured by the Electric Boat Company, and a

triple mirror for light signals manufactured by Carl Zeiss,

had topped the poll.(73) Reporters covering the exhibition also weren't above pressing their individual claim in the

"beauty competition." Jewell reported that he had found it

"absolutely, abstractly, and ideally impossible to rate" the bearing spring chosen by Frances Perkins over the ball bearing chosen by Charles Richards.(74 ) But eventually gathering sufficient courage to make some distinctions he said that he was:

inclined profligately to open my heart to all the pots and pans and mixing bowls as well, and, while the opulent mood endures to that pair of fascinating refractometers and to at least two of the microscopes, leaving unsung, in fact because of rank prejudice only the dental instruments.(75) 168

Phil ip. Johnson1s Exhibition Design

Johnson arranged the exhibition in six divisions, the

divisions representing objects according to specific related

use. Each object was identified by its name, its

manufacturer, its designer (where possible), and its price:

Exhibition Divisions

1. Industrial units: Machines and machine parts: springs, insulators, cable sections, propeller blades.

2. Household and office equipment: Sink, furnace, bathroom cabinets, dishwasher, carpet sweeper, and business machines.

3. Kitchenware

4. House furnishings and accessories: objects of daily life: tableware, vases and bowls, smoking accessories, lighting fixtures, and furniture.

5. Scientific Instruments: Precision, optical, drafting and surveying instruments.

6. Laboratory glass and porcelain: Beakers, hydrometer jars and boiling flasks. (76)

The exhibition occupied three floors of the museum, and its

installation was generally agreed to have been a creative triumph for Johnson and his assistant Ernestine Fanti. The

New York Times proclaimed that it "must certainly be said to constitute Philip Johnson's highwater mark to date as an exhibition maestro."(77) Catherine Bauer referred to the

installation as being "a piece of accomplished showmanship."(78) And superlatives abounded from the critic of The New York Sun, who thought Johnson "our best showman and possibly the world's best. I'll say the world's best 169

until proof to the contrary is submitted."(79) Johnson had

in this installation, adopted some innovative exhibition

design practices which had developed from his experience

staging previous MOMA shows viz., "Modern Architecture:

International Exhibition," "Early Modern Architecture:

Chicago, 1870-1910," and "Objects: 1900 and Today."(80)

(Appendix E) The responses to this installation had been so

favorable that at least one art journal proclaimed that "at

last a prophet has found honor in his own country."(81) The

critic of The Brooklyn Eaale concurred, stating that "it is

no exaggeration to say it is the finest example of

exhibition technique that has been achieved in this

country."(82)

Johnson's inventiveness was evident from the very moment that visitors reached the front of the museum where

they came face to face with a massive vermilion painted

ocean liner's propeller.(83) And, as one moved into the museum's entrance hall, Bauer noted that "springs and propellers and [a] huge ball bearing ... [was] both dramatic

in itself and an excellent introduction to the rest of the show."(84) Johnson's design for the exhibition's

installation required dramatic alterations to be made of the museum's internal architecture. Walls, ceilings, and

lighting were modified:

False ceilings were constructed of muslin, through which overhead light diffuses evenly. The entire floor plan of the Museum and the surfaces of the walls are 170

changed by movable screens, panels, and spur walls of aluminium, stainless steel, and micarta, and by coverings of oilcloth, natural Belgian linen, and canvas painted pastel blue, pink, and gray. Stands and display tables are built of aromatic cedar and Circassion walnut, shelves of black and white Carrara glass.(85)

The exhibition was designed very much with the observer in mind. For while there were in excess of a thousand objects on display, exhibits were arranged in such a way as to lead one with ease from the largest to the smallest object on view. Johnson's ingenuity at being able to solve the problem of enabling the observer to focus on a single object, while still retaining a sense of the exhibition's coherence, was a factor which drew praise from numbers of critics.(86) He achieved this by employing three methods of display throughout the entire exhibition:

Isolation - a water faucet, for example, is exhibited like a Greek statue on a pedestal.

Grouping - the massing of a series of objects such as saucepans, water glasses and electric light bulbs.

Variation - a different type of stand, pedestal, table and background for each object or series of objects.(87)

The Objects: Utility and Aesthetics

All objects selected for the exhibition were in mass production at the time of the show's opening, and were available for sale in the United States. Surprisingly, not all objects in the exhibition were machine-made. Richard

Guy Wilson notes that the Meerchaum Pipe (No.248) produced 171

by the British manufacturer Alfred Dunhill, though

possessing machine made lines, was in fact hand made. Its

inclusion in the show Wilson surmises was to call attention

to the fact that Barr's and Johnson's aesthetic could just

as well be applied to the hand made as to the machine made

object.(88) It is significant that the Meerchaum Pipe was

probably the most "personal" object in a show which was more

about artifacts which were components of the systems of

daily life. While one of the purposes of the exhibition

was, according to The Bulletin of The Museum of Modern Art

"to serve as a practical guide to the buying public,"(89)

consumerism was not a prime motivating factor in the

selection of the exhibition's objects. The emphasis on

industrial, office, scientific, and laboratory objects,

forced the public to attend to objects outside their normal

purview.(Appendix F)

The utility and aesthetic quality of some of these

objects apparently had caught the attention of an

enthusiastic following. Don Wallance identifies the

products of Coors Porcelain Co. viz., (Beakers No.398,

Capsules No.395, and Dish No.397), as objects which had developed considerable consumer interest, much to, the

bewilderment he states, of this manufacturer:

Although Coors is proud of the beauty as well as the technical perfection of its wares, the company has been somewhat surprised and perhaps annoyed at the interest and inquiries from designers and small accessories shops; they see no reason why anyone should want to use 172

chemical porcelain for anything but the purpose for which it was intended.(90)

Quite clearly this exhibition was not concerned with providing the public with a shopping guide but with altering perceptions of forms familiar in their environment. The exhibition of such objects in a museum of art, and displayed with the creative genius of Johnson, was to be a clear signal from these "missionaries” to society at large that such objects could be "art". As if to make their argument even stronger, Barr and Johnson excluded any object from the exhibition whose function was purely ornamental. Johnson makes this distinction clear in the introduction of the exhibition catalog:

There are no purely ornamental objects; the useful objects were , however, chosen for their aesthetic quality. Some will claim that usefulness is more important than beauty, or that usefulness makes an object beautiful. This exhibition has been assembled from the point of view that though usefulness is an essential, appearance has at least as great a value.(91)

Barr, similarly, examines the question of an object's usefulness, and how, if at all, did the knowledge of function contribute to the relationship between object and observer.

One might have expected that having used a quotation from Plato as a preface to the catalog Barr would have sought some support from this revered source, but this was not the case. And he readily admitted that Plato would have 173 had little time for any consideration of an object's

function, as a Platonic view dispensed with worldly considerations such as mechanical construction or usefulness. A Platonlst would seek an aesthetic response enriched by the contemplation of pure form alone. Barr identified "mechanical function and utilitarian function"

(92) as two Interdependent factors which could contribute to an observer's heightened level of aesthetic awareness. A knowledge, he conjectured, of physics may well make a propeller appear more pleasing, as indeed might the sight of an efficient floor polisher more attractive if he had a knowledge of the potential of such a machine. There existed, he argued, a functional beauty in machine-made objects, but the MOMA show was about higher things. As Barr stated: "Fortunately the functional beauty of most objects is not obscure and in any case, so far as this exhibition is concerned, appreciation of their beauty in the platonic sense is more important."(93) The use of Plato as a platform upon which to launch this exhibition was an attractive theme to the critics who reviewed the show for newspapers and magazines. Most were supportive of the analogy. Jewell used the subtitle "Introducing Plato, 1934" for his March 11 review and suggested that Earhart, Perkins,

Dewey, and Richards' selection of objects solely from the industrial division of the exhibition for the accolades of most beautiful object as evidence which would appear to have 174

"underscore[d) the Platonic premise upon which the exhibition had been reared."(94) The banner headline in the

Art Digest read "New York's 'Machine Art' Exhibit Would Have

Pleased Old Plato," and The New York Times of March 6 1934 spoke of the show being "sponsored, as it were, by quotations ... [from] ... Plato and St Thomas."(95) These critics appear to have been content not to have become embroiled in any discussions surrounding the declaration of these objects as works of art. Walter Rendell Storey writing in The New York Times of March 4 1934, admits to readers that "many of the objects will seem at first glance to have little relation to art." But not developing that theme himself, suggesting only that the existence of geometry in the machine-made form would according to Philip

Johnson be sufficient in itself for these objects to

"receive serious esthetic consideration."(96)

Not all critics, however, were as willing to avoid the contentiousness of calling the exhibition's objects "art."

Russell Lynes records Royal Cortissoz of The New York Herald

Tribune as saying that it was "calling the stuff 'art' that clouds the issue, that and dragging in Plato."(97) A challenge also appeared in A. Philip McMahon's 1935

Parnassus article "Would Plato Find Artistic Beauty In

Machines?" The article originated apparently out of a discussion between the author and Alfred Barr. Barr had agreed that the Plato quotation had "so often been used and 175 misused in modern art criticism,"(98) and had invited

McMahon to publish a rebuttal. McMahon argued that the passage was "not appropriate to an exhibition of machine products which views these things as art."(99) His dialectic was however based on the assumption that Barr and

Johnson believed that Plato would have considered the objects art, but there is nothing to be found in the catalog which supports such a claim. McMahon in his concern to set the record straight with regard to what Plato might or might not have called art, avoided the challenge of defining an aesthetic for the utilitarian object. While recounting the history of the Design Collection at MOMA, Arthur Drexler, director of the department of architecture and design in

1958, wrestled with this same question, arguing that the solution could only be found in a reconciliation between art and technology. He stated that:

It is no longer possible to view either art or technology as if they were separate events. Technology is an expression of the creative mind. If we are ever to apply qualitative values to its manifestations, we must also be prepared to alter our notions about quality, about art, and about the creative process.(100)

Johnson's exhibition was an attempt at such a reconciliation; and must be considered a pioneer event in the eradication of the distinction between art and technology. Through the exhibition it was hoped that the machine and the machine-made product would become integrated within society's cultural capital. The admittance of such 176

things to the artworld was promoted in the first instance,

however, based on their adherence to universal principles of

pure form with little regard for function. The objects were

displayed as sculptures; an act, in its way, as

revolutionary was the staging of the Armory Show held in New

York in 1913. Barr's and Johnson's vision was not readily

accepted either by the artworld or manufacturing industry.

Bauer indicated that she had "heard sculptors who resented

the notion of putting a ball bearing on a pedestal."(101)

And The Art Digest recorded that Johnson himself had experienced some difficulty in persuading prospective

lenders that their wares were art; he supposed that "they

thought art was painted lamp shades and bronze statuettes."(102) A New Yorker cartoon (Figure 12) published at the same time of the show captured the spirit of adjustment promoted by the MOMA exhibition.(103)

While much of the commentary generated by the show was concerned with matters other than the object's function, utility and its relationship to form and technology were not overlooked. Critics sought to establish relationships between the exhibition and everyday life. For the machine age was not merely a phenomenon peculiar to a museum of art; technology and the burgeoning profession of the industrial designer were reshaping the visual world. The public had

little choice but to participate in the transformation. The 177

o j T33UAT Jm m ! -1 -

U-l i -U

A \ a & ii^

“Recognition/ hist!a 'I'he Museum of Modem Art wants to give me a one-man s/unc.”

Figure 12. Cartoon from The New Yorker April 14, 1934. Courtesy of The New Yorker 178 machine aesthetic with its credo of geometric angularity would cast a new vocabulary for architectural and product design, nothing was sacred from a revision of styling.

Refrigerators, electric stoves, clocks, cooking utensils, and carpet sweepers, the very stuff of everyday living would bear witness to the spirit of this new age. And while many of Johnson's exhibits were the bread and butter of the factory and laboratory, it was perhaps in the objects of more personal use in which observers were able to assess what it would it be like to use, sit, and live with the products of the new aesthetic. Jewell commenting on the beauty of the exhibits indicated that in his opinion, while most of the objects he found beautiful there were some exceptions viz., "one of the rare exceptions, a back-breaking chair in which, unfortunately I sat after a little to read about abstract beauty."(104) Some critics noted that "in the more intimately used articles, such as chairs, new shapes have been less easily accepted than innovations in general household equipment."(105) There was also some speculation as to why public acceptance of these objects might have been somewhat tentative; Bauer noted, with a considerable degree of foresight, that:

If the anonymous exhibits of chemical glass ware and cooking utensils give one, on the whole, more satisfaction than those occasional ash-trays and vases and bows which have designers' names attached, that is probably due to an uneasy recollection that industrial designers are commonly called "stylists," and are usually hired to turn out modish objects next year. 179

This is of course not their fault, and it should be granted that the general run of Things has, by and large, been somewhat improved in appearance since they got into the field. (106) The exhibition of utilitarian objects at MOMA was undeniably a bold stroke by Johnson and Barr; but it ought to be remembered that their vision of a fusion between art and industry was not solely a product of the 1930s. The philosophy which underpinned Johnson's exquisite installation owed much to previous occasions when reconciliation was sought between the apparently mutually exclusive polarities of art and machine. The 1851 Great

Exhibition, the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial, the 1919 founding of the Bauhaus, and the 1925 Arts Decoratifs and

Industriels Modernes, each in its way sought to salute the machine product as an intrinsic component of society's cultural as well as economic life. MOMA, in keeping with

Barr's proposal for a multidepartmental museum, would fulfill its role in the continuance of such a legacy. Since the Machine Art exhibition, the museum has continued to be interested in collecting and exhibiting what T. R. Adam called ''the borderland between art and technology."(107)

The missionary zeal of those early exhibitions, as diverse as "Useful Objects under $5," (1938) "The Bauhaus

1919-1928," (1938) "The Young Peoples Machine Art circulating exhibit," (1938) and "Organic Design" (1941) was a potent force in advocacy for the maintenance of the connection between art and everyday life. 180

An examination of the Machine Art exhibition therefore enables one to judge more than objects alone, it provides one with an entree to the spirit of a moment, a moment which continues to shape our lives even today. 181

NOTES: CHAPTER III

(1)Philip Youtz, 1934. "Art and Industry." The American Magazine of Art, Aug., 430-34.

(2)Ibid.

(3)Andrea Branzi, 1984. The Hot House. (Boston: MIT Press),15

(4)Christopher Harvie, Graham Martin, and Aaron Scharf, eds., 1975. Industrialisation and Culture 1830-1914. (London: Macmillan for The Open University Press),311. Quotation taken from an extract of "The Two Paths" 1859, lectures by John Ruskin to Edinburgh students on "Art and its Application to Decoration and manufacture."

(5)Branzi, Hot House, Ibid.

(6)Ibid.

(7)Harvie, Industrialisation and Culture, 334. Quotation by William Morris taken from 'Fortnightly Review,1 November 1888.

(8)I bid.

(9)Ibid,335.

(10)Branzi, Hot House.,16.

(11)Ibid.

(12)Youtz, Art and Industry.,432.

(13)Ibid.

(14)Lewis Mumford, 1960. 2d ed. Art and Technics. (New York: Columbia University Press),80.

(15)Herbert Read, 1938. Art and Industry: Principles of Industrial Design. (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company),33. 182

(16)Branzi, Hot House.,17. Remark by Theodor Fischer, at the first meeting of the Werkbund.

(17)Ibid.

(18)Mumford, Art and Technics.,80.

(19)John A. Kouwenhoven, 1967. The Arts in Modern American Civilization. (New York: W.W. Norton & Company),16.

(20)Ibid.,17.

(21)Ibid.

(22)Ibid.,178 .

(23)Penny Sparke, 1987. Design in Context. (London: Bloomsbury Publishing),127.

(24)Reyner Banham, "The Machine Aesthetic." In Design by Choice, edited by Penny Sparke, 44-47. (New York: Rizzoli),1981.

(25)Ibid.

(26)Jane Heap, [1925] 1967. "Machine Age Exposition." The Little Review, 11(1): 22-24. Reprint, (New York: Kraus Reprint Corporation).

(27)Jane Heap, [1927] 1967. "Machine-Age Exposition", The Little Review, 37. Reprint, (New York: Kraus Reprint Corporation).

(28)Alexander Archipenko, [1927] 1967. "Machine and Art" The Little Review, 13-14. Reprint, (New York: Kraus Reprint Corporation).

(29)Enrico Prampolini, [1927] 1967. "The Aesthetic of the Machine and Mechanical Introspection in Art" The Little Review, 9-10. Reprint, (New York: Kraus Reprint Corporation).

(30)Banham, Machine Aesthetic, 44-47.

(31)Prampolini, Aesthetic of the Machine, 9.

(32)Sheldon Cheney, and Martha Candler Cheney, 1936. Art and the Machine: An Account of Industrial Design in 20th Century America. (New York: McGraw-Hill),vii. 183

(33)Kouwenhoven, Arts Modern Civilization, 76.

(34)Arthur J. Pulos, 1983. American Design Ethic: A History of Industrial Design to 1940.(Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press),272.

(35)"Seventeen Years of Industrial Design at The Metropolitan Museum of Art." Arts and Decoration, 1935. 42(4): 32-33.

(36)Ibid.

(37)Don Wallance, 1956. Shaping America's Products. (New York: Reinhold Publishing Corporation), 23-24.

(38)Richard Guy Wilson, Dianne H Pilgrim, and Dickran Tashjian. 1986. The Machine Age in America 1918-1941. (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.),303. Published in conjunction with a major touring exhibition, which opened at The Brooklyn Museum on October 17, 1986.

(39)Ibid.

(40)Pulos, American Design Ethic,352.

(41)Wilson, Pilgrim, and Tashjin, Machine Age,84-85.

(42)Pulos, American Design Ethic,354-357 .

(43)Ibid.,354.

(44)Russel Wright, 1934. "Unintentional Modern." Arts and Decoration. January.

(45)Ibid.

(46)The Museum of Modern Art. 1984. The Museum of Modern Art, New York: Tne history and the collection. (New York: Harry N. Abrams Inc. in association with The Museum of Modern Art.

(47)A Conger Goodyear, 1943. The Museum of Modern Art: The First Ten Years. (New York: np),142. Goodyear includes Jewell's piece from The New York Times. September 22 1929 in the Appendix.

(48)Ibid.,143.

(49)Museum of Modern Art, History and Collection,11.

(50)Ibid. 184

(51)Alice Golfarb Marquis, 1989. Alfred H. Barr Jr : Missionary for the Modern. (Chicago: Contemporary Books),74-75.

(52)Ibid.

(53)Ibid.

(54)Russell Lynes, 1973. Good Old Modern: An Intimate Portrait of The Museum Of Modern Art. (New York: Atheneum), 87.

(55)Ibid.

(56)Goodyear, The First Ten Years, 36.

(57)Marquis, Missionary for the Modern,87.

(58)Ibid.

(59)Wright, Unintentional Modern.

(60)Goodyear, The First Ten Years,47.

(61)Ibid.

(62)"Machine Art." The Bulletin of The Museum of Modern Art, 1933. 1(3), 1.

(63)Wilson, Pilgrim, and Tashjin, Machine Age,51.

(64)Philip Johnson, 1934. Machine Art. (New York: The Museum of Modern Art).

(65)Ibid.

(66)"New York's 'Machine Art' Exhibit Would Have Pleased Old Plato." Art Digest, 1934. 8(12).

(67)Ibid.

(68)"Machine Art Seen In Unique Exhibition." 1934. The New York Times. Tuesday, March 6. Article Written by Edward Alden Jewell.

(69)Felix Payant. 1934. "Beauty of Form in Machine Art." Design. 35(10),25.

(70)"New York's 'Machine Art' Exhibit," Art Digest."

(71)"Machine Art Seen", New York Times. 185

(72)Payant, Beauty in Form,25-26.

(73)Ibid.

(74)"The Realm of Art: The Machine and Abstract Beauty." The New York Times 1934 March 11. Article written by Edward Alden Jewell.

(75)Ibid.

(76)Johnson, Machine Art.

(77)"The Realm of Art," The New York Times.

(78)Catherine Bauer, 1934. "Machine-Made". The American Magazine of Art. 27(5),267.

(79)Goodyear, The First Ten Years,48.

(80)Payant, Beauty of Form,9.

(81)Ibid.

(82)Goodyear, The First Ten Years,48.

(83)"Machine Art Seen." New York Times.

(84)Bauer, "Machine-Made," 267.

(85)Payant, Beauty of Form,8.

(86)"New York's 'Machine Art' Exhibit." Art Digest.

(87)Payant, Beauty of Form,8.

(88)Wilson, Pilgrim, and Tashjin, Machine Age,52-53.

(89)"Machine," Bulletin Museum Modern Art.,2.

(90)Wallance, Shaping America's Products, 135.

(91)Johnson, Machine Art.

(92)Ibid.

(93 ) Ibid.

(94)"The Realm of Art," The New York Times.

(95)"Machine Art Seen," The New York Times. 186

(96)"Machine Art Enters The Museum Stage." The New York Times 1934 March 4.

(97)Lynes, Good Old Modern, 91.

(98)Philip A. McMahon,1935. "Would Plato Find Artistic Beauty In Machines? Parnassus, 7(2),6-8.

(99)Ibid.,6.

(100)Arthur Drexler and Greta Daniel. 1959. Introduction to Twentieth Century Design from the Collection of The Museum Of Modern Art New York. (New York: The Museum of Modern Art),9.

(101)Bauer, "Machine Made," 267.

(102)"New York's 'Machine Art' Exhibit," Art Digest.

(103)The New Yorker. 1934. April 14,

(104)"The Realm of Art," The New York Times.

(105)"Machine Enters Museum," The New York Times.

(106)Bauer, "Machine Made," 270.

(107)T. R. Adam, 1937. The Civic Value of Museums. (New York: American Association for Adult Education),39. CHAPTER IV

ART & EVERYDAY LIFE

AMERICAN & BRITISH ART EDUCATION CURRICULA 1920's & 1930's

The quality of most design in this country is not competitive in the world. This is affecting our well- being. Design has not been stressed in higher education for sometime. We have not considered that education in design was necessary in general education, yet we are a product orientated society. Now we are paying the price for this. Public taste is more influenced by throwaway transitional values, while long-range design qualities have been less important.(1)

As one reads these remarks by June King McFee which were made at an invitational seminar devoted to an exploration concepts which, if enacted, would result in expanding the range of what would be considered appropriate content for art education curricula, one cannot but hear echoes from the past reverberate between the lines, of what one might speculate, was a proposal which did not fall on altogether fertile soil. I make this observation not to cast any aspersions on those in attendance, yet I cannot fail to recognize the sponsoring institution's failure, to date, to promote anything but an extremely narrow vision of art.

187 188

McFee argued that art education had a responsibility to devise a program which would enable students "to explore how

visual qualities and design are used to influence how they

think, how they organize their reality, and how they make aesthetic judgments.”(2) A proposal such as this might appear to some to be a call for a radical shift in direction

for art education; and certainly in terms of prevailing attitudes as to what is considered appropriate curriculum content, McFee's proposition is a significant challenge to

"current" practice. Yet there was a time when similar propositions were welcomed. The reasons as to the similarities and differences are notably contextual, but one cannot but speculate as to whether aspects of past practice may indeed be transferable to the contemporary situation.

History in such circumstances becomes a useful device with which to crystal gaze, for it may well be possible to unearth treasures which could speak with a surprising degree of relevancy to the contemporary art educator. Arthur

Efland, in an examination of ideas which have surfaced to become the modus operandi at various times in the history of general education, prefaces his paper(3) with a telling phrase from Paul Goodman's book Growing up absurd. The purpose of history, Goodman argues, is to uncover those causes long forgotten, history being "especially important when those lost causes haunt us in the present as unfinished business4) There is evidence of such "unfinished 189 business" in the current realm of art education. But in our eagerness to reinvent new curriculum models, we often-times avoid analyzing the potential of those causes long discarded. They remain like fossilized dinosaurs seemingly having little to offer to contemporary curriculum development. But are these dinosaurs really extinct, as they might first appear? I think not. Unfortunately, however, in the field's quest to break "new ground" we often overlook our history. Frederick Logan in Growth of Art in

American Schools argued that "particularly in art education, we have too often rediscovered, with cries of delight, approaches to our work which has been thoroughly exploited and documented for all that can read. "(5) I would contend that few "cries of delight" have been heard, and more often than not curriculum strategists have not capitalized on a stock of curriculum initiatives, which for the most part lie gathering dust. There is much to be learned, for instance, through an examination of material from the early decades of the twentieth century, which could assist those committed to establishing a closer relationship between art education and the student's daily experience, and indeed in defining a role for art education in general education. An examination, for instance, of a series of industrial education circulars published between 1919 and 1927 by the

Bureau of Education at the Department of the Interior, the

Owatonna Art Project (1933-1938), and a British report on 190

education for the consumer (1935) commissioned by the

Council of Art and Industry, reveals a great deal about the

functional role for art education in the 1920's and 1930's.

While the contexts in which such curriculum strategies were adopted are not those of the 1990's, nevertheless certain philosophical assumptions Inherent in these approaches to art in education would not be out of place in the development of a role for design within an art education curriculum today.

Bureau of Education: Industrial Education Circulars

The Bureau of Education in 1919 published a circular titled Industrial art; A National Asset.(6) This publication, authored by H. M. Kurtzworth, contained a series of graphic charts devised by the author to demonstrate to the city authorities of Grand Rapids,

Michigan, the advantages to be accrued from a citizenry who were knowledgeable in the principles of art. Kurtzworth's charts had been first shown at The American Federation of the Arts' Detroit convention in 1918. They had been so well received there that the Federation instigated a resolution that the Bureau of Education publish them for national dissemination. (Appendix G) While it could be argued that this material is of more relevance to the industrial arts, and that it was constructed primarily to identify industrial and commercial benefits, such an argument fails to recognize 191 the circular's implications for the development of aesthetic sensibilities. Unfortunately such a stance further continued to propagate the separateness of subjects within the school curriculum. Kurtzworth's proposals are, while addressed to an industrial art education audience,significantly similar to the objectives outlined by

McFee at the Cincinnati seminar, where she also argued for students to be prepared to recognize the visual qualities of their environment and the choices they and others make in that environment. And Kurtzworth, some six decades earlier, explored the same slmbiotic relationship between maker, object, and consumer. He suggested then, that "the way a man lives and the way he works are evident in his products. In time his work influences others as elements of their environment."(7) In such circumstances the consumer, through their acts of choice, engaged in aesthetic decisions which Kurtzworth argued were those of an "artist." In choices of furnishings for their homes, he contended, "the average citizen finds his chief opportunity to express his instinct for the beautiful."(8) Such decisions, in that they were the legacy which shape the nation's cultural heritage, were significant enough in his opinion to warrant art education's intervention. Kurtzworth's chart "The

Industrial Arts and National Character" locates each citizen as an active participant in the development of a nation's taste: 192

Character is influenced by art education ... Our surroundings affect our dispositions, except we be taught to choose wisely we and our children's children shall be the victims of our own bad taste.

You are one of 102 million "artists” in the U.S.A. you are living in one of 108 million dwellings, you are a member of one of 22 million families.

You who understand the influence of beauty in living are masters of your environment and build your character upon attractive homes, good furniture, gardens, clothes and utensils. Those who neglect these things pay for their Ignorance in being mastered by ugly surroundings which breed unhappiness and inefficiency. You are building the United States of a hundred years hence.(9)

Kurtzworth's proposals for Grand Rapids are themselves resonant with the echoes of an earlier scheme put into operation in Britain by Henry Cole in 1852. Cole the then

Superintendent of the Schools of Practical Art, had proposed a plan for British art education in which the advancement of art, the development of the citizenry's judgment, and the application of the principles of art to manufacturing industry were seen as three interrelated objectives of the

Department of Practical Art. The museum also was seen as making a vital contribution to all the elements of the initiative.(10) And now, nearly seven decades later,

Kurtzworth would expound a scheme which was to all intents and purposes a carbon copy of Cole's strategy for Britain.

Kurtzworth argued that there was a strong case in 1919 for a reaffirmation of the need for the objectives of schooling and the factory to be complementary, a situation which unfortunately was not the practice. Kurtzworth declared 193 that: "this precipitous valley of incompetence must be spanned with a bridge of preparation."(11) His scheme, outlined in Figure 13, would, if adopted, enable the benefits of art education to permeate through to the consumer, designer, and manufacturer. The increasing importance of art education to these constituencies was again the major topic of discussion in yet another of the

Bureau of Education's occasional industrial education circulars, published in 1923.(12) This was a report of a conference called by the United States Commissioner of

Education, and held in conjunction with the American

Federation of Arts convention in St Louis on May 22, 1923.

Eighty five conference members representing 15 States and the District of Columbia met under the chairmanship of Dr.

William T. Bowden, Assistant to the Commissioner of the

Bureau of Education. The conference topic was "Art as a

Vocation." A key theme which weaves through the conference report was the recognition by the contributors of the impact that art was making in everyday life, a development brought about as art and technology found new modes of union.

George, R. Schaeffer, the advertising manager for Marshall

Field's department store in Chicago, in his contribution,

"Art as Related to Commerce and Industry," attributed this phenomenon to a "broadening education and increasing facilities [that] the best concepts of art are being applied more widely than ever to the objects of daily use and 194

CHART 10.

VOUD INVESTMENT w ill not help pau uou as big dividem E un less— . VWHELP PROVr" F a c i l i t y

TRAINING -TASTE*

BRIDGE THIS GAP

MUNICIPAL ART IN STITU TIO N S- INSPIUATIONALCENTERS OF GOOD1ASTEIN AMERICA w h ^ T I -MUSEUM OF DECORATIVE A R T S ® ® WORKSHOPS 2SCNOOLOF ART AND INDUSTRY 3/T U M Obow I O / WCLUDt | ARCHITECTURE -SCULPTURE CRA.rT.fjPAtKTlMft.DtCOMfflOH 1 3 MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS »*USie»POETRV»DRAtVlA 9 0 % of the nation's youth between Wand 23 years are given NO technical traininq-eitheraj workers sakspeopleorcon5um€rj-TRAININQ=PROGRESS IF YOU BEUEVE IN THE FUTURE OF YOUR CITY- NOW IS THE TIME TO DO SOMETHING?

Figure 13. Chart No.10 from Industrial Art: A National Asset. 195 environment - apparel, adornments, decorations, and furnishings for the home."(13) The report recognizes the need for a partnership between art and industry. Art education is seen as the vehicle which would not only improve the aesthetic quality of American manufacture, but would also enhance the levels of consumer discrimination.

Ellsworth Woodward, director of Newcomb College, New

Orleans, argued that finally "the education of the American people has progressed to a point where it is realized that to be illiterate in taste is not different from other forms of i11iteracy."(14) The development of a student's visual literacy would commence at the elementary school, but this would only happen if the teacher embraced "industrial art" as legitimate content for their art programs. Jane Welling, director of art education for Toledo, Ohio, elementary schools in 1923, certainly did not underestimate the scope of readjustment that such a curriculum shift would present to the art educator:

This re-evaluation will certainly mean that art principles and art technics will be stressed in relation to the real need for them, and that our aim will be to help people to think in terms of art, and to use art in all the thousand and one choices that are needed everyday.(15)

Welling's advocacy of elementary art programs in which closer connections between "art" and "industrial art" was established did not entail the discarding of the subject's traditional content. She was a staunch supporter of the 196

ideas of Arthur Wesley Dow, and exhorted the importance of

programs which enabled students to explore the expressive

qualities of line, shape, and particularly color. Her

outline of possible areas of study included the staples of

drawing, picture making, and art appreciation, yet she

continually encouraged a broader interpretation of these

terms, seeing art history, for instance, as including the

study of architecture and industrially and craft produced

products.(16) All of these facets of art could be used, she

argued, as a means of enabling students to understand the

visual world, both of the present and the past.

A survey of contemporaneous editions of The School Arts

Magazine indicates that others wished also to use art history to learn lessons for the present. Pedro Lemos in an article on "Pilgrim art" appeared somewhat defensive of the current state of American industrial art arguing that:

We are also inclined to think and state that America has never had a good type of Industrial Art, and we feel that in our present urge toward good design in utilitarian objects that we are initiating a movement for the first time in American life.(17)

While many were praising the advent of a machine age, Lemos

introduced examples of early American chairs as evidence of objects "left down the years that something in character that can never come into the one of a thousand machine stamped objects that seem a part of American life today."(18) 197

Welling included in her paper a number of photographs of student work, selected to illustrate her approach to the teaching of art. As is evident from these examples, students had been directed to examine the way in which art played out in circumstances close to their daily experience, viz., "Shelter" and "Clothing". Throughout the paper

Welling argued for strategies which avoided any unnecessary separation between art and life. She believed that "if industrial arts and art each function to a high degree, there is no need to worry as to the differences between the two. Their similarities are truly valuable contributions of each - their differences are immaterial."(19) Welling's suggestions for the elementary art program were essentially rooted in a pragmatic aesthetic. There was, she insisted,

"an obvious need right now for art functioning in its real place in everyday problems."(20)

This was a concept for art education shared by other art educators. Welling referred to Leon L. Winslow, State specialist for drawing and industrial training for New York, in support of her proposition. Winslow's own program for

New York State had itself been devised "to prepare boys and girls to live their lives more fully by giving them an appreciative though limited knowledge of world industries that provide man with the necessities and comforts of life."(21) The New York plan recognized, as did Welling's the reality of a changing environment, an environment 198 dramatically altered as a result of technological development.

^■t.JEdac.aLti.g.n_and-.Co.ngim£jLl.sin

Between 1919 and 1929, for instance, Sean Cashman in

America in the Twenties and Thirties describes a veritable consumer-durable revolution, fanned by a proliferation of new appliances and supported by increased personal spending power.(22) He argued that in all respects "The revolution was most apparent in the home."(23) Refrigerators, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, and a whole host of electrical and mechanical gadgets would provide the consumer with a bewildering range of choices. Art education could, it was thought, be a potent force in assisting society's potential consumers to cope with such decision making. In this role

Welling saw art education as providing a significant contribution to general education, placing it at the core of a school's curriculum:

Our choices are dependent upon our basis of choice, our previous choices, and if "Art is choice," there can be no doubt as to the scope and value of art in meeting our needs in the development of the powers for individual and satisfying choices.(24)

The suggestions provided by Welling were typical of a discernible shift in American art education curricula, in the period prior to the Depression, toward the development of taste. Tracts very similar to Welling's concept of "Art as choice" could be found in a whole number of state and 199

district curriculum guides. The Cleveland, Ohio, elementary

art program for instance, commented on the manner in which

taste was reflected in a person’s numerous daily decisions:

An integral part of common experience, it is a standard of taste, which we manifest in our choice of clothing, in the furniture we put in our homes. In the way we tend our lawns and gardens, in the very houses we live.(25)

Arthur Efland in "Art Education During the Great

Depression," indicates that while such statements encouraged

the utilization of common objects for study, "There is no deep discussion of these implements as contributing to the

solutions of daily living."(26) There were those who argued however, that this initial examination of the objects

of a student's daily experience, far from being merely a

lesson in art appreciation, and as such somewhat of an

esoteric exercise, was an important bridge between school and the world at large. It had the potential to provide

students with a better understanding of the role played by art in industry, and further enabled them to recognize the significance of their participation in a network which connected manufacturer, product, retailer, and consumer. In this promotion of visual literacy, as something which could be quite separate from the development of art production,

one can see in fledgling form the origins of current notions

that art education programs must cater to all students

irrespective of innate artistic ability. 200

Esther Bensley, in a 1923 article on "The Art and

Industrial Arts Plan for New York State" supporting this

approach, provides an apposite quote from Thomas Mosher, who

said "It is given to a few to create, to enjoy should be the

inalienable birthright of all."(27) Efland noticed that in

the curriculum guides and reports of the 1920's the study of

common utilitarian objects advanced little further than

being concerned with the development of taste. There was no

evidence of these objects being assessed for their relevance

within a socio-economic framework. While art educators in

the public schools may not have grasped this mantle, there

were others intimately involved with art who were vociferous

in their demand that American society recognize the

importance of how the exercise of taste was far from a

passive activity. In what was fast becoming an age of

consumerism, the development of taste had economic

ramifications. Richard F. Bach curator of industrial art at

the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, was such an

advocate. And he carried his appeal for greater

understanding of the significance of the designed product

right to the door of the art education establishment. "Art

and Industry" an article which appeared in the January 1924

issue of The School Arts Magazine was an essay very unlike much of the material which appeared in this publication. 201

Its foresight with regard to the role played by art in

industry and the implications for vested interests,

including education, seems significantly more progressive

when placed as it was alongside visuals of how to make

flower holders with cement. Bach's essay examined the

state of American design arguing that education at several

levels had a role to play in the a design revival which if

implemented would have some very definite benefits:

for the consumer good design may mean satisfaction and peace of mind; for the merchant it will mean increased service good will and profit; for the manufacturer better product, a steady market, a large working margin; and for all three a better bargain.(28)

While drawing attention to the key relationship that education had to play in the improvement of American design,

Bach focussed on how the museum in particular may be of specific help to the designer, retailer and manufacturer.

The situation with regard to the public at large was altogether perhaps too formidable a problem for him to have attempted to provide even the most basic proposals. The theory surrounding the role of art industry was one matter, but remedial solutions were quite another. He wrote: "the mass of consumers is too great to be quickly taught; educational systems must grow up to its need. This they are doing, though with painful slowness .11 (29 ) 202

The Owatonna Art Education Project

What one detects in these efforts are the beginnings of a reevaluation of the role which art plays in society. The suggestions previously discussed are evidence of a shift in art education away from a dominant concern with self-expression.(30) Now we see a curriculum being shaped by the needs of individuals facing the dynamics of a changing society. And while such efforts arguably did little more than produce lessons in taste, the shift nevertheless was a significant move toward art education's acceptance of a responsibility to prepare students with skills needed to enable them to make sense of their immediate environment. The connection between curriculum content and the wider needs of society is an example of what

Efland calls "Deweyan Instrumentalism," which he indicates was an influence in American general education, and operational in progressive education between 1918 and

1929.(31) This philosophical rationale inspired by the work of John Dewey endeavored to establish an approach to general education in which "a school could become a cooperative community while developing in individuals their capacities and satisfying their own needs."(32) The Owatonna Art

Education Project (1933-38) would inherit some of these tendencies. The development of a more thematic approach to teaching and learning, and an integration of school and community, would be the cornerstones of this often 203 overlooked, and sometime misunderstood project, which had grown out of the vision of Melvin E. Haggerty, dean of the

College of Education at the University of Minnesota, in

1931. This initiative in curriculum development produced lessons which have not, suggests Stephen Dobbs, "been accorded the attention they deserve. Perhaps [he surmises] someday urban planners will reexamine the strategies of the community art projects of the Thirties."(33) Frederick

Logan also reviewed the project's outcomes in a sympathetic manner, writing that: "The objectives and work of the

Owatonna Project for art education need to be kept fresh in our professional background."(34) Owatonna was seen as art education's "Camelot" by Robert Saunders, whose account of the project delivered at the 1985 Penn State, History of Art

Education Conference, presents the experiment as having significance in being a model curriculum with which one might better understand the nature of change with regard to funded projects.(35) Kerry Freedman develops in her article "The philanthropic vision: The Owatonna Art

Education Project as an example of 'private' interests in public schooling,"(36) an argument for cautionary approach to the kind of philanthropic intervention epitomized by this kind of curriculum development. She views this initiative as a prime example of how philanthropy can bring with it a covert agenda; in this case the continued maintenance of social stratification within public schooling. And perhaps, 204

in light of American art education's recent courtship by

"private" interests, she warns that as educators we must

"prepare to make cautious but positive decisions about what

we, as a professional community, will and will not accept as

controlling interests in our field. "(37)

What then were the motives of the Carnegie Foundation

for the Advancement of Teaching and the project's staff

which appear to have attracted both plaudits from some and a

healthy degree of suspicion from others? The seeds for the

implementation of the Owatonna Art Education Project (OAEP)

were first sown in a speech made by Melvin E. Haggerty to a

group of artists and art educators at a 1931 meeting in

Minneapolis. Haggerty declared himself to be comparatively

ignorant about the aims and purposes of art education, though in his defense, he believed that his inadequacies were shared by many others, who because of a paucity of

instruction were not privy to the language of the subject.

But in view of the economic setbacks of the Depression combined with the social implications of industrial and technological development, he speculated as to what was an appropriate role for art education under such conditions:

"What can teachers of the fine arts do," he appealed, "to prepare young people against the day of threatening boredom, depleting play activities, the grinding monotony of a machine-made day? Is the program of art instruction in the school geared to elevate community taste in all those matters that make up the visual aspects of American life? Is the major task of art 205

instruction in the schools to be the specialized training of the few or the cultivation of taste in a 11 ? " ( 3 8 )

The pursuit of "The answer to these questions, flung as a challenge to public education by an honest and thoughtful man, was the Owatonna Art Education Project."(39) Howard J.

Savage in Fruit of an Impulse wrote that the willingness of the Carnegie Foundation to sponsor this particular project might well have been due to a fortuitous set of connections which existed between some key players. Haggerty, the director of the project, was a dean at the University of

Minnesota, where Lotus Coffman, a trustee of the Foundation, was president. Coffman was also a friend of Henry Suzzallo,

(the Foundation's president) who himself had an interest in art education. And art was also a subject of interest to

Frederick P. Keppel, President of the Carnegie

Corporation.(40) With such a covey of supporters it was not surprising that Haggerty's proposal was funded. The initial planning grant of $12,000.00 was made available to the

University of Minnesota on October 11 1932 by the trustees of the Corporation through the Foundation. In 1934 the trustees committed a further $20000.00, payable over 4 years. The project was intended to finish in 1937, but its life was extended to 1938 with an additional grant of

$11000.00.(41) When the project was completed $5000.00 was still available for further development.(42) The grant from the Carnegie Foundation was made so that Haggerty could 206

conduct research to test the "validity of psychological and

educational assumptions prevalent in the field of art

education."(43) The fundamental assumption which

underpinned the OAEP was that "art is a way of life and that

this conception is of great importance to education and to

civilized life."(44) This philosophical stance was

explicated in Haggerty's book Art a Wav of Life. This

assumption, and the opinions expressed in his book were, he argued, the outgrowth of consultations with a variety of

interested parties, among them representatives from the

fields of education, psychology, the artworld, industry and business. Haggerty was of the opinion (supported by others) that there was an urgent need for an end to the Isolation of art from the realities of daily existence. Rene d 1Harnoncourt writing in the American Magazine of Art agreed, stating that: "In all civilized communities art has become divorced from life ... The civilized community, with its analysis, has taken art out of life and placed it apart from daily doings. Art has become the privilege of a very limited group."(45) The elimination of the distinctions which increasingly had further separated art from the other activities of life was a proposition which received mixed reviews. Some, as evident in a Parnassus review of the 1934

Museum of Modern Art "Machine Art" exhibition, fought hard to maintain the traditional divisions between art and industry 207

To abolish divorce by a biological miracle of eliminating the differences between the sexes would be a measure as fantastic as fatal to it purpose. An attempt to make every tool an object of fine art would be apt to leave us without tools or without works of art.(46)

The continuance of such an elitist attitude failed to take

into account the significance of the impact of art on

American industry. The spirit of these times, however, was

much more generous in its willingness to accept that art

could exist outside the museum. There appeared to be

considerably more openness within education circles to

embrace the concept of a democratization of art which was

implicit in Haggerty's proposals. In a 1935 editorial in

Design Felix Payant looked forward to education's

involvement in awakening students to the aesthetic potential

of their immediate environment:

If art has come to the dishpan, the coffee pot and the kitchen sink, certainly our younger generation must know about it, either through home or school. If American culture is to be fully realized by an identification of art with the fabric of life, further understanding is in order. Now that art is no longer an idle gesture and highbrow occupation, it will find its own vitality; it will be "of the people and by the people."(47)

Haggerty realized that the advancement of the concept that art was a way of life would require at least a working definition of the term "art." But wisely, rather than become embroiled in the perils which surround absolutes in the realm of aesthetics and also recognizing the experimental and exploratory contexts of OAEP, he preferred 208

to present a definition which met the particular needs of

the project.(48) It was obvious that the kind of definition

implicit in the Parnassus review would be far too limiting

for the project’s purposes. In Art a Wav of Life Haggerty defined art as:

The outward activities and inward experiences that are called art are the efforts of human beings to make life more interesting and pleasing. Art objects which are the product of these activities and experiences are meaningful to the degree that they increase human enjoyment.(49)

Operating with a definition such as this very dramatically increases what can be considered appropriate

content for an art education program. The locus of attention shifts from the museum to the intimacy of the student's own living space. Art under such conditions becomes interwoven with almost every aspect of daily living.

Art was, Haggerty argued, "not something superficial, remote, and veneered on life, a thing that can be ignored and neglected. It is integral with life, arises out of universal human needs, impossible of disassociation from a completely satisfying experience."(50) While there was a shift in the OAEP from a focus on the museum object, there was an equal shift of concerns from the student as "artist" to the student as "decision maker." Accepting the assumption that art was an integral element of all sorts of articles of daily use, the student, it was argued, needed to become an informed consumer. Acquiring skills in handcrafts 209 at a time when the machine was flooding the market with consumer-durables appeared somewhat redundant to those who wished to prepare students for the inevitable onslaught of consumerism. Haggerty defended the project's emphasis on the analysis of consumer products, a fact that was, he argued: "inescapable if instruction is to tie art to the realities of life."(51) If art and life were to be considered inseparable, an object had to possess both aesthetic and utilitarian dimensions. It became its most complete if it met all possible requirements, and established a harmony between aesthetics and function:

Art is not something laid on to a chair. It grows out of a chair, as it were, when the chair meets all the demands that the family lay upon it. It is because these demands are numerous, and because one demand is so often in conflict with another, that we must invoke this concept of economy to aid in the judging the full art value of any object. To achieve the satisfaction of a secondary function of a chair, say pleasing shape or size, to the neglect of a more essential requirement, say physical comfort in its use is to fall short of complete success. The total art requirement of an object is that it shall bring all its varying functions within the most satisfying adjustment possible.(52)

But what would be the most ideal community in which the project team could develop such bold educational initiatives? There were several requirements; in a speech to the American Association of Adult Education in 1935 in

Milwaukee, Haggerty outlined some of the key reasons for

Owatonna's selection as the project site. Size was an important factor. Owatonna had a population of 210 approximately 7000 inhabitants, of varying ethnic origins and religious affiliations. It was not a town dependent on a single agricultural or manufacturing base. And being 75 miles from Minneapolis, it was considered sufficiently detached from the metropolitan center to have an identity of its own. Importantly, it had a good school system; but it did not have an art program. This had not always been the case. Art had been in the schools but support had waned, and, as a consequence, it had been dropped, a fact which in

Haggerty's opinion, provided the project team with a valuable and ideal opportunity because "We had no traditions of curriculum or methods to overcome. We had absolutely a free hand in saying what we wanted to do."(53)

Owatonna was in many ways a fairly ordinary American community; Edgar Bruce Wesley in Owatonna: The Social

Development of Minnesota Community indicated that to the casual visitor "It will probably appear to be a 'typical' or

'average' little city."(54) Though it might have appeared

"typical," Wesley argued that "The historic paths, the sources of cultural life, and civic ambitions of a community are reserved for those who have eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to appreciate."(55) And after all not many

"average" American communities could boast a building (The

Security Bank) designed by the influential American architect Louis Sullivan. In essence, Owatonna provided virgin territory in which to investigate, and map the 211 attitudes and interests of a community, and an opportunity to develop an art program derived from its specific needs and interests.

During the winter and spring of 1933 plans were developed for the project; and in the fall of that year, a team of three arrived in Owatonna, as the project's resident staff.(56) (Appendix H) Robert Hilpert would be the resident director during the project's first year of implementation; he was assisted by Barbara Smith. Edwin

Ziegfeld was to be art supervisor for the town's elementary schools, and the high school's art teacher. He took on the responsibility of resident director in 1934, and maintained this responsibility to the completion of the project in

1938. Ziegfeld's salary as art supervisor for Owatonna's schools was in part assumed by the local school board, one of the conditions for their involvement in the experiment being that an art program for grades 1-12 be instigated from the very beginning of the life of the project.(57) The project staff were charged to investigate the validity of

Haggerty's fundamental assumption that art was "a way of life,'' an hypothesis which, if proven to be valid, would have enormous significance for art education, which, it was argued, could then no longer be considered to be an educational "frill."

The problem for education in this matter is to discover how the art interests of people create art needs, and to formulate a plan of teaching that is related to 212

those needs in a thoroughly realistic way. If this could adequately be done, ... far from appearing as a marginal activity, a kind of parasite upon the school program, art would be recognized as an essential component of a sound educational plan. It would take its place alongside mathematics, science, history and language as a necessary part of the school curriculum, to be fostered and defended as are the better recognized subjects.(58)

The purposes of the OAEP were threefold: 1). to discover the extent to which art played a part in the daily activities of the residents of Owatonna. 2). to encourage an

interest among residents in the concept of art as an

integral element of daily living. 3). to develop a school program. (59) The OAEP consisted of two interrelated components; the first being a community art education program, and the second being an art education curriculum for the public schools. From the outset the project was conceived as being a cooperative venture. It was a primary concern of the project staff that this initiative should develop directly from community interests and involvement; and should not be something which was imposed upon the community by outside agencies. In keeping with this philosophical spirit, an introductory meeting was held on

October 17 1933, to which Dean Haggerty had invited over 100 residents, representing as wide a cross-section of the town's socio-economic background as was possible. At that meeting the project's staff were introduced, and the goals of the project were outlined and discussed. The response from those who attended was extremely favorable; and optimal 213

relationships were established which would allow project

members ease of access to residents' homes and to places of

social business. The community survey would (it was hoped)

provide the project team with information as to how the

attitudes and interests of the community were reflected in

their living and working environments. In producing a

report on an individual household, the project member after

having visited the home would compile a two-part report; the

first part was a written reflective statement, the second

part was a five-point scale cheklist (Appendix I). It was

thought that this empirical data would provide a more

objective means of recording "patterns of taste" within the community. (60) The community survey would provide (it was hoped) at least some base-line data as to the quality of

Owatonnas residents' aesthetic sensibilities.

The project staff were anxious for the people of

Owatonna to call upon the team's expertise both in assisting with solutions to individual problems and in talking to social, business,and professional groups on matters of a more general nature. In the five years of the project in excess of 250 such calls were responded to.(61) Initially the calls came (as could have been expected) mainly from housewives, concerned about questions related to interior decoration. But as the project developed Ziegfeld noticed that there was an increase in calls from the business sector of the community. In Art for Dally Living (Appendix J) he 214

recounts a diverse range of problems in which the project

staff became involved: from help with choice of wallpaper, arranging furniture, advising on the planning of gardens, discussing the repainting of a boiler-house, and consulting

with local shopkeepers about questions of how best to display merchandise; all such projects were brought within

the realm of art. But what of the resident's performance in

these areas? and how could the team best assist in improving

the situation? Ziegfeld in a 1935 talk to the American

Association of Adult Education, was quite blunt:

There were almost no fields in which the people in Owatonna did good jobs from an artistic point of view. The whole pattern of taste had to be raised. They often had a sense of of things as being poor or wrong, and asked about them. This suggests that it is a mistake to emphasize principles in trying to establish a sense for better appearance. Situations should rather lead to principles. Good taste, we feel that Owatonna has indicated, is taught by the making of judgments. We stressed the creation of opportunities for the making of choices.(62)

The involvement of the OAEP staff in service projects provided the team with valuable data as to the residents' perceptions of the role of art in their lives. Additional

insights into the needs of the community would be provided through their participation in evening classes, service

lectures, and a visiting speaker program. Haggerty had not envisioned a program of evening classes, but in response to community requests one was established. The first meeting to discuss a possible program attracted 150 people, who were asked to complete a questionnaire indicating their 215 preferences. Classes on interior design were by far the most popular request, followed by "art appreciation," with studio activities attracting only a small number of requests.(63) Hilpert, commenting on the results of the questionnaire, speculated that the few requests for participation activities "showed a typical American interest in passive participation."(64) But the residents' preference for lectures and discussions is perhaps not altogether surprising, especially considering the project's advocacy of art as decision making. As a result of this first meeting, evening classes were established for appreciation and studio activities, each class meeting weekly throughout the first year of the project. They were very well attended, the lectures/discussions often attracting as many as 130 people, with the practical classes regularly drawing 15-20 residents.(65)

The overwhelming success of the evening classes held during 1934-35 inspired Haggerty to conceive of a visiting speakers program. To support this initiative he sought and received additional grant aid from the Carnegie Foundation.

The outside speakers would be commissioned to make presentations at both the University of Minnesota and in

Owatonna. The subject of their presentations also had to reflect the central goals of OAEP i.e., the "pervasive nature of art. "(66) The speakers were selected in consultation with Alon Bement director of the National 216

Alliance of Art and Industry; in New York; and were

certainly a blue-ribbon panel of individuals: Egmont Arens,

a commercial and industrial designer, Mrs Ethel Holland

Little, fashion editor for Woman's Home Companion, Walter

Dorwin Teague, arguably one of the most influential American

industrial designers of the time, and Virginia Hamill,

interior design editor for Woman's Home Companion. The

lectures in Owatonna were enthusiastically received, attracting audiences of between 300-500 residents . (67 ) The visiting speakers were given a briefing on the project prior to arriving in Owatonna, in order that they would shape their presentation to the interests of the community.

Comments by Walter Dorwin Teague which appeared in The Art

Digest indicate that he had a particularly good grasp of the project's goals:

Dean Haggerty at Owatonna is attempting to take art out of the vacuum in which it has been practiced in modern times and restore it to its proper place as phase of ordinary, work-a-day life. Art has been like one of those exquisite but rather sad little gardens grown inside bottles, whereas it should be flourishing lustily in every John Doe's backyard. Dean Haggerty has undertaken this feat of transplantation at Owatonna, and while it is obvious that such an experiment cannot wholly succeed in isolation - it must be the result of a general habit of thought and a way of life - it may well be that this is a very important beginning.(68)

In the wake of the success of the evening class and visiting speaker programs, and again in response to requests from Owatonna residents, summer schools were held in 1935 and 1936. Ray Faulkner from the art education department of 217 the University of Minnesota joined the team as a staff member for these programs. And in 1936, (the only year that an elementary class was offered), two elementary teachers from Owatonna also joined the staff. The summer school program was set up to cater to two separate yet interrelated constituents (Appendix K). The community program was for

Owatonna adults and children; and the teacher's course was for public school teachers. The activities within the community program were a mixture of traditional art making activities and activities in which students, both children and adults, explored the concept of art in daily life. In the art making activities Ziegfeld and Smith note that the

"emphasis was on free expression and experimentation."(69)

The OAEP focus on art as an integral component of daily living was more evident in the design activities. The elementary class designed and built playrooms, decorated the interiors, and furnished them with furniture made from fruit crates. The intermediate and junior high class designed miniature cities, an airport, a summer camp, and a contemporary home. And in the adult and high school class, students were introduced to architectural and landscape design, and graphic design.(70)

The teacher's classes held in 1935 and 1936 would afford mutual benefits to the project staff and the participants alike. The project staff used the opportunity to disseminate the underlying philosophy of OAEP to a wider 218 audience, and at the same time gleaned valuable information from observations of the reactions and performance of the teachers. The teachers, on the other hand, benefited from being able to observe the theory of OAEP being translated into practice in the community program, while at the same time being able to advance their own knowledge of art educational and psychological theory. In 1935 three classes were offered: 1). Fundamental Principles of Design, 2).

Problems in Art Education, 3). Educational Psychology.

Seventeen teachers enrolled for this program, about half of them being from outside Owatonna. The majority of the participants had enrolled in all three classes, which

Ziegfeld and Smith noted, made it "possible to integrate the course content to a degree that would have been impracticable in a large university."(71) The program held in the summer of 1936 attracted twenty-three participants, the majority of whom were from Minnesota. Two additional classes were offered that year: 1). Art Appreciation, 2).

Further Fundamental Principles of Design. It was obvious from the response to the summer program at large that this could well have been an annual event. But more time and attention needed to be devoted to developing the K-12 curriculum.(72)

There had been a commitment made to the Owatonna school board that the OAEP would develop a program for the town's schools simultaneously with the community program. Yet 219

while the project staff were anxious to incorporate the

concept of art as a way of life into the school's curriculum

immediately, expediency required delaying the introduction

of the project's major educational goals. In the first year

of the re-introduction of art into Owatonna's schools (after an absence of seven years) the curriculum content of the school's program was developed along somewhat traditional

lines in the first instance.(73) In the second year of curriculum development the project staff had the benefit of evidence from the community survey, which gave them a much clearer picture of the attitudes and interests of the community, which it had been agreed would help shape the school program. The community survey revealed some key

information concerning the residents' assumptions surrounding the nature and importance of art in their lives.

Perhaps the most significant from the curriculum developer's point of view was that "although art permeates all areas of living, it becomes most significant and most meaningful when

it touches those areas in which people carry on the greater part of their daily activities."(74) This hypothesis would guide the project staff in the creation of an art curriculum for the schools. For, if one accepted the validity of such an hypothesis, the schools had a responsibility to direct the content of the curriculum to those aspects of daily living with which the students would engage. The OAEP 220 curriculum was constructed on the basis of nine "areas of life."(75)

Individual Industry

Home Printing

School Religion

Community Recreation

Commerce

Clifton Gayne Jr., writing in Design, observed that in adopting such a curriculum structure the OAEP anticipated addressing both a student's art educational and personal development needs. And while one might be forgiven for concluding that such a curriculum would tend to be exclusively attuned to matters of a purely practical nature, this was neither the case nor the intent of the project staff. It was not "a swing from the 'esthetic' to the

'practical' but an integration of both into a well balanced combination, emphasizing the art knowledge, skills, attitudes, and experiences most important to the present day individual."(76) The project staff established ten general objectives for the school program:

1. To develop a well adjusted, integrated personality 2. To experience a creative activity in various art fields, using various tools and media. 3. To develop an awareness and an appreciation of art in the environment 4. To develop the ability to solve everyday art problems 5. To become increasingly interested in improving the environment through the thoughtful solving of art problems 221

6. To become increasingly sensitive to the differences of merit in art products 7. To acquire such knowledge as will aid in appreciating art objects or in solving art problems 8. To develop progressive, open-minded attitudes toward art 9. To develop resourcefulness in leisure-time pursuits and hobbies 10. To have an opportunity to develop unusual talent

The content of the curriculum was structured in such a way as to meet the changing maturity of the student; so, as the students progressed through their schooling the planned art experiences would be responsive to specific needs at particular stages in their maturation. The OAEP curriculum encouraged the fullest integration of art into many aspects of the general curriculum. Art was not just to be considered the province of the specialist art teacher. In

Owatonna the classroom teachers, particularly in the elementary schools, took the major responsibility for teaching art. In the junior and senior high school relatively few students selected art as an elective. But with Ziegfeld and the project staff advising classroom teachers at all grades of ways in which art concepts could be incorporated within their teaching, a much wider audience was reached. Indeed, Hilpert noted that "Over 75% of the total enrollment [of Owatonna's schools] thus had contacts with art in their own classroom.11 (77 )

The curriculum engineered by the project staff in

Owatonna was unabashedly an attempt to create a functional 222

program. By doing so the intention was to bridge the chasm

which separated art from the activities of daily living, a

chasm which the project staff argued contributed to the

lingering perception that the study of art within schools

had only peripheral significance in a student's general

education. For the most part it was considered a curriculum

"frill", and as such, an area of study that though tolerated

could be dispensed with. One of the goals of OAEP was to alter such perceptions. By the project's refusal to adopt and perpetuate an elitist aesthetic, OAEP gave notice that art education could, and must accept its social responsibilities. No longer was it defensible for art educators to frame their curricula purely on the products of an artworld, which was so completely foreign to an

individual's needs and lives:

Art as a cult may be a hindrance rather than an aid to art as a way of life and it clearly seems to be so in many cases. The teacher's art must be that of the broad and crowded avenues of life, the home, the factory, and the market place ... if art is to take its place in the schools as a major and vital instrument of cultural education.(78)

Haggerty's plea indicated his eagerness for art to play a more central role in general education. The shift in curriculum focus implicit in the philosophy of OAEP is

(according to Arthur Efland) one of the significant lessons which can be learned from study of the Depression. For with curriculum strategies such as the OAEP, art education "moved away from the periphery of the curriculum toward the center, 223

and to the extent that the arts were perceived of as part of

that center their relative position is strengthened."(79)

Art education exemplified by the Owatonna project gave the

subject a legitimate claim to a place in the general

education of all students, not only the artistically

talented few.

Cecelia Lois Hawley, writing in 1934 on art education

past, present and future, noted that "Removed from its

'pigeon hole' as a 'draw'rin'[sic] lesson, releases

possibilities for art which were undreamed of twenty years

ago."(80) The OAEP was an initiative in art education which

in its curriculum strategies responded to a designed

environment which could hardly have been imagined some

twenty years before. The 1920's and 1930's were undoubtedly a time when "already a unique art-impress, speaking

unmistakably of the machine and of newly created materials,

is on a thousand things men meet in their daily life."(81)

The Owatonna Art Education Project's significance stems from the fact that such was considered to be the "stuff" of art education curricula.

British Currents: The Council for Art and Industry

At the same time that the Owatonna Art Education

Project was advocating a more functional view of art education, in Britain a number of government committees were examining the relationships between art, industry and education. But while the OAEP project staff were not blind 224

to the social and economic benefits of a more informed

nation of consumers, the motivation which spurred this

curriculum initiative was perhaps somewhat more altruistic

than their British counterparts. For having experienced the

Owatonna program the Americans asked "What potentialities

for individuals happiness would they [students] discover,

what positive pleasure in contemplating the wonders of the

visible world, what confidence in their own abilities, what

a fine sense of responsibility toward the environment in

which they lived."(82) While speculation such as this

would be appropriate for the British student, government was

concerned more about economic benefits. There re-appeared

in Britain in the 1930's concerns for the relevance of art

education content and practice. The Issues being discussed

begged the same questions as were aired a century before to

the 1835 Select Committee on Arts and Manufactures. But

this aside, the Board of Trade Reports reveal a call for art

to become a more integral component of general education.

They also called (as did OAEP) for a broadening of the

content of art education to Include the study of those

utilitarian objects which students most commonly encounter

in the course of their daily activities. Stuart MacDonald

in History and philosophy of art education indicates that in

1931 the Board of Trade concerned about the state of the demand for British products appointed a Committee on Art and

Industry under the chairmanship of Lord Gorell. In 1932 225 that Committee produced the "Report on production and exhibition of articles of good design." And in 1934 the

Board of Trade established the Council for Art and

Industry.(83) In 1935 the Council published the report

"Education for the Consumer"(84) which was produced under the chairmanship of Frank Pick. Pick's report made a correlation between improved standards of British design and

"the choice exercised by the purchasing public."(85) But manufacturers would not, the report surmised, invest in any improvements in design unless it could be proven to be profitable.

It is intriguing to see this argument still holding its own a century after a witness before the 1835 Select

Committee on Arts and Manufactures had admitted that he could "frequently sell bad articles, bad in execution and design, for the same money I could sell the best."(86) The circumstances were similar for British manufacturers of the

1930's: there was little incentive to be concerned with matters of design, but as the report indicated, an improvement in the standards of taste brought about by good art education could well change that situation. The education of the consumer was viewed as being of vital importance to the health of British manufacturing industry.

In Art a Wav of Life Haggerty drew very similar conclusions:

An improved public taste, stimulated in part by competitive attempts of industry to promote sales through more interesting and more attractive designs of 226

manufactured products, has become critical of articles for sale. ... They have come to know that "sales value" of the better product, and the radically Improved design of many of the products of industry bids fair to revolutionize great areas of our economic life. It has become even during the desperate years of the depression, a powerful psychological lever In the competitive Industrial struggle.(87)

In Britain, the Committee argued similarly, and recommended that Improvements urgently be made in art education, particularly at the elementary school level, as

it was from here that the largest pool of potential consumers would enter the market place. While the Report was commissioned primarily to provide evidence of art education's impact on industry, the Committee noted that "We are not unmindful that Art as aesthetic appreciation and expression is indispensible in life."(88) Art did not, however, play that significant a role in the general education of most British students. For, in an educational system where curriculum content was largely determined by university entrance examinations, art was considered to have only marginal value. But, as the project in Owatonna had shown, the stature of art education in schools could be improved if it could be proven to directly affect the activities of daily living. Likewise, in Britain the

Council for Art and Industry argued for a more all encompassing definition of what could be considered appropriate content for art education. It was proposed that a shift should be made from artistic production to the 227 making of informed judgments. If this were to happen the

Committee argued art education would become relevant to both the potential manual worker and the professional:

All are called upon, daily, to choose between what is good and less good in matters of shape and colour and workmanship, and to take action, either as individuals or as members of the community, which will affect their whole environment. The choice of clothes, of house, of furniture, the use of colour, all call for understanding and discrimination for which education is helpful and indeed necessary.(89)

It is very evident from the Owatonna project and the

Council for Art and Industry Report that on both sides of the Atlantic there were strong feelings that art education needed to adopt a more functional posture. Both sought a fuller integration of art into the mainstream of general education. Both urged that in order to meet the needs of students and be of value to society as a whole the historical focus of attention would have to shift from "an ethereal world of art," which Haggerty argued was an "abyss which would confine the mass of mankind within a non-art world."(90) Art education had a responsibility to deal with the realities of daily existence. Objects of daily life should be the locus of art education. In Owatonna it had been found that students "became enthusiastically interested in .... ordinary products such as stoves and vacuum cleaners, typewriters, furniture and tableware."(91) It was also considered to be extremely important that actual objects be introduced into the classroom; and this was seen 228 as "a matter of some urgency"(92) by the Council for Art and

Industry. Many of the recommendations made to the Board of

Trade could well have been extracted from material produced

for the Owatonna Art Education Project, as an extract from

Pick's Report clearly indicates:

As we have already stated, the chief aim of Art teaching in elementary and secondary schools should be the training of appreciation, and if this training is not related to the child's personal experience, to the things that he sees in the shops, in the streets and in his home it will be devoid of reality. Yet there has grown up an unquestioning dependence on pictures as the means of illustration to the exclusion of other equally important means. While pictures are useful, they represent only one phase of Art, and too much significance can be attached to them to the neglect of common objects equally deserving of thought and consideration.(93) 229

NOTES: CHAPTER IV

(1)June King McFee. 1987. "Art and Society." In Issues in Discipline-Based Art Education: Strengthening the Stance, Extending the Horizons. (Los Angeles: The Getty Center for Education in the Arts),109. An invitational seminar, sponsored by the Getty Center for Education in the Arts, Cincinnati, Ohio, May 21-24, 1987.

(2)Ibid.

(3)Arthur Efland. 1987. Art Education in the Twentieth Century: A History of Ideas. (The Ohio State University) Photocopy.

(4)Paul Goodman. 1960. Growing Up Absurd. (New York: Vantage Books),216.

(5)Frederick Logan. 1955. Growth of Art in American Schools. (New York: Harper Brothers),186.

(6)Department of the Interior, Bureau of Education. 1919. "Industrial Art a National Asset." Industrial Education Circular No.3. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office).

(7)Ibid.,9.

(8)Ibid.

(9)Ibid.,24.

(10)United Kingdom. Sessional Papers. "Department of Practical Art First Report." Vol liv, (1852-53) (Illinois:Readex),2. Microcard

(11)Industrial Art a National Asset,18.

(12)Department of the Interior, Bureau of Education. 1923. "Art as a Vocation." Industrial Education Circular. No.20. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office). 230

(13)George R. Schaeffer. 1923. "Art as Related to Commerce and Industry." In Department of the Interior, Bureau of Educational Circular No.20. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office),6.

(14)Ellsworth Woodward. 1923. "Making Future Artists and Designers." In Department of the Interior, Bureau of Education, Industrial Education Circular No.20. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office),14.

(15)Jane Betsy Welling, 1923. "Suggestions on Art Education for Elementary Education." In Department of the Interior Bureau of Education Industrial Education Circular No.21. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office),4.

(16)Ibid.,6.

(17)P J. Lemos. 1923. "Pilgrim Art: Early American Industrial Art." The School Arts Magazine. 23(3):131.

(18)Ibid.

(19)Welling, Suggestions On Art Education,7.

(20)Ibid.,8.

(21)Esther A. Bensley, 1924. "The Art and Industrial Arts Plan for New York State." The School Arts Magazine. 23(10):614

(22)Sean, Dennis. Cashman. 1989. America in the Twenties and Thirties: The Olympian Age of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. (New York: New York University Press.),42.

(23)Ibid.

(24)Welling. Suggestions On Art Education,9.

(25)Arthur, Efland. 1983. "Art Education During the Great Depression." Art Education, 36(6):39.

(26)Ibid.

(27)Bensley, Art and Industrial Arts,619.

(28)Richard F. Bach, 1924. "Art in Industry." The School Arts Magazine. 23(5):273.

(29)Ibid. 231

(30)Efland, Art Education in the Twentieth Century,12.

(31)Ibid,2.

(32)Ibid,9.

(33)Stephen Mark. Dobbs. 1971. "The Paradox of Art Education in the Public Schools: A Brief History of Influences." Paper presented at AERA annual meeting, New York.

(34)Logan, Growth in American schools,186.

(35)Robert J. Saunders. 1985 "Owatonna: Art Education's Camelot." In History of Art Education: Proceedings from the Penn State Conference, edited by Brent Wilson and Harlan Hoffa. (Reston: National Art Education Assocation),152.

(36)Kerry Freedman. 1989. "The Philanthropic Vision: The Owatonna Art Project as an Example of 'Private' Interests in Public Schooling." Studies in Art Education, 31(1)15-26.

(37)Ibid.,25

(38)Edwin Ziegfeld, and Mary Elinore Smith. 1944. Art for Daily Living: The Story of the Owatonna Art Education Project. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press),4. Publication No.4. The Owatonna Art Education Project.

(39)Ibid.,4 .

(40)Howard J. Savage. 1953. Fruit of an Impulse: Forty-Five Years of the Carnegie Foundation 1905-1950. (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company),228.

(41)Saunders, Owatonna: Art Education's "Camelot,"153.

(42)Savage, Fruit of an Impulse,229.

(43)Ibid.,228.

(44)Melvin E. Haggerty. 1935. Art a Way of Life. (Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press),6. A publication of The Owatonna Art Education Project.

(45)Rene d 'Harnoncourt, 1932. "Art and the People: Knowledge and Appreciation." The American Magazine of Art, 25(6):321 232

(46)"Review of Machine Art" by Philip Johnson. Parnassus 6(5) '.21, 1934 October.

(47)Felix, Payant. 1935. "Editorial." Design. 37:np.

(48)Haggerty, Art a Way of Life,8.

(49)Ibid.

(50)Ibid.,13.

(51)Ibid.,20.

(52)Ibid.,30-31.

(53)M E Haggerty. 1935. "Owatonna." Journal of Adult Education. 7(3):311. Abstract of an address made at the 10th Annual Meeting of the American Association of Adult Education - Milwaukee May 20-22 1935, at the General Session on Public Schools as Adult Centers.

(54)Edgar Bruce Wesley. 1938. Owatonna: The Social Development of a Minnesotta Community. (Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press),157.

(55)Ibid.

(56)Robert Hilpert. 1934. "A Method of Community Study as a Basis for Curriculum Construction." Education (lv)4:212.

(57)Ziegfeld & Smith, Art for Daily Living,60.

(58)Ibid,6. Quotation taken from: Melvin E. Haggerty. 1934 The Owatonna Art Education Project. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota),1-2.

(59)Ibid,6.

(60)Ibid,16.

(61)Ibid,25.

(62)Edwin Ziegfeld. 1935. "What Has Happened in Owatonna." Journal of Adult Education. 7(3):313. Abstract of an address made at the 10th Annual Meeting of the American Association of Adult Education - Milwaukee May 20-22. 233

(63)Robert S. Hilpert. 1935. "What Has Happened in Owatonna." Journal of Adult Education. 7(3):312. Abstract of remarks made at 10th Annual Meeting of the American Association of Adult Education - Milwaukee May 20-22.

(64)Ibid.

(65)Ziegfeld & Smith, Art for Daily Living,31.

(66)Ibid,36

(67)Ibid,36-37.

(68)The Art Digest, 1935. "An Experiment". (August 1st),25.

(69)Ziegfeld & Smith, Art for Daily Living,40.

(70)Ibid,40-41.

(71)Ibid,43.

(72)Ibid,44.

(73)Ibid,61.

(74)Ibid,62.

(75)Clifton Gayne, Jr. 1943. "The Owatonna Art Education Project." Design. April, 20.

(76)Ibid.

(77)Hilpert, A Method of Community Study,213.

(78)Haggerty, Art a Way of Life,43.

(79)Efland, Art Education During the Depression,41.

(80)Cecelia Lois Hawley, 1934. "Art Education: Yesterday - Today - Tomorrow." Education. lv(4):210.

(Sl)Sheldon Cheney. 1936. "Industry Challenges Education." Design. 37:41. April.

(82)Ziegfeld and Smith, Art for Daily Living,153.

(83)Stuart MacDonald. 1970. The History and Philosophy of Art Education. (New York: American Elsevier Publishing Company),302. 234

(84)Council for Art and Industry. 1935. Education for the Consumer. (London: HMSO).

(85)Ibid. , 7.

(86)United Kingdom. Sessional Papers. "Arts and Manufactures," Select Committee Report., 1835 vol 5. (Illinois: Readex Microprint),53.

(87)Haggerty, Art a Way of Life,17.

(88)Council for Art and Industry, Education for the Consumer,9.

(89)Ibid.,20.

(90)Haggerty, A Way of Life,24.

(91)Ziegfeld and Smith, Art for Daily Living,65.

(92)Council for Art and Industry, Education for the Consumer,37.

(93)Ibid,.32. CHAPTER V

THE OBJECT OF UTILITY

MATTERS OF PERCEPTION MATTERS OF STATUS

The underlying assumption of this study is that

utilitarian objects do have aesthetic value. This

assumption begs a number of important questions. Are there

any clearly identifiable characteristics, considerations, or

conditions of an object that set it apart as an aesthetic

object? How can one, from the fullest panorama of

human-made objects, separate the aesthetic from the

non-aesthetic? Can a chair, for instance, be considered an

aesthetic object? If it can, what (if any) aesthetic value does it have? In essence the quest which is defined by

these questions is one intended to provide a rationale which would support the serious study of the utilitarian object in art education.

Where ought one to begin one's investigation? Should

one first seek to identify an object's intrinsic qualities?

Might it be more profitable to peruse the mode of the

object's presentation? How important are the sociological and cultural contexts which bring the aesthetic object to

our attention? Perhaps an examination of the processes of

235 236

the beholder's perception might be a more fruitful for our

purposes? The avenues of inquiry are palpably

interrelated. The questions are deceptively complex. It

would be only the most cavalier among us who would fail to

recognize that worthwhile answers (if there be an answer at all) would be achieved through circumspect analysis of

philosophical, psychological, and sociological tenets.

The determination of the nature of the aesthetic object

is, of course, essential to the process of selection of appropriate objects for study in art education. Any

justification for the study of the utilitarian object cannot avoid consideration of its aesthetic value. Is it, for

instance, of value that one is able to respond to the characteristics of an object which have no direct link to utility? Is such aesthetic value only of benefit to an

Individual in a very private way, or does it contribute to the well being of society at large? Is the aesthetic value of a utilitarian object in non-artworld contexts significantly different from that In artworld contexts.?

The exploration of the aesthetic value of the utilitarian object must Inevitably take account of duality of the concept of function as it relates to the object of utility.

A chair, for instance, can be designed to be functional (sat in) with no attention to it being considered a work of art. It can also be created to function as a chair and a work of art. Further, there are contexts where 237

the functional chair (designed to be sat in) is rendered

non-functional, by contexts of exhibition. A chair, though

having the potential to be functional (to be sat in), may be

deliberately designed to be non-functional (to be looked at

and not sat in). In such circumstances aesthetic value and

function are very much interrelated entities.

The focus of this inquiry is the object itself and the

contexts which affect our perception of it. The

investigation will explore a multiplicity of interrelated

perspectives: those of the aesthetician, the critic, the

historian, the psychologist, the designer, the maker, and

others who could contribute to a better understanding of the

exact nature of the aesthetic object. The scope of the

inquiry will be enhanced by relating, where possible,

theoretical propositions to an examination of an exemplar

object, namely a chair. The exploration will be an

interweaving of ideas and personal encounters with chairs in

functional and non-functional contexts.

Matters of Definition

The question of what, if any, characteristics ought to

be present in an object for it to be called an aesthetic

object is in much aesthetic theory conjoined with proposals

for a definition of art, the term "aesthetic object" is

sometimes deliberately used to avoid providing an absolute definition of art. Monroe Beardsley does provide a baseline definition: 238

An artwork is an arrangement of conditions intended to be capable of affording an experience with marked aesthetic character -- that is an object (loosely speaking) in the fashioning of which the intention to enable it to satisfy the aesthetic interest played a significant causal part.(l)

It might appear that such a definition would severely limit

the possibility of certain objects from being considered

•'artworks.11 The focus on intentionality would appear to

eliminate much of what humans make. Beardsley does,

however, open the door to a larger category system, and he

argues that his definition "does not entail ... that other

things besides artworks (natural and technological objects)

cannot afford experiences with marked aesthetic character,

i.e., cater to the aesthetic interest to some degree"(2)

While appearing to give some consideration to a more all embracing definition of the aesthetic object, the focus of this aesthetic theory still seems rooted in the maintenance of the traditional distinctions between "fine art" and "aesthetic object." Beardsley presents five characteristics which, he argues, enable one to separate aesthetic objects from other things: (1) The Artist's

Intention, (2) The Perceptual and The Physical, (3)

Phenomenal Objectivity, (4) The Object and Its

Presentations, and (5) The Range of Critical Statements.

These categories, however, ultimately do no more than provide a framework of conditions which the beholder should take into account when confronting an object. They can be 239

used as frames of reference with which one might approach

any object, but they disclose little about the inherent

qualities of the object itself. This theoretical

proposition is primarily concerned with determining

relevance during any interaction between beholder and

object.

Derek Clifford, in Art and Understanding examines the

notion that works of art are "created by man for the sake,

apparently, of their appearances and which have no

ostensible purpose other than that inherent in our

perceptual reaction to them.11 (3) But this classification,

he agrees, fails to provide one with a determination for

those utilitarian objects which one admires sufficiently to

call them works of art. "The essential factor lies in the

way they are looked at ... it follows that even if an object

is created with a purely functional intention it may become

a work of art if we strip it of its function and regard only

its appearance."(4) Being able to encounter a utilitarian

object and yet be able to separate appearance from function may demand the highest order of perceptual control. Kenneth

Marantz in "Visual Education and the Human Experience" develops an hypothesis on the nature of the aesthetic object which is similar to that argued by Clifford. He suggests that "the significance of an object or an event is not the

function of the object alone."(5)

What a work of art communicates can be described 240

only in terms of interaction between an object and a subject, it communicates nothing at all unless someone is there to look at it. In other words, there are no aesthetic objects, only physical objects, which when observed, are capable of stimulating an aesthetic event.(6)

The search for definitions of the aesthetic object in terms of absolutes appears to be a near fruitless task. Art

is deemed by Morris Weitz to be an open concept: "new conditions (cases) have constantly arisen and will undoubtedly constantly arise ... which will demand decisions

... as to whether the concept should be extended or not."(7)

Weitz's proposal of an "open concept" has the advantage of being sufficiently flexible a definition to prevent untimely foreclosure on how a specific object may or may not be classified. In reality, however, conventions do, more often than not, determine the classification of human-made things.

The archaeologist and the anthropologist, for instance, tend to be primarily concerned with the classification of objects by use. Art historians, on the other hand appear to be concerned with separating the aesthetic from the useful.

George Kubler argues that the line between these two polarities is often difficult to draw. There are, he argues, often inevitable overlaps, and the separation between the two is almost at times indistinguishable.(8)

The transfer of expressive characteristics to the products which humans make will occur regardless of whether the object is designed to meet utilitarian requirements. It 241 was Kubler's belief that there was a continuum on which both utility and art were located, and that "the pure extremes are only in our imagination, human products always incorporate both utility and art in varying mixtures, and no object is conceivable without the admixture of both."(9) In that the human-made object inevitably carries with it the imprint of its maker, it has the potency to reveal much about who we were, and who we are. John Kouwenhoven in Half a Truth is Better Than None, a series of essays dealing with material culture, discusses how "direct sensory awareness of

... venacular objects provides an important kind of knowledge about American culture."(10)

The issue that is of interest to us here is to do with the fact that when we make things, since we do so with conscious intent, not through simple instinct, we embody in those things the forms that will be the intake of whoever comes upon them.(11)

Gillo Dorfles argues that "it is beyond doubt that still today man tends always to invest his objects of common use with some sort of aesthetic value," and that:

The primitive utensil (sharpened flint, hand axe, arrow knife) or the most refined precision instrument (compass, microscope, transistor) each possesses a twofold aspect: that of being invested with specific •function' ... and that of 'containing;' summing up, representing that function by means of an external aspect which has to assume a more or less constant characteristic and which amounts to an 'aesthetic' aspect.(12)

It is still common in contemporary Western society for the "object of use" to be denied significance, merely because it performs a utilitarian function. The separation 242 between art and the objects of everyday use is, in the history of things, a relatively new concept. The rift was certainly fueled by the emergence of an industrial technology, which separated the hand-made from the machine-made. The Greeks knew no such division, and their term "techne" made no distinction between what we call the artist and the craftsperson. We have, however, grown increasingly to be the children of a technological age, so much so, that "today two sides of culture have split wide apart."(13) The disjunction of art from the utilitarian object continues to allow for the promotion of the status of the former, at the expense of the latter. The compartmentalization of art and artifacts is something quite foreign to many other cultures who afford considerable respect for the utilitarian object. The Asante peoples of

Africa highly revere the "Golden Stool," believing that it

"houses the spirit of our unity."(14) Roy Sieber in African

Furniture and Household Objects observes that the Golden

Stool is an example of how a:

utilitarian object can through successive levels of meaning that may be attached to it, arrive at a far remove from 'ordinary' furniture. Indeed one aspect of the Golden Stool is that no one, not even the Asanthene, can sit on it: symbolic meaning has completely transmorgnified mundane use.(15)

In our society, however, the myth continues, (and is perpetuated by art education), that there is a class of things existing which are alone the pinnacle of human 243

artistic endeavor. Objects created purely for aesthetic

experience are deemed to be significantly more valuable than

those which were designed for utilitarian purposes. This

stance eliminates the "steam locomotive, the Wealth of

Nations, a menu, a Zunl rain dance, a kitchen stove ... [as] aesthetic objects, because they were not produced by an

'aesthetic motive.'"(16) But such a definition makes the assumption that there is no aesthetic motive in the

practical domain; and Beardsley contends, that "if we can weigh the value of a Mondrian painting, why not the top of a

Kleenex box? ... a modern chair?"(17)

Aesthetic motive can surely not be attributed solely to

the non-utilitarian object. Once one accepts the possibility that this is not so, once "the intellectual - emotional motive is eliminated, so is the difference between the painter and the potter."(18) It is very evident in contemporary craft, for instance, that any proposal that the work of the craftsperson should be held in lesser regard than that of the "artist," merely because of the craft object's utility would be untenable. Increasingly the craftspeople of today have been released (or have freed themselves) from the requirements and restrictions of utility. Rose Silvka in "The Art/Craft Connection," argues that the craftsperson, unfettered by a primary responsibility to functionality, has been enabled to create objects which "emanate and invoke power and magic."(19) 244

This spiritual concern is most apparent in the chairs of

Margaret Wharton, who Rose Silvka suggests, "craetes her own subjects through a kind of incarnation of chair to personage of compelling spirit."(20) Wharton's journey beyond the utility of the craft object is an adventure not all craftspersons would be willing to make.

In the work of the Arts and Crafts Movement, the aesthetic of the object was inextricably linked to the harmony of material, form, and function. The Movement, spearheaded by William Morris in England, sought a new integrity in the relationship between maker, object, and consumer. Gustav Stickley, one of the most ardent Timer lean advocates of this craft aesthetic, argued:

The sole consideration at the basis of design must be the thing itself and not its ornamentation. It must be a chair, a table, a bookcase or a bed that fills its mission of usefulness as well as it possibly can; it must be well-proportioned and honestly constructed, as beautifully finished as possible for the wood of which it was made, and as stable, commodius or comfortable as would be required in a perfect thing of its kind.(21)

I contend that the major determining factor as to whether an object is considered an aesthetic object is a question of how it is perceived. One's "attitude" toward an object is part of an individual and collective dynamic, which enables certain objects to be identified as being aesthetic. Attitude theory suggests that "if we take up an aesthetic attitude toward something, we perceive it in isolation from other things. When we put aside ordinary 245

practical Interests, we dwell on the object's whole nature

and character."(22) I£ one accepts the notion that the

beholder's attitude Is a contributory dimension In the

promotion of certain objects as aesthetic objects, it is

logical that "of course, some objects will more likely to be

approached with aesthetic interest than others ... a

Brancusi more than a baseball bat ... "(23)

Institutional Forces

But what are the institutional forces that determine

which objects are to be regarded as aesthetic objects? The

"artworld" (a term generally accepted to have been coined by

Arthur Danto), is one of a number of social systems which

confer or deny an object art status.(24) This institutional

process demands that a number of conditions be met before

investiture of status can be accorded: "to see something as

art requires something that the eye cannot descry - - an

atmosphere of artistic theory, a knowledge of history of

art: an artworId."(25) It is the umbrella of an

institutional theory of art which enables such provocative

works as Marcel Duchamp's 'Fountain', to be considered as art. This, in the face of negative criticism, which

believed it to be no more than a piece of industrial

sanitary ceramics. Duchamp recognized the importance of the

involvement of both the artist and the beholder to the

process of investiture:

I believe very strongly in the 'medium' aspect of the 2 46

artist. The artist makes something, then one day, he is recognized by the intervention of the public, of the spectator; so later, it's a product of two poles - - there's the pole of the one who makes the work, and the pole who looks at it. I will give the latter as much importance as the one who makes it.(26)

Duchamp's observation regarding those factors which contribute to an object's ultimate status does not only apply to those things which were created purely to elicit an aesthetic response. The utilitarian object can, it is argued, be viewed as an aesthetic object, if the viewer is prepared to respond to it and disregard utility. "African spoons were nothing at the time when they were made, they were simply functional, later they became beautiful things

'works of art'."(27) In such circumstances there had been no change in the physical nature of the object, but the beholder's response had altered. And once objects, such as spoons, have been seen in a museum or gallery setting, the viewer's future frames of reference would now include a new set of "authorized" objects. As with spoons, so has it been with a diverse range of things. "Selected machines, machine parts, scientific instruments and objects useful in ordinary life from the point of view that, though usefulness is an essential, appearance has at least as great value"(28) were exhibited at The Museum of Modern Art's, 1934, landmark

"Machine Art Exhibition." The exhibition was a seminal influence in the shaping of people's conceptions of what could be considered an aesthetic object. It played a vital 247

educational role in drawing attention to the aesthetic value

of the ordinary things associated with everyday living.

MOMA's actions marked a move toward museum's accepting the

notion of social responsibility. T. R. Adam in his book The

Museum and Popular Culture, observes:

More recently the growth of the industrial art movement stemming in part from the Museum of Modern Art in New York, has attacked the hampering distinction between fine arts and practical arts. If this development becomes general throughout art museums, one of the last barriers to a practical social evaluation of artistic culture will have been broken down.(29)

The Museum of Modern Art's decision to exhibit examples of those objects we are likely to encounter in the course of our daily lives, presents one with a number of questions:

"why should such things be prized?" "where does their value reside?" and "what, if any value is there for the beholder of such things?" Attitude theorists suggest that when we are able to transcend practical perception, we have created the necessary conditions for a aesthetic experience. But is the aesthetic experience an essential element of human consciousness? Matthew Lipman in "The Physical Thing in

Aesthetic Experience" marvels at the way in which an inanimate object can produce in the beholder such profound states of pleasure. And to understand the nature of these occurrences:

It is necessary to probe into its unseen springs, the world of the primitive, the world of the child, the mysterious magical world where things, possessed of mighty powers, can bewitch us if we so much as think of them, or touch them, however gently with our hands.(30) 248

It is certainly extraordinary how particular objects

can be such potent causes of an aesthetic experience. The

furniture of Charles Rennie Mackintosh (Plate IX ) a Winsor

chair (Plate X) and Shaker chairs, are for me such magical

things. From my first encounter with a Shaker chair

exhibited at the American Museum in Bath, England, a

communion has been establish between myself and this

elegantly simple utilitarian object. But is my response

governed purely by my admiration of the chair's physical

properties?

Consider a Shaker chair: four posts, three slats, a handful of stretchers, a few yards of woolen tape for the seat. It could hardly be more simply made, but look more closely at this product of an unhurried hand. The proportions were chosen with care. The posts are slender, no thicker than needed for strength. You can lift this chair with a finger. The slats increase slightly in height as they rise, as does the space between them, so that the back seems to float above the seat and legs.(31)

Or am I, in some subconscious way, in tune to some degree to the aesthetic which pervades both the spiritual and physical lives of those who created and used this

furniture. "Set not your hearts upon worldly objects ... but

let this be your labor, to keep a spiritual sense."(32) Is

there some commonalty in my own aesthetic sensibility which

links my appreciation of a Shaker chair with William Morris'

Sussex armchair? (Plate XI) Just what are those allusive

factors which contribute to aesthetic value, and what are

the dynamics of the interaction between object and beholder? 249

Plate IX Hill House chair. Charles Rennie Mack intosh. 250

Plate X. Winsor chair. 251

Plate XI. William Morris Sussex armchair 252

•'How could it have come about that man should take so keen,

one may say so obsessive an interest in the dumb, inhuman

things which surround him on every side?"(33) In such

encounters the experience is fulfilling in, and of, itself.

Its value is isolated from other concerns, and the beholder does not expect any external advantage. The aesthetic

object causes one to suspend our "predatory regard for

things,"(34) in favor of absorbing qualities that the object alone possesses.

But why should we have interrupted these processes of sheer utility to notice in each thing a quality of its own, and rightfully so, not bestowed gratuitously upon it? Even the utility of a thing, being one of its properties, can be enjoyed. Think of how one can be stopped by perceiving a mere shape or a sound, stopped and held by it, not because it presages some pleasant eventuatlon not yet in sight, but because it is so fully and completely satisfying in itself ... Such happenings are the matrix of the attitude which men take towards the products of their own arts. With the addition of the element of human intelligence, the thing acquires a new significance, and we are compelled to seek the sources of the meanings which we are certain it contains.(35)

Matters of Value

Marcia Eaton in Basic Issues in Aesthetics constructs a definition of aesthetic value which places it alongside other value systems adopted by society. True aesthetic value must, she argues, be the result of the direct sensory experience of an object. And matters such as economics, history, culture, religion, and ethics are potential inhibitors to such direct experience. The aesthetic experience, she writes, cannot be the by-product of another 253 agenda. What, then, does one make of the chair made by

Gerrit Rietveld, auctioned in 1987 for $98,354? Could the price tag be a block to aesthetic experience? The

Australian National Gallery which purchased it, one must speculate, would acknowledge that they now had an aesthetic object in their possession.(36) External contexts, however,

Eaton contends, make it extremely difficult for the beholder to engage any object without regard to contextual factors:

The spectator-critic in any of the arts needs gifts precisely the opposite of moralists; he needs to suspend his natural sense of purpose and significance. To hold attention still upon any thing is unnatural; normally we take the objects - - whether perceived by sight, touch, hearing, or any combination of these senses - - as signs of possible action and as instances of some usable kind we look through them to their possible uses and classify them by their uses than by sensuous similarities.(37)

While scholars pronounce a theory of inherent aesthetic value which requires that the focus on the object be divorced from the life experiences, there are others who argue that "even the utility of the thing, being one of its properties, can be enjoyed."(38) Beardsley develops this concept and establishes what he denotes as,

"function-classes."(39) Within this category of things there exist those objects which are constructed to serve a particular purpose, a purpose which they do significantly better than other similar classes of objects. "Chair is a function-class, and desk chair is also a function class, since there is a purpose that desk chairs serve better than 254

other types."(40) Performance could, if one is prepared to

accept Lipman and Beardsley's proposals, be a significant

element in assessing the aesthetic value of a utilitarian

object.

The Aesthetics of Utility: The Chair

The relationship of form to function has clearly

established an aesthetic of utility. "Form follows

function," a term coined by the American architect Louis

Sullivan, has been the banner under which this philosophy has been articulated. Much value can be gained from an analysis of the tension which exists between the function that an object has to perform and the form given to it by

its maker. New materials provide designers with new challenges. Tim Benton and Aaron Scharf, when discussing the chairs of the 1920's, recall that "the excitement generated by the possibilities inherent in these materials helped to confirm designers in their belief that a chair could be a really creative work ... a work of art."(41)

Mies van der Rohe's 'Barcelona chair' (Plate XII ) is a superb example of how furniture expressed an aesthetic derived from new materials and technologies. It was a chair which was also clearly intended to signify more than mere function. "The chair had to be important, it had to seem elegant and costly, it had to be monumental. In those circumstances, you just couldn't use a kitchen chair."(42)

Mies van der Rohe's 'Barcelona chair' and Marcel Breuer's 255

Plate XII. Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe. "Barcelona" Chair. 1929. Chrome-plated flat steel bars with pigskin cushions, 29 7/8 x 29 1/2 x 29 5/8". Collection, The Museum of Modern Art. Photograph courtsey, The Museum of Modern Art, New York XIII. Marcel Breuer. "Wassily" Chair. Manufacturer: Knoll. Photograph courtsey, Knoll. 257

•Wassily chair' (Plate XIII) are prime examples of functional objects which "helped to confirm designers in their belief that a chair could be a really creative work - a work of art, in fact."(43) They have since become icons of the Modern Movement. As originals, chairs such as these, command extremely high prices; they grace the internal architecture of the corporate world, the homes of the wealthy and they stand nobly in the rarefied air of the museum of art. "The chair has come to stand for wider values rather than simply a piece of furniture. It is a symbol, a marker for the aesthetic or technical position."(44)

If the 1920's and 1930's was the age of "nickel-plated- tubing," the 1950's and 1960's was the "age of plastic". The designs of this period, though, owe much to the earlier revolutionary design concepts of American designer Charles

Eames. It was Eames who in 1948 first produced the fiberglass-reinforced plastic armchair which Sylvia Katz argues "has been imitated to the point of cliche."(45)

What Eames has shown is that it is possible to exploit the highest available levels of industrial production to whatever ends are considered correct within a design context; that in other words the machine can be controlled, and that, through its use, a designed world can be created in which choice, the delight of visual wit and a high appropriateness between form and use are all possible.(46)

The influence of Charles Eames can be seen in the work of British designer, Robin Day. The ubiquitous 'Polyprop chair' (Plate XIV) is an object which has become very much Plate XIV. Robin Day. Polvprop chair. 259 a part of our daily lives. Its familiarity undoubtedly overshadows any real consideration of its aesthetic qualities. How many people, for instance, would think to examine the chair in relationship to "fine art”? Product design and fine art continue to be considered separate realms. The Institute of Contemporary Art, however, suggest that "there is a clear connection between the gentle curves of Eames,(Plate XV) Day, and others, [chairs] and the art of

Miro or Calder.”(47) The 'Polyprop chair,' as unassumingly functional as it might first appear, could also be the catalyst of debate concerning the ability of a utilitarian object to express a political statement in visual form.

In the 1960s, Harold Wilson's white heat of the technological years, experimentation for the sake of experiment was, for once, actively encouraged. It opened an opportunity for an unprecedented questioning of what furniture was. The anti-materialist spirit of the times questioned the validity of concentration on furniture as a status symbol. There was a burst of interest in using design in the rhetorical sense to try to challenge the traditional idea of permanence and solidity that furniture was seen to represent.(48)

Exploration of the chair provides an opportunity to investigate the aesthetics of form, utility, and the combination of these elements. The chair can be assessed in terms of its position within the function-class, in which instances perhaps the major consideration is relative fitness for purpose. The consideration as to the chair's functionality is however seldom made without reference to the aesthetics of the design solution. But what of those 260

Plate XV. Charles Eames. Dining Chair. 1946. Molded walnut plywood, steel rods, rubber shock-mounts, 29 1/2" h. Collection, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photograph courtesy, The Museum of Modern Art, New York 261 chaicmakers (artists, designers, and craftspersons) whose primary consideration is not utility? There are chairs which are definitely non-functional (not intended to be sat on). Roger Williams' chairs are such objects. His chair

(Plate XVI), which holds some resemblance to Marcel Breuer's

'African chair' 1921, reflects in its painterly surface,

(the artist argues), the energy of East Village New York.

Graffiti tags copied from the street become integrated within a sculptural form. The chair has been created to encapsulate the dynamics of the cultural forces of the city.

While having all the attributes of a work of art, it could also be sat on, and still retains an essential chairness.

Is it a utilitarian object, or is it art? Williams seems a little unsure. "People are buying them as art, and looking at them because they need a chair; but they didn't buy them because they needed a chair, they wanted something to look at." While the artist admits it is possible for people to sit on them, he would prefer that people "perhaps look at them and talk about them." Other artists' work is not so ambiguous; Scott Burton's art furniture:

challenges the art community with neglect of its social responsibility, which he understands to constitute, at least in part, a reform of the visual quality of the environment, as well as making the public aware of their stakes in the environment. Carefully calculated for use, often in public spaces, Burton's furniture has social function.(49)

The chair is indeed an intriguing object; it has the capacity to evoke its own practicality; yet it also can be Plate XVI. Roger Williams. Chair. 263 expressive of other concerns. "Artists who delved into the furniture form recognized that a variety of 'serious' messages concerning real-life issues could be effectively delivered aboard this approachable vehicle."(50) The chair

is able to straddle practical and aesthetic domains. It is an object which provides the beholder with a constant challenge to perception. It can be admired for its utility, but it can be beheld purely in terms of visual form alone.

Huub Mous on the occasion of the exhibition ''Het meubel verbeld'' (Furniture as Art) argues that in both instances visual quality plays a significant role. The perception of it is, though, he argues dependent on the contexts of intentionality.

The visual quality of design furniture lies in the way it Is designed as furniture, and as such refers to an assigned value. The visual quality of artist's furniture or furniture sculpture, though, lies in the object itself and as such refers to an intrinsic value.(51) Perceptual gymnastics

The chair's potential for being perceived on several levels provides the beholder with an intriguing conundrum.

It is one which challenges our understanding of the relationships among form, function, and aesthetic value. At times it would appear to be all but impossible to disconnect oneself sufficiently from its practical associations in order to absorb visual form for its own sake. The divorce of designed usefulness from inherent visual poetry would Plate XVII. Robin Day. Polvprop stackable chair 265

Plate XVIII. Rodney Kinsman. "Omstack 266 require a degree of perceptual selectiveness of the highest order. And it may well be argued that the aesthetic value of the object, in fact, resides in its capacity to elicit a synthesis of these elements. The question of whether perception can support the utilitarian and the poetic simultaneously is, however, problematic. Discussion of

"aesthetic attitude" and "disinterested attention" which are at the core of attitude theory may well reveal whether there

is a plausible solution to the quandary.

What does one perceive when one beholds the stackable chairs of Robin Day (Plate XVII) or Rodney Kinsman's

'Omstack* (Plate XVIII) Dormer suggests that while they

[stackable chairs] are "not an object redolent with metaphor

... attention to requirements of ease of stacking, lightweight and durability has provided two or three design classics."(52) Even at what might appear the most banal level, a chair whose visual form is defined to a great extent by functional requirements, the restraints of economics, and mass-production, can still result in the most elegant of design solutions. These chairs, while still serving the purpose for which they were designed and manufactured, achieve status within their function class.

In assessing the feasibility of objects being able to be perceived simultaneously as being utilitarian and aesthetic, it becomes Increasingly probable that the beholder, not the object, holds the key to the puzzle. 267

There is an argument that when one selectively eliminates certain things from phenomenal view, In favor of concentrating on others, one is engaging in "aesthetic perception." In such circumstances we look beyond the purposefulness of the object. In preparation for limiting our perceptual range, Jerome Stolnitz argues, that we adopt an "aesthetic attitude." This stance, he contends "guides our attention in those directions relevant to our purposes

... It prepares us to respond to what we perceive, to act in a way we think will be most effective for achieving our goals."(53)

It is unlikely that in our ordinary perception we distance ourselves sufficiently from considering the utility of objects to benefit from aesthetic experience. Harold

Osborne concurs, arguing that it is all too rare that an object's intrinsic qualities cause us to consider these alone. However, there are occasions when "we artificially restrict the range and attention, and within a closely circumscribed area we attend to the intrinsic qualities of our sensations rather than our practical message."(54) This perceptual cartwheel does, however, require a great deal of mastery; for "to perceive coherently in this way is more difficult ... because it cuts across deeply engrained habits of practical life."(55) It seems evident that particularly in the perception of the utilitarian object, one is confronted with a tension between the physical and aesthetic 268 nature of the object. This dichotomy may well not be restricted to the utilitarian object. As Osborne observes:

Some writers have believed it impossible to see a painted canvas simultaneously as a perspective scene (or any other representation) with depth and volume, and as a pigmented surface with textured qualities. This seems to be wrong. Instead it is precisely the combination and interplay of the two perspective modes that lend pungency and vigor to artistic appreciation.(56)

Beardsley's proposal of "divergence" and "fusion" theory may help one decipher the contributory elements which define the aesthetic object. Adherence to divergence theory would necessitate a belief that an object's use and the form given it by its maker "are merely distinct aspects of the object, and have no intimate connection." Fusion theory, on the other hand, infers that "in some objects there is a connection between design and use."(57) Functionalism is yet another theory which describes conditions for the designed object. The functionalist would argue that the object's form must be derived from only the product's designation. The adoption of such a philosophical perspective has led to products which are so spare in conception that they appear extremely impersonal. "Its

[functionalism's] disconcerting honesty reveals to modern man a house is nothing more than a container of bodies, and a chair a support of human anaitomy. " ( 58 )

Beardsley agrees that the visual qualities one associates with works of fine art are also to be found in 269 objects of utility. He argues, though, that while these qualities are extant, the perception of it as an aesthetic object can only occur when extracted from the site of its everyday existence. Rudolph Arnheim requires that it be in a situation where "it is quite independent of its environment ... where in contemplating the work we forget what is around it. "(59) Beardsley and Arnheim agree that

"isolation" is at least one means of avoiding the more direct connotations of an object's utility. It could well be a perfectly defensible position to argue that the object's essential aesthetic is in some way encoded as

"visual embodiments of their use, in which case the perception of them will be the fullest when we understand their significance in the modes of human life they were made to serve."(60)

Susanne Langer supports the theory that an object

"becomes an image when it presents itself purely to our vision, i.e., as a sheer visual form instead of a locally related object." The perceptual image is, according to

Langer, the means by which form is separated from utility:

If we receive it as a completely visual thing, we abstract its appearance from its material existence. What we see in this way becomes symbols of a thing of form ... a form, an image. It detaches itself from its actual setting and acquires a different context.(61)

The inability of many individuals to extend their perceptual range beyond utility is paralleled in their seeming reluctance to break some of the frontiers they 270

establish when responding to other visual art forms. "The

notion of the purely practical tool is as much a product of

cultural decay as is that of the purposeless work of art for

art's sake."(62) It is difficult to conceive of any object

which is entirely bereft of at least some measure of attendant expressive qualities. Such qualities enter:

the aesthetic realm by means of the aesthetic pattern of shape, color, movement, etc., into which it is translated. Expression is based on the constellations of forces to be found in all percepts. To see the expression of an object means to see the general dynamic characteristics inherent in its particular appearance.(63)

John Pile, when discussing objects designed by Frank

Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe, observes that they possess qualities which express "something more universally symbolic and meaningful of the actual practical structure that takes them in to the realm of art."(64) He observes, however, that not all utilitarian objects are worthy of such an accolade:

One can find a chair that serves its purpose but is an absurd melange of meaningless detail, or one that serves its purpose but is merely characterless and dull; but then one may find a comparable chair that is also powerfully expressive of a set of ideas that moved the designer to embody them within it for the user or viewer to discover.(65)

Gerrit Rietveld's 'Red-Blue Chair,' (Plate XIX) is an object which certainly expresses more than its utility. It stands as a manifestation of de Stijil ideology. A chair but not a chair; a sculpture but not a sculpture. It is 271

Plate XIX. Gerrit Rietveld. "Red and Blue11 Chair. 1918. Painted wood, (painted black, yellow, red, blue), 34 1/2 h. x 26 1/2 w. x 26 1/2" d. Collection, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photograph courtesy, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. 272 confrontational; and Rietveld acknowledged that "it is unavoidable that even the most prosaic construction should have more to it than mere outward appearance. "(66) John

Berger in his book About Looking, observes:

This chair eloquently opposes values that still persist the aesthetic of the hand-made, the notion that ownership bestows power and weight, the virtues of permanence and indestructibility, the love of mystery and secrets, the fear of technology threatens culture, the horror of the anonymous, the mystique, the rights of privilege. It opposes all this in the name of its aesthetic, whilst remaining a (not very comfortable) armchair.(67)

What then might the unitiated viewer make of the

'Red-Blue chair'? I would imagine that a likely immediate reaction would be that it is a far from comfortable piece of furniture. I suspect there would be some difficulty in developing the beholder's concept of "chair" beyond merely practical concerns. This blockage would prevent accessing

Rietveld's proposal that construction is not only a matter of external appearance, but is wedded to internal meanings.

The materials used have lives of their own. They have both an independence and an interrelatedness to the construction, of which they are a part.

"Why should such an austere piece of furniture have acquired ... at least temporarily for us a kind of poignancy."(68) The answer certainly lies not its utilitarian role. A chair which Peter Blake in Form Follows

Fiasco suggests "cannot be easily abandoned without the help of an orthopedic surgeon,"(69) has gained its notoriety from 273

aesthetic not utilitarian concerns. "The chair haunts us not

as a chair but as an article of faith."(70) A fuller

understanding of the object's meaning will Inevitably

involve coming to terms with the social, political, and

economic contexts which surrounded its construction. It is

evident, from critical opinion, that many would agree that

while the 'Red-Blue chair' transcends purely practical

requirements, its "chalrness" is still a vital component in

the circuit of communication between object and beholder.

In this instance "chair as object" and "chair as poetic

object" would appear to exist simultaneously. The Product Designer as "Artist"

There is little expectation from many in our post-industrial Western society that the manufactured object should represent anything other than its utility.

Given the nature of their products, industrial designers are bound to realize that it is their task to explain the nature of the object by its appearance, that is to create a pattern of visual forces correspondent to the physical pattern that is characteristic for the function of the object.(71)

This dictum of "form following function" would appear to be a vestige of Bauhaus philosophy. It fails to take into account that while the product designer's primary mission is

to conceive of utilitarian forms, the designer may well wish to express concerns beyond the object's utility. There

exist many product designers who readily admit that their designs incorporate concepts, ideas, and aspirations. Plate XX. Pentti Hakala. "W" chair 275

Pentti Hakala, designer of the 'W chair, (Plate XX )

confesses "that he wants to achieve in his work the sense of

infinity one feels when stepping out of a warm summer's day

into the darkness of a Finnish bar," a poetic goal indeed.

Reyner Banham's essay "Chairs as Art" which appeared in

Modern Chairs 1918-1970, the catalog for anexhibition at

the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, argues that

contemporary product designers express ideas in their work

no less emphatically than do fine artists.

The chair has become so potent a symbol that apurely functional chair could now only be designed by a computer or a Martian. For any member of the human race it is too loaded with overtones of Westernization (as in Japan), of a white man's justice, of corporate power (as in the posters of How to Succeed in Business, of godliness, of episcopacy, electrocution, elegance (as in sedan-chair) and, chiefly, of aesthetic self-expression second only to fine arts. Almost every chair of consequence has its designer's handwriting all over it; it is signed as surely as a painting. (72)

There are an increasing number of individuals both designers in the traditional sense, and fine artists, who

have begun to challenge apparent limitations of materials and technology and narrow perceptions of what constitutes an acceptable form for a chair. The boundaries which have long separated the designer and the fine artist have diminished

(if not altogether disappeared) as their work "stands in opposition to the caveats of conventional furniture design."(73) The furniture of this new breed of artist-designer-craftsperson suggests: 276

That the viable part of the modernist heritage in our complex time may not be so much of the formalist lexicon of geometric abstraction as the liberating and idealistic philosophical premises of the Dadist, surrealist, and design movements of the twentieth century. They all recognized the active importance of art in the context of everyday living and returned the perogative of aesthetic choice to the individual. This furniture reminds us that we owe the best aspects of our environment today to those artists who singly and collectively pioneered the fusion of the principles of fine art to household objects. Those artists defended the position that the banal can be profound and that when it is we feel uplifted.(74)

The sculptor, Harry Bertoia, is one whose furniture

designs developed from his concern to develop a kinship

between the human form and the chair itself. His designs

are not, however, merely ergonomically astute solutions to

the problems of utility. (Plate XXI) His chairs are

utilitarian, yet at the same time they reverberate with the

language of sculpture. Bertoia observed:

In the chairs many functional problems have to be satisfied first ... but when you get right down to it the chairs are studies in space, form, and metal too ... If you will look at these chairs, you will find that they are mostly made of air, just like sculpture. Space passes right through them.(75)

Bertoia's innovative design is but one example of the

designer's appreciation that the product must operate

equally well on the aesthetic level, as it does on the

practical. Indeed the fascination for the aesthetic in

product design has spawned a new breed of designers. The designers for the 'Memphis Group' (established in Milan)

have broken boundaries; and within the commercial sector

have introduced ideas which have given "rise to fantasies 277

Plate XXI. Harry Bertoia. Armchair. 1952. Chrome-plated steel wire, Naugahyde, 29 3/4". Collection, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photograph courtesy, The Museum of Modern Art, New York 278

... indeed they seem to have emerged from fantasies and

hypnogic vis ions."(76) Robert Venturi, the American

architect, translates the whimsy of Post-Modernism into the

chairs he designed for Knoll in 1979, and which were

produced in 1984.(77) (Plate XXII) These chairs are

pastiches of Chippendale, Hepplewhite, and perhaps even

Alvar Aalto. But they are more than parodies, they appear

to synthesize the practical and the lyrical. Not all would

agree that these chairs deserve the attention they have been

given. "The people who can afford the stuff deserve it,”

observes Doug Stuart, somewhat cynically. He admits however

that "New York's Museum of Modern Art, [is] not waiting for

the judgment of history and has acquired a set for its

design collection."(78)

Both Bertoia and Venturi's work clearly emanate from

the world of the product designer. These chairs, while each

develops its own aesthetic are also manifestly objects

which play their part in society's commercial enterprise.

Their aesthetic, indeed, in part, stems from their ability

to maintain a visual integrity (the drama of the sculptural

form) in spite of the demands made by economics and

mass-production processes. The craftsperson arguably is not as limited in his/her vision as may be product designer.

Their primary task may well be the same (to produce a

utilitarian object) but which in their use of materials

attempts to resolve the conflict between the needs of the 279

Plate XXII. Robert Venturi. Chair Manufacturer: Knoll Photograph courtesy, Knoll. 280

life-world and the artworld. The chairs of Sam Maloof are

paradigm examples of elegant resolutions to these

polarities. Horace Judson in "Breaking the Frames" argues

that "By not setting out to be sculpture, it [a Maloof

rocking chair] becomes a rare demonstration of form in

harmony with function."(79)

The Fine Artist as Designer

The fine artist has also entered the fray, and their

work challenges our perceptions of notions of art, craft, and product design. The chair enters the artworld as a

physical object, with aesthetic rather than utilitarian purposes undergirding their conception. A chair by Alan

Siegel contradicts any concept that ergonomics should determine form. The chair literally takes on human form; and Siegel works unfettered by the restraints of both high art and craft. Robert Wilson produces chairs made from plumbing pipe and plywood. His furniture stands sentinel like silent actors within his architectural structures.

Howard Meister unashamedly works within fine art traditions to challenge the beholder to reassess the familiar.

You don't always perceive a chair as art; it exists in your living room, so the message slips subliminally by your guard. My chairs are about regimentation of modern architecture and design, urban violence and danger, the effects of time and natural forces on matter, and mythology.(80)

Lucas Samaras worked on a series of twenty-five chair transformations between 1969-1970. This work was exhibited 281

in the exhibition "Chair Transformation" held at the Pace

Gallery, New York in October 1970. These objects were not

intended to be utilitarian. Samaras used the chair, he

said, as a vehicle for "propaganda for my psyche."(81)

Richard Artschwager is yet another artist who became seduced

by the potential of furniture as subject matter. His early

work in the 1950s was dedicated to producing commercial

furniture. In 1960 he received a commission for the

Catholic church, and at that point recognized that "what I

was making was more important than tables and chairs - that

is, an object which celebrates something." Richard

Armstrong, in the catalog for the Artschwager exhibition at

the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1988, suggests

that it was this commission which caused Artschwager to define himself as an artist rather than a craftsperson.(82)

The number of artists who have been fascinated by

furniture, and the chair in particular, are legion. Sol Le

Witt, Donald Judd, Jorg Immendorff, James Raglione, Roy

Lichtenstein, are just a sample of individuals who each explore the chair without recourse to any considerations of utility. These artists' works are clearly located within the framework and conventions of fine art. The objects will circulate within the artworld, promoted by the museum and gallery.

The chair, then, has many guises, it can be designed, manufactured, and sold as an object of utility. It can be 282

all these things, and also be considered and promoted as

art. And further, it can be conceived of and exhibited as

art. When the chair appears whitin this latter

categorization it appears to provide the least amount of

contention among those who wish to maintain the distinctions

between fine art and the functional object. The case of the

utilitarian object being designated art tends, however, in

some circles (Including art education), to raise more than a

few hackles. John Perreault in an article for Art Forum,

argues:

A chair may be an antique, a design example, an historical artifact, a decorative item. But at least part of the use-meaning of a chair cannot be erased by placing it on a pedestal, or by using other high-art cue-systems. From this viewpoint, a chair cannot be sculpture, cannot be 'art, ' in the honorific/normative sense.(83)

The Promotion Maze

It would be foolhardy in any examination of the nature

of objecthood to exclude, or minimize, the impact of forces within society which shape and promote the object. It is

far too easy for the art educator, for instance, to be so seduced by an object's regional qualities, as to lose sight of, and indeed more often to ignore, the sociological and cultural contexts that bring that object to our attention.

Furniture, and chairs in particular, have become icons which straddle the life-world and artworlds.

Recently the production of furniture by artists has so increased that one might say there has been an art movement, bringing onto the scene unique pieces or 283

limited editions by artists, designers, and architects. Profiting from the thriving art market of this decade, art furniture has become identified with its maker, like products associated with the current designer craze, a phenomenon observed by the Wall Street Journal: "At its most simplistic level, art furniture is a 1imited-edition functional object designed by a well-known painter, sculptor, architect, or craftsperson - - the aesthetic equivalent, say of bedspreads by Ralph Lauren or towels by Perry Ellis."(84)

How and why do certain objects achieve such symbolic

status? The presentation of objects within our perceptual

field occurs by no means in an arbitrary manner. This in

itself is more than sufficient reason for those involved in

art education to have cause to examine not only an object's

intrinsic qualities and meanings, but also to be aware of

their role in a process which appends "value" to those

"exemplars" we introduce to our students. The object has to

be considered, not in isolation, but in relationship to the

social, political, and economic contexts which impinge on

both viewer's and user's perceptions.

There exist a multitude of reasons why objects come to

achieve symbolic status, yet often the processes and motives

surrounding their elevation remains somewhat obscure. If

the motives and processes are obscure, the identities of the

"promotion brokers," particularly in art education, lie somewhere in the shadows of our field. It would be remiss

to infer that an object's status was entirely dependent on the "manipulation" of our perceptions by groups or

Individuals exercising "ulterior" motives. The proposition 284

is well-founded, though I would argue, that though one might

believe our perception and response to any object is direct

and highly individual, the fact is that our senses are

inevitably wrought in an inescapable web of social and

cultural dynamics. The search for reasons as to why one

object rather than another achieves symbolic status will

require consideration of the political behaviors of

individuals and groups who contribute to the decision making

process which in the name of "art" distinguishes one group

of things from another. What then are the dynamics of the

societal networks amidst which the aesthetic object exists,

where it is admired by some and ignored by others?

Jacques Macquet in The Aesthetic Experience; An

Anthropologist Looks at the Visual Arts scrutinized the

relationship between art and the everyday life of a

post-industrial society. He did this, not by prematurely

positing a definition of art but by providing three zones of

inquiry which, he argued, could better assist one's

understanding of the notion of art. Three apparently simple questions: 1) where is it (art) found? 2) how do we encounter it? and 3) what value is it given? provide an extremely useful framework from which to examine the "role played by the aesthetic object and those who make, view, use and promote it within society."(85) The aesthetic object

Macquet argues, is "at the center of a specialized network 285

of educational institutions, professional associations, and

commercial enterprises."(86 )

The quest for answers to the questions surrounding the

promotion of certain objects as being aesthetic would appear

to require some analysis of the factors and agencies which

bring those objects to our attention. An understanding of

the dynamics of these forces is of paramount importance

because they play a significant role in the creation, and

promotion of attitudes which ultimately shape our aesthetic

perception. The analysis, therefore, of roles played by

individuals, groups and organizations, should enable one to detect emergent patterns of behavior within the artworld, and society at large.

The conceptual focus of such an analysis is firmly rooted in sociological contexts. Joseph La Chapelle in "The

Sociology of Art and Art Education: A Relationship

Reconsidered,"(87) argues that in order to come to fuller understandings of the nature of the aesthetic object, art education ought to make more use of the sociology of art. A sociological perspective will, he contends, reduce an over-concentration of critical and historical methodologies, which are soundly grounded in an identification process, which nominates and ranks candidates for the artworld. A sociological perspective will, on the other hand, indicate the degree of interdependence and interrelatedness in the dynamics which shape society and the artworld within it. An 286

examination of the effects of these patterns of cooperation

should shed valuable light on our own patterns of choice.

La Chapelle suggests that there are significant

advantages to the adoption by art education of a

sociological methodology based on occupations. Two strands

of the methodology seem particular appropriate to an

analysisof the relationship of the aesthetic object in

artworld contexts: 1) It encourages the notion of the

concept that the artworld and the community in which it

exists are interrelated. Such a direction would reduce the

separation between art and everyday living. 2) It clearly

recognizes an institutionalization of the aesthetic process, and product. It further identifies modes of

intercommunication between organizations which enable art to be made and promoted. Becker in Art worlds draws very similar conclusions:

Artworlds typically devote considerable attention to trying to decide what is and isn't out, what is and isn't their kind of art, and who is and isn't an artist. By observing how the artworld makes those decisions rather than trying to make them ourselves we can understand much of what goes on in the world.(88)

The appeals made by La Chapelle and Becker for consideration of the networks of communication in which art is made and distributed are part of a burgeoning development which seeks to introduce the empiricism of sociological methodologies to art education's somewhat myopic sociology of art. They, and others, [Read (89) Hauser (90) and 287

Duvignaud (91)] argue that the application of the orthodoxy

of sociology is more likely to reveal the essential nature

of the role of art in society. Unlike, they contend, a

sociology of art which is preoccupied with an analysis of

the art product as being a phenomenon quite separate from

its social contexts. The implied criticism is that much of

the sociology of art has been authored by "interested"

parties whose perspectives have been shaped by the

traditions of connolsseurship and who have generally avoided

confronting issues emanating from the contextual framework

within which art exists. The sociologist proper, however,

would argue that because they are able to adopt a neutral

stance in relation to an object's aesthetic value, they can,

by exploration of the social conditions which give birth to art, provide clear understandings of the generation of aesthetic value in society. One has, though, to be cautious

of any notion of a "neutral" sociology, because any methodology is inevitably conditioned by factors which

impinge on our interpretive capabilities.

Ron Best writing in "Sketch for a Sociology of Art,"

outlines three paradigms for sociological inquiry: 1)

Function, 2) Action or Interpretive, 3) Conflict. In the

"function" model, the overarching concern is the purpose of the work. The "action" or "interpretive" model concentrates on understandings deduced from an investigation into the nature of the producer, the product, and concerned 288 participants. In "conflict" (which is the flagship of

Marxist social theory), one assumes the domination of one class by another.(92) If one were to adopt a conflict paradigm, one would perceive art as part of a cultural superstructure created on economic footings.(93)

The adherence to this philosophy acknowledges no single reality, but multiple realities, dependent on an individual's economic base. Marxist social theory contends that it is the reality of the dominant group which would persist.

In attempting to understand why, in art education, the utilitarian object is given so little (if any at all) visibility, the logic of Best's argument seems particularly aposite: "if the ruling class's definition of art is the dominant definition, it would follow that the art of other classes will be undervalued, defined as non-art and therefore neglected."(94) An elite group controlling a view of reality is not, of course, restricted to the shores of my sceptered isle. Marantz, when discussing the roles of artist and patrons, describes the latter group as being "a self-defined cultural elite whose economic status permits them the luxury of connolsseurship or of a feigned sensitivity to whatever objects are most current."(95)

Rosenblum presents a three stage model of sociological inquiry. In it the focus is redirected from concerns for the artist as a lone force to the artist's performance 289

Plate XXIII. Advertisement for KnollStudio.

ihr t h a u tiraifOtcd HlU-klKW*-wl»U

K n o i S t n d i o tide liM B pr Q u i f t n Luurr Sut|>^> Ke-tnmakM tlif Ihr N i N B*i>rkjn* Liwu/ l*> M>e» »«i, lr' huf* T w d tfce tT? M k « a d ciaaa* a m p * * liiai « r iu » a m t m ca4Wn«un hutu kuil 290 within a social network. The artist is perceived as an economic actor in an art market. In Rosenblum's model the object, once made, establishes a status separate from the maker. The object acquires economic value, which arguably can affect, Rosenblum contends, its aesthetic value.

Economic value is controlled by three factors:

1) reputation, 2) brand name, and 3) classification.(96 )

This model is based, however, on two quite distinct assumptions, i.e., artistic fame is not dependent on an object's intrinsic qualities, and that an artist's progress within the artworld is as much (if not more) about

r non-aesthetlc elements such as politics and economics.

Rosenblum's perceives the artworld has having all the characteristics of a merchandising operation. The products

(art) and their makers (artists) are skillfully packaged and promoted in no different a way than any other consumer item.

Name recognition (reputation), a catchy logo (brand name), a product line (classification) are all brought together in a process not unlike that played out daily in any Manhattan advertising agency. In this scenario strategies for promotion are conjured up by copywriters (critics), to meet the demands of watchful account executives (dealers). All of this while the (art product/artist) sits patiently and somewhat passively for decisions about their future. The interpretation may appear a little tongue-in-cheek, and the analogies somewhat suspect, but it may be not too distant 291

Plate XXIV. Advertisement for Karastan area rugs

P uwoo t D u r

293 from the truth. There is an attractiveness in this perspective for one seeking to expand the scope of the art curriculum, if only for the fact that it does place art in the same swim as other objects we deal with on a daily basis.

It can be argued, with some justification that just as a "brand name attaches prestige to a functional commodity"(97) so it does with aesthetic objects. The concept of art as "prestige" is played out in a number of ways. Becker argues that "because 'art' is an honorific title and being able to call what you do by that name has some advantages, people often want what they do to be so labeled."(98) If one casts a sociologist's eye across the advertisement for Knoll furniture (Plate XXIII) one can see the art market strategies identified by Rosenblum. Here the assumption is that potential purchasers would be able to identify the "you-know-who" chair as being by Mies van der

Rohe. In other advertisements in the series, purchasers are urged to buy before these designs are captured by the Museum of Modern Art. This Knoll advertising campaign is encouraging a belief that purchasers will be not merely acquiring a chair but a "work of art." Similarly an advertisement for Karastan rugs leaves one in no doubt as to the value of a piece of Felice Rossi furniture. (Plate XXIV

& XXV) 294

The mass media, indeed, play an influential role in the

formation of society's values. Rosenberg speculates that the

"increasing space devoted to art in daily and weekly press,

in magazines and, most recently, in radio and TV, art

education of the public through the mass media offers the

establishment of a virtually unlimited field of

colorization."(99) Not only is there arguably more

attention given to art in the formal sense, but as the Knoll advertisements indicate, there is evidence that the mass media are being used to promote the utilitarian object as art. A TV advertisement for Honda automobiles features an

Accord hanging on an art gallery wall. A commercial for

Chevrolet shows a group of townsfolk in a small town diner discussing the attributes of the Chevy in terms of a Bauhaus aesthetic. At the other end of the spectrum an advertisement for Porche leaves one in no doubt that it is not merely an automobile one is purchasing:

It is human nature. Thedesire to live forever. So we attempt to create something that will show we were here, and that we accomplished something of value. Something that will let our ideas and philosophies if nothing else live on. You find this expressed in many ways throughout history. The building of architectural wonders. The creation of great works of art. The erection of monuments to human achievement. This is the desire we at Porche have always had for our cars. Not to merely create transportation, but to create designs timeless in their aesthetics and engineering.(100)

One tends to think that aesthetic objects circulate within a single artworld, and that it is only the authority 295

of a single element which confers or denies the object

status. George Dickie, however, argues:

The artworld consists of a bunch of systems: theater, painting, literature, music,and so on, each of which furnishes an institutional background for the conferring of status on the objects within its domain. No limit can be placed on the number of systems that can be brought under the generic conception of art, and each of the major subsystems contains further subsystems.(101)

Artworlds are, according to Dickie, perceived as being

multi-layered, and autonomous, but interrelated

institutional arts systems. They each have a regulatory and

promotional role for the specific aspect of the arts which

fall within their domain. Herbert Read identifies the artworld as being "a relatively small compact body subject

to a process of circulation."(102) He presents a somewhat contradictory notion of exactly what is the composition of this "small compact body." On the one hand, he describes a group who wish, because of acquired social standing,

(inherited presumably as a result of economic manipulation)

to present themselves as arbiters of taste. This group is an elite, in that they are the dominant social group. Yet,

Read also introduces the concept of an elite in the aesthetic sense, seeing them as "reflection of a natural differentiation in the talents and abilities of men."(103)

There are, then, two strands to Read's concept of an elite.

If one adopts the latter possibility, one would have to assume that this mantle could be conferred on any 296 individual, regardless of her or his position within society. This connotation suggests an internal aesthetic sensibility existing quite separate from social or economic power. The former definition, however, portrays an elite primarily as a dominant social force, whose position has enabled them to impose specific aesthetic values on the larger society. Read appeared somewhat resigned to the fact that in a class-bound society social power was the major determinant of aesthetic values. He observed that "the typical art of a period is the art of the elite."(104)

Who then are the artworld's gatekeepers, and how do their decisions affect the admission and distribution of objects within the institution? Are our aesthetic choices made for us, and if not, to what extent are they in the hands of others? Is the object an independent entity, that has intrinsic aesthetic worth ? To what extent is aesthetic value determined by the agents of the artworld?

Sociologists of art describe what is essentially, in our

Western post-industrial society, a situation in which the few have an inordinate amount of control over the many. In such a scenario the elite understandably only feel secure if it is their vision of reality which prevails.

James Ackerman is caustic about the effects of such an elitist aesthetic, arguing that it is the "idealist criticism, cultural chauvinism and snobbery, which has artificially isolated art from what Americans think of as 297

reality, and has kept us from seeing it as an activity that

serves a social function or meets a definable need."(105)

It is Ackerman's contention that critics, when they fail to acknowledge a measure of social responsibility in their

task, elevate that which is obscure, and dismiss that which they consider to be art. Under such a system, a multitude of potential candidates are excluded from receiving the attention they may well deserve. Ackerman leaves his readers

in no doubt as to the inequity of the situation:

... a critical theory which sanctifies the arts and Isolates them in the realm where they are ostentatiously nurtured by the wealthy, and which it appears that art which is difficult and esoteric is by that token better than that which is simple and popular.(106)

It is not only the critics who assist in the promulgation of an elitist aesthetic; art historians can similarly be justifiably criticized for the narrowness of their vision. Legions of critics and historians act as guardians of an elite aesthetic. While they trumpet those objects to which they confer status, they descry anything that has a hint of popular support. It almost appears that the maintenance of their own status is dependent on being disparaging about the objects of popular culture. At all costs the status quo must be maintained, and the values of any other than their own must be considered to be suspect.

There is a marked arrogance within certain artworld players who believe it is they alone who have the stranglehold on 298

the aesthetically significant. Browne and Fishwick argue

that it follows from such an assumption that "other elements

... those catering to and acceptable by the majority ... are

aesthetically deficient and therefore contemptible."(107)

It is fortunate that not all critics are so limited in their vision, and so socially irresponsible. There are those who are willing to accept within the scope of art a diversity of

objects many of which it would have been hard to have

imagine would have ever been conferred with such status.

The artworld contains subgroups whose interests lie in the products of yesteryear. The "antique world" is one such satellite of the artworld. In this world objects which in their original context were concerned with the functions of daily living achieve an honorific status. The antique world has its ranks of experts who govern an object's entry and circulation within it. At a recent Sotheby's auction in New

York a chair sold for $2.75 million. All this, for a chair without upholstery. Furthermore, descriptions of such sales

in newspapers like The New York Times(108) complete the endorsement process in which the object of utility is catapulted into the stratosphere of artworld prices.

The scholars are but one sort of player in the artworld game, but they may play a significant role in defining the taste of a culture. While we might feel that our taste is a personal and autonomous choice, there is much more than a grain of truth in Archdeacon Fisher's remarks to John 299

Constable: "Men do not admire pictures because they admire them, but because others covet them."(109) Clifford describes a rather discouraging scenario of social relationships in which the public are viewed as lemmings, unable to make decisions for themselves, and are resigned to conform to the taste of others.

The movement of the tides of taste depends, then, upon the unaware multitude hardly at all except in so far as they determine which leaders to follow.

The artworld is a social system in which reputation is the name of the game. The reputation of the artist and object are synthesized. Becker argues that "the reputation of an artist and the work reinforce one another: we value more a work done by an artist we respect."(110)

Reputations, however, are not always formed through direct experience of work, or by reading a piece of criticism, or, indeed, by studying an art historical tome. In the artworld, one must not underestimate the power of the spoken word. It would be foolish to discount the cast of thousands whose Chinese whispers undoubtedly have some effect on the passage of artist and work through the labyrinths of the artworld, on their journey toward the ultimate accolade:

Among the mysterious personages who loom large in the establishment, through knowing everything that is going on, are tax consultants, lawyers, framemakers, hairdressers, psychiatrists, chairmen of museums, "friends" organizations, silent partners of galleries.(Ill) 300

Reputation plays an important role in what Becker dubs

the artworld's "distribution systems."(112) In such

systems, he suggests, it is politically, financially, and

socially powerful patrons who often control opportunities to

exhibit ... and the works they commission. In a way they

partially shape the taste of others."(113) Whereas at one

time it was the church who had the monopoly on patronage,

this has given way to secular support. Corporations now

regularly purchase and commission works and sponsor

exhibitions; and not always are their motives altruistic, as

is suggested in a cartoon from the magazine Desian (Figure

14) .

Individuals whose wealth allows have established either their own museums or are intimately connected in some way to the trusteeship of others. These institutions become physical manifestations of the aesthetic sensibilities of the few. The influence of individuals such as Getty,

Guggenheim, Hirshorn, and Whitney ought not be underestimated, for it is from the objects which grace the walls and display cases of these "philanthropist's" collections that "exemplars" are drawn for use in humble art rooms across America. Art Education, the journal of the

National Art Education Association, indeed, plays its part in the distribution of a certain kind of image, when it provides teachers with a centerfold of instructional resources. The decision to support such an enterprise is m e mo af&afp w TtmittA/V X) )W 77/WA fit O A < (, cowfioeeeo A6.com L ^ i / i n n j s m v s o fs m pf l x / c r ) W COC/iO H i

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Figure 14. Blueprint cartoon. 1 Courtesy Blueprint, London 302

certainly admirable, but art educators need to recognize

that corporate sponsorship is not motive free. And one

should be prepared to question the visions of reality which

are being processed throughout our schools by such means.

Clearly, the very fact that certain objects are featured

signifies a conferral of status. It is enlightening to

review the images which have appeared in past issues of Art

Education. They present quite a definite value statement,

but what is equally fascinating is what utilitarian objects

from our own culture have not been given any exposure.

The use of "exemplars” in art education is not of

course a new phenomenon. Objects of "quality" have been

introduced to students throughout the subject's history.

They have been used to reinforce the current moral code, and

to establish standards for commercial design and production.

So while we may believe that objects and images used in the classroom reflect a purity of concern for the development of a student's aesthetic sensibilities, there is evidence that

the selection of the content of art education, is to a degree, a matter of politics. Government, both in Britain and America, as patrons of the arts, have the muscle to determine what or what should not be considered art. They are in the forefront of the status makers.

The National Endowment of the Arts (U.S.) and The Arts

Council of Great Britain, play prominent roles in the conferral of title on objects and performances. John Pick 303 suggests that any definition of art "involves political decisions. Satisfying chosen wants or needs from inevitably limited resources, involves the creation of priorities, a further and more obvious political act. All systems are political."(114) In Britain the Arts Council has often been accused of promoting an elitist aesthetic, a criticism not surprisingly ardently denied by Arts Council insiders. But it can be argued with some justification that it is the very perceptions of an institution such as this which determines the complexion of the artworld:

The Council that Shaw [General Secretary,1975] led allowed only certain kinds of artistic activity to be "worthwhile" ... the Council had nothing to do with radio, or with television, had turned down the chance of amalgamation with the BFI [British Film Institute] and thus being concerned with film, little to do with folk art, nothing to do with entertainments or crafts, or architecture, or gardens, or costume and needlework, or stand-up comedy or clowning or stage magic, or amateur dramatics or oragami. Only activities subsidized by the Council were worthwhile, or "excellent."(115)

An understanding as to why certain objects are considered to be aesthetic, how they acquire an honorific status, and what values they represent, is of paramount importance to the art educator. Each of us has to take responsibility for our role within the artworld. We cannot afford to be so naive as to believe that what we expose our students to is value free. We need to be much more aware of the underlying philosophical bases of the selection process for the content of art education curricula. The causal 304 relationship between the tastemakers of the artworld and the world of schooling is seldom apparent. There is, however, a definite relationship; a complex web constructed from elements which have both direct and indirect influence on the content of art education. If one adopts a more skeptical vision of our field, one is led to conclude that what is eventually filtered into a particular classroom arrives there through the exercise of the power of the "few" expressing their own aesthetic values. The sadness is that these imparted values may well not serve the needs of the students to whom they are administered. 305

NOTES: CHAPTER V

(1)Monroe Beardsley, 1981. Aesthetics, Problems in Philosophy of Criticism. 2d ed. (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing),xix.

(2)Ibid,xix.

(3)Derek Clifford, 1968. Art and Understanding: Towards a Humanist Aesthetic. (Greenwich, Connecticut: New York Graphic Society),61.

(4)Ibid,62.

(5)Kennneth Marantz, 1972. "Visual Education and the Human Experience." In M. M. Krug (Ed.), What Will be Taught in the Next Decade. (Itasca: Peacock),11.

(6)James Ackerman, and Rhys Carpenter, 1963. Art and Archaeology. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall),14 5.

(7)Morris Weitz, 1956. "The Role of Theory in Aesthetics." Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 15(l):27-35.

(8)George Kubler, 1962. The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things. (New York: Yale University Press).

(9)Ibid,15.

(10)John A. Kouwenhoven, 1982. Half a Truth is Better Than None. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press),24.

(11)John F. Pile. 1979. Design: Purpose and Meaning. (New York: W. W. Norton),94.

(12)Gillo Dorfles, 1966. "The Man-made Object." In G, Kepes (Ed.), The Man-made Object. (New York: George Braziller),1.

(13)Lewis Mumford, 1960. Art and Technics 2d ed. New York : Columbia University Press),32.

(14)Esther A. Dagan, 1988. Taborets. Asante. Stools. (Montreal: Galerie Amrad African Arts). 306

(15)Roy Sieber, 1980. African Furniture and Household Objects. (Bloomington, IN.: Indiana University Press ),125.

(16)Beardsley,Aesthetics,60.

(17)Ibid,61.

(18)Harold Rosenberg, 1973. The Anxious Object: Art Today and its Audience. (New York: Collier Books),65.

(19)Rose Silvka, 1987. "The art/craft connection." In M. Manhart & T. Manhart (Eds.), The Eloquent Object: The Evolution of American Art in Craft Since 1945. (Tulsa, O.K.: The Philbrook Museum of Art),84.

(20)Ibid.,102.

(21)Coy L. Ludwig, 1983. The Arts and Crafts Movement in New York State 1890s-1920's. (New York: Gallery Association of New York State),63.

(22)Marcia M. Eaton, 1988. Basic Issues in Aesthetics. (Belmont, C.A.: Wadsworth Publishing),43.

(23)Ibid,62 .

(24)Arthur Danto, 1964. "The Artworld." Journal of Philosophy. 571-584.

(25)George Dickie, 1971. Aesthetics: An Introduction. (New York: Bobbs-Merrill),101.

(26)Marcel Duchamp, 1958. "Art as Non-Aesthetic: I Like Breathing Better Than Working." In G. Dickie, & R. J. Scalafini (Eds.), 1977. Aesthetics: A Critical Anthology. (New York: St. Martin's Press),541.

(27)Ibid.

(28)"New York's 'Machine Art' exhibit would have pleased old Plato" (1934 March). The Art Digest,10.

(29)T. R. Adam, 1939. The Museum and Popular Culture. (New York: American Association for Adult Education),72 .

(30)Matthew Lipman, 1956. "The Physical Thing in Aesthetic Experience." Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 15(1):36-46. 307

(31)June Sprigg, 1986. Shaker Design. (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art in association with W.W. Norton and Company),11.

(32)Ibid, Quotation taken from The Ministry, Letter, dated April 1822, Enfield Connecticut. The Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio, IV: A-ll.

(33)Lipman, The Physical Thing,39.

(34)Ibid.

(35)Ibid.

(36)Rita Reif, 1988. "Chairs That Suggest Mondrians Come to Life. The New York Times (Sunday October 2)

(37)Stuart Hampshire, 1959. "Logic and Appreciation." In W. Elton (Ed.), Aesthetics and Language. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell).

(38)Eaton,Basic Issues,128.

(39)Lipman,The Physical Thing,39.

(40)Beardsley,Aesthetics,524.

(41)Tim Benton, Charlotte, Benton., & Aaron Scharf. 1975. Design 1920s: German Design and the Bauhaus 1925-32, Modernism in the Decorative Arts Paris 1910-1930. (Milton Keynes: The Open University Press),44.

(42)Jay Doblin, 1970. One Hundred Great Product Designs. (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold),36 .

(43)Benton & Scharf, Design 1920s,44.

(44)Institute of Contemporary Art. 1988. The Modern Chair. (London: Institute of Contemporary Art),17.

(45)Sylvia Katz, 1984. Plastics: Common Objects, Classic Designs. (New York: Harry N. Abrams),70.

(46)Michael Brawne, 1966. "The Wit of Technology." Architectural Design (October) 18-26.

(47)Institute of Contemporary Art, Modern Chair,31.

(48)Ibid. 308

(49)Nancy Princenthal, 1987. "Social Seating." Art in Amer ica.(June):137-148 .

(50)Donald D. Powell, 1987. In Chairs as Art. (Chicago: The Arts Club of Chicago). Quotation taken from the Foreward of the catalog for the exhibition "Chairs as Art: Art as Chairs."

(51)Mous Huub, 1988. "Art as the Masquerade of Funiture." In Het Meubel Verbeeld. Furniture as Art. (Rotterdam: Museum Boymans-van-Beuningen),11.

(52)Peter Dormer, 1987. The New Furniture, Trends and Traditions. (London: Thames and Hudson),91.

(53)Jerome Stolnitz, 1960. Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. (New York: Houghton Mifflin),32.

(54)Harold Osborne, 1984. "The Cultivation of Sensibility in Art Education." Journal of Philosophy of Education, 18(1):31-40.

(55)Ibid,32.

(56)Ibid,36.

(57)Beardsley, Aesthetics,306.

(58)Rudolph Arnheim, 1966. Art and Visual Perception, A Psychology of the Creative Eye. (Berkeley: University of California),138.

(59)Ibid,135

(60)Beardsley, Aesthetics, 309 .

(61)Susanne Langer, 1953. Feeling and Form. (New York: Charles Scribner),47.

(62)Rudolph Arnheim, 1966. Toward a Psychology of Art: Collected Essays. (Berkeley: University of California Press),209.

(63)Ibid,208.

(64)Pile, Design, Purpose and Meaning,99.

(65)Ibid. 309

(66)Gerrit Rietveld, 1927. "Utility, Construction: (Beauty, Art).” In T. Benton and C. Benton (Eds.), Architecture and Design: 1890-1939. (New York: The Whitney Museum of American Art),163.

(67)John Berger, 1980. About Looking. (London: Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative),120-21.

(68)Ibid,121.

(69)Peter Blake, 1977. Form Follows Fiasco: Why Modern Architecture Hasn't Worked. (Boston: Little, Brown and Company), 139.

(70)Berger, About Looking,126.

(71)Arnheim, 1966. 206.

(72)Reyner Banham, 1970. "Chairs as Art.” In Modern chairs 1918-1970. (London: Whitechapel Art Gallery),20.

(73)Denise Domergue, 1984. Artists Design Furniture. (New York: Harry N. Abrams),38.

(74)Ibid.

(75)Eric Larrabee, and Massimo Vignelli. 1987. Knoll Design. (New York: Harry N. Abrams),71.

(76)Robert Horn, 1986. Memphis, Objects, Furniture, and Patterns. (Philadelphia: Running Press),26.

(77)Michael Collins, and Andreas Papadakis. 1989. Post-Modern Design.(New York: Rizzoli)

(78)Doug Stewart, 1986. Modern Designers Still Can't Make the Perfect Chair. Smithsonian (April), 97-105.

(79)Horace Judson, 1987. "Breaking the Frames." In M. Manhart, T. Manhart, and C. Haralson (Eds.). The Eloquent Object: The Evolution of American Art in Craft Media Since 1945. (Tulsa: The Philbrook Museum of Art),119.

(80)Domergue, Artists Design Furniture,123.

(81)Patterson Sims,1985. Whitney Museum of American Art: Selected Works From the Permanent Collection. (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art),185. 310

(82)Richard Armstrong, 1988. Artschwager, Richard. (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art)17.

(83)John Perreault, 1981. "Not All Chairs Are Equal." Art Forum, (April)

(84)Mary Jane. Jacob, 1987. "The Idea of Crafts in Recent American Art." In Marcia Manhart, Tom Manhart, & Carol Haralson, eds., The Eloquent Object: The Evolution of American Art in Craft Media Since 1945. (Tulsa: The Philbrook Museum of Art),182.

(85)Jacque Macquet, 1986. The Aesthetic Experience: An Anthroplogist Looks at the Visual Arts. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press),32.

(86)Ibid.

(87)Joseph La Chapelle, 1984. "The Sociology of Art and Art Education: A Relationship Reconsidered." Studies in Art Education. 26(l):34-40.

(88)Howard Becker, 1982. Art Worlds. (Berkley: University of California),36.

(89)Herbert Read, 1956. Art and Society. 2d ed. London: Faber and Faber.

(90)Arnold Hauser, 1951. The Social History of Art. (New York: Knopf)

(91)Jean Duvignaud, 1972. The Sociology of Art. (New York: Harper and Row).

(92)Ron Best, 1977. "Sketch for a Sociology of Art." British Journal of Aesthetics. 17(l):68-79.

(93)John Berger, 1972. Ways of Seeing. (London: British Broadcasting Corporation & Penguin Books)

(94)Best, Sketch for a Sociology,77.

(95)Marantz, Visual Education.

(96)B Rosenblum, B. "The Artist as Economic Actor in the Art Market." In J. H. Balfe and M. J. Wyszomirski (Eds.), Art, Ideology, and Politics. (New York: Praeger),68-79 .

(97)Ibid. 311

(98)Becker, Art Worlds,37.

(99)Harold Rosenberg, 1973. The Anxious Object: Art Today and its Audience. (New York: Collier Books),111.

(100)Porche Cars North America. 1989. Promotional material.

(101)George Dickie, 1975. Art and the Aesthetic: An Institutional Analysis. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press),33.

(102)Read, Art and Society,69

(103)Ibid,71.

(104)Ibid.

(105)J S. Ackerman, 1973. "Towards a New Social Theory of Art." New Literary History, 4, 315-330.

(106)Ibid,327.

(107)R B. Browne, & M Fiswick, (Eds.), 1978. Icons of America. (Bowling Green, OH: Popular Press),7.

(108)Rita Reif, 1987. Furniture with million-dollar legs. The New York Times (February, 8).

(109)Clifford, Art and Understanding,155.

(110)Becker, Art Worlds,23.

(111)Rosenberg, The Anxious Object,115.

(112)Becker, Art worlds,93.

(113)Ibid,100.

(114)John Pick, 1986. Managing the Arts? The British Experience. (London: Rhinegold),151.

(115)Ibid,66. CHAPTER VI

REFLECTIONS & REDIRECTIONS

In producing this dissertation I have rummaged through history for evidence of purposeful study of utilitarian objects in art education. I have sought out threads which connect attitudes, values, and practice in Britain and

America particularly between the period spanning the 1830's and the 1930's. I have grappled with the notion of an aesthetic object, and have explored social systems which elevate such objects and which, under certain conditions, designate them to be "art". The purpose of these forays is to cast light on what I consider to be a sorely-neglected range of potential objects from the content of most art education curricula.

There was no intent, however, that the study would be pragmatic, at least to the extent that it would prescribe strategies for implementation. While the study's focus has been theoretical in nature, it clearly has implications for practice in the field. It is my hope that others will accept the challenges I have offered and will "carry the ball" to devise more inclusive curricula to meet their specific needs. I do, however, recognize that in the

312 313 context of current art education practice, at least in

America, that what I am urging is no less than a major curriculum reform. I use this term advisedly, as "reform" oftentimes is construed as being something "new". This study plainly indicates that there is little new about a

functional stance to art education curricula.

I have deliberately shied away from any responsibility to produce a "box of tricks" which might be expected, in some miraculous way, to transform the status quo within art education. However, this does not mean that I have any

intention to disregard the implications of the adoption of a more inclusive notion of art, to the field. For, if I wish to reconfigure the structure and content of art education, I cannot bury my head in the sand and at the same time, expect to be heard. My vision of "what could be" is far from being crystal clear, so while my thoughts may be somewhat speculative, they hopefully may act as a catalyst to others.

More than anything I wish to effect a change of attitudes as to what is considered appropriate study for art education, to demythologise the notion that one set of objects is so superior to another that only they are worthy of attention. This is a myth perpetuated by art education, where, according to Vincent Lanier, there is evidence that

"aesthetic educationists speak of the visual arts as if the fine arts of the museum and gallery are clearly superior as a group of objects to other visual arts abundantly available 314

in our environment."(1) The artworld perpetuates this restrictiveness which is the result of what Lanier calls

"frequent elitism".(2) The elitism which is endemic to the current situation is not something unique to our times. In previous chapters I discussed The Owatonna Art Education

Project and the Museum of Modern Art's efforts to bridge the chasm between art and everyday life in the 1930s; but they were atypical in their vision.

In a wonderful little book, The Civic Value of Museums written in 1937 by T. R. Adam, the author discusses the museum as an educational instrument. He views the museum's selectivity as evidence within the cultural domain of a determination by a "few" of the taste of the "many". He writes that "the ignorance of the general public, the maintenance of popular myths and ill-informed prejudices is a weapon of social control."(3) And while I would argue that public taste is determined by circumstances beyond the realm of the museum, I am drawn to the appositeness, to the current situation, of his hypothsesis that "if the contention is correct that public taste in artistic matters is primarily formed by our leading museums, then the abandonment of the field of modern technologic objects must be considered a shirking of responsibility."(4)

One could easily become disenchanted if one thought that what exists is a "fait accompli", so when cracks appear in the very bastions of an elitest aesthetic, it gives 315

encouragement to those in quest of a reconfiguration of what

is aesthetically valuable. In my opinion, that is what makes the Machine Art exhibition, disucussed earlier in this

study, such a pivotal event. It is what makes the Artnews article "Art Education Flunks Out" written by J. Carter

Brown, the director of the National Gallery of Art in

Washington D.C., to be a tantalizing prospect, ii. only his words were heeded:

We need to teach children to analyze visual data so that they might resist the blandishments and manipulations of those in this advertising-driven world who understand affective power. We make visual choices every day of our lives, starting when we decide what to wear in the morning. As a citizenry, we shape the environment around us. Too often, America gets the visual environment it has earned by its failure to recognize the role that design decisions play in our lives.(5)

I am encouraged when I read an article in The J. Paul

Gettv Trust Bulletin, which explore concepts surrounding the notion of the decorative arts, and how these objects might be utilized in educational settings, particularly when it talks of students working with actual objects. I am, though, disappointed that the concerns are still soley for Baroque, Rococo, and Neoclassical "exemplars". This is not surprising considering the museum's patronage. But the curator of decorative arts for the J. Paul Getty Museum should not be too surprised that visitors "are often unprepared for those domestic objects [furniture] in a museum setting."(6) The museum and art education must 316

share the responsibility for educating society about these

familiar things. Wouldn't it also seem plausible that an

understanding of one's immediate utilitarian environment

would lead to better understandings of these "exemplars" of decorative arts?

There is much to be learned from those things which may appear to be very "ordinary". The Victoria Albert Museum,

London, doesn't "blink an eyelid" when they discuss the recent acquisition of a piece of contemporary Danish school

furniture.(7) This museum's partnership with art education was discussed earlier in this study, and it is heartening to suspect that its founders may well feel that there has been little deviation from their original intent. In his article

"Desert Island Objects," Stephen Bayley discusses Sir

Terence Conran's (the British design mogul) involvement with the V & A, a relationship not without significant historical precedence:

There was a sort of inevitability about Sir Terence becoming a Trustee of the V & A. Not only does he belong to the generation of art students who actually once used the Museum's collection for inspiration, but the whole design ethic which makes Habitat stores different from the other High Street shops can be traced back to lessons once taught by Henry Cole and his colleagues when they established the V & A's precursor on the same site in then rural Brompton. Cole had a High Victorian want of squeamishness in using his Museum as a starting point for commercial design; Conran is the same. His subtle and refined eclecticism has created a synthesis that is entirely novel.(8) 317

Sir Terence Conran was the driving force behind the

Design Museum, which opened in London, in 1989. Paul

Goldberger, writing in The New York Times, indicates that

the museum "presents temporary exhibitions, but the main

event now is a permanent collection, a set of 20th-century

objects to rival the holdings of the Museum of Modern Art in

New York."(9) The museum's education program "is intended

to enable young people to operate effectively in the made

world through the development of an analytical and

evaluative appraisal of design in daily life."(10)

Worksheets have been produced which guide students

individually to make decisions about objects from the museum's study collection. Thematically constructed materials are being developed to enable teachers to select a specific program for a school visit. What is particularly exciting about these initiatives is that they have been devised to deal with issues beyond an object's appearance, to matters regarding social, political, and economic contexts.

There are also signs in America of a greater degree of openness toward which objects could be considered of aesthetic value. The National Endowment for the Arts, in its report The Arts in America; A Report....tfl_thfi_Pr.esident and to Congress, acknowledges art's role in the enhancement of the citizen's sensitivity to the multifarious forms which constitute their visual environment.(11) It is important to 318

note that the NEA is not embracing the appropriateness of all human-made things for serious study, and that "exemplars

of design" have been established, just as there have been exemplars of fine art. The following list of potential objects of attention, presented in this Report, provides a very clear picture of what the NEA considers to be

"important":

Design efforts that unite functional success and desirable appearance include, for example, Thomas Jefferson's Academical Village at the University of Virginia (1817-26): New York's Central Park (1857); The Brooklyn Bridge (1869-83); The Rockefeller Center (1931-40); Henry Ford's Model T automobile (1908); Louis Kahn's Salk Institute Laboratory Buildings in La Jolla (1959-67); I. M. Pei's Christian Science Center in Boston (mid -1970s); Battery Park City (mid -1980s, still in progress); Mies Van Der Rohe's Barcelona Chair, (1929); Levi Strauss' 501 Jeans, (1853); The graphics program for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles; the Apple lie computer (voted in 1984, Design of the Year by Time magazine).(12)

Toward Civilization which was also produced by The

National Endowment for the Arts decries the fact that design has been all but ignored in art programs in the United

States. There is, the NEA argues, an indisputable case for a greater visibility of design in arts programing. The report observes that it is utilitarian products which contribute to shaping our visual environment, "yet almost nothing related to these ... is taught in schools. There are few curricula on design, and teachers are generally not educated to teach it."(13) 319

While the NEA may recognize that the content of art

education curricula ought to include the study of the

utilitarian object, the fact remains, however, that it is

still the fine art rationale which continues to prevail as

the predominant model for American art education. This,in

spite of constant calls from concerned parties, such as

Laura Chapman,(14) Vincent Lanier,(15) Graeme Chalmers,(16)

and June King McFee,(17), who ardently argue for a less

myopic view of of the content of art education curricula. I

believe that the continued focus on only certain visual

phenomena which is evident in much art education curricula

perpetuates a divorce between art and life. Arlene Lederman argues that, indeed, such a curricula fails "to communicate

the true nature of art."(18)

Art education, in Britain, however, is experiencing a continuing shift toward a design emphasis. Ministers of the

Crown indicate that the Government is "committed to developing design awareness and capability through the national curriculum."(19) The educational reform taking place in British Schools, of which the design thrust is one part, reminds one of the 1835 Select Committee, discussed in chapter one of this study, which was "appointed to inquire

into the best means of extending a knowledge of the fine arts and principles of design among the people."(20)

Stephen Bayley, in his article "The Shape of the Future," makes this connection: 320

The latest educational reforms which have led to the national curriculum are part of a tradition of the British trying hard to catch-up, a tradition which goes back at least as far as the 1830s with the legislation that led to the creation of the Government Schools of Design.(21)

Bayley is not so naive as to believe (as the British

Government appears to place some stock) that the inclusion

of design in the school curriculum will turn Britain once

again into a major commercial force. But the emphasis on

design in schools can, he argues, "help achieve ... an

increasing awareness of the factors and forces which

contribute to the appearance and performance of

mass-produced goods. The more so if other subjects in the

curriculum are also taught with material factors in mind,

rather than mereley politico-historic or grammatical

ones."(22) He is optimistic about design's potential:

Design is a unique combination of the intuition and planning, of the practical and the intellectual, the commercial and the aesthetic. If the new curriculum works, life may at last, become as rewarding as art in the fulfilment of the Modernist dream. Students will realize that the design, manufacture, and use of a chair can be spiritually, educationally and indeed - if successful - commercially satisfying. This is the aim of education and a good working definition of design.(23)

The parallel which Bayley draws between the establishment of the Design Schools in Britain and that

country's current reaffirmation of many of those earlier

principles, produces an intriguing circle of events, of which America was, and is, a part. The National Endowment

of the Arts report on the state of the arts in America, 321 authorized by Congress in 1985, was itself the second such request in history. Art and Industry, the report compiled in

1885 by Isaac Edwards Clarke, (discussed in chapter two of this study) was the first. In a companion publication to the 1988 report, namely, the Five-Year Planning Document:

1990-1994f The National Endowment for the Arts suggests that

American business needs to take advantage of its native design resources to help restore our competitive edge."(24)

In 1885 Clarke Indicated that "In the artistic development of our industrial resources will be found, it is believed, the surest foundation of our future material prosperity as a nation."(25) I can Imagine that Isaac Edwards Clarke and

Henry Cole would be somewhat alarmed that so little has changed during the Intervening century which separates them from the contemporary situation.

Domain Inquiry Model

One of the purposes of this dissertation, as mentioned elsewhere, was to question the exclusion of the object of utility from much art education curricula. As I indicated in the introduction to this chapter, it is not my intention to formulate specific curriculum strategies for the classroom. I do, however, wish to present a conceptual model which places fine art, craft, and design, as components on what I conceive as being a mobius band.

(Figure 15) In general terms, fine art refers to things vetfua I

analysis reflection understanding

1 r

So/ reflec

Figure 15. Domain Inquiry Model

OJ C*0 ro 323

created purely to elicit an aesthetic experience, craft and

design are things created for utilitarian purposes. The

distinction I draw between the two is that craft includes

those things whose production is controlled by the maker,

and which are made either as single items or as low volume

production. Design includes those things created within commercial or industrial contexts and which are normally associated with mass-production. These are comparatively traditional definitions which have limitations, and it is

important to recognize that increasingly, the boundaries which have separated fine art, craft, and design, have been challenged.

The "domain" model is a development of ideas explored by the British art educator, Brian Allison.26 Allison expresses the content of an art education curriculum in terms of four domains: 1). The Expressive/Productive 2).

The Perceptual 3). The Analytical 4). The

Historical/Cultural. In my model I have reduced the number of domains to two: 1). The Conceptual and Productive 2).

The Analytical and Reflective. In essence, these domains respectively correspond to "making" and "looking" at art.

In this model, the domains become interwoven. The purpose of each is to assist the acquisition of understandings, whether as a maker or a viewer. This configuration acknowledges, however, the interrelatedness of both these activities. The arrangement of the elements within the 324

model is intended to diminish any sense of hierarchy and

compartmentalization. The contextual filters, likewise, are

viewed as offering the viewer multi-variable foci with which

they might attend to any object. These filters also

indicate only five of numerous potential emphases with which

one might wish to subject an object to analysis and

reflection.

Let's Lock at a Chair

What, then, might one discover when a chair by the

architect Marcel Breuer becomes the subject of inquiry within the analytical and reflective domain? In any ranking

of twentieth century design forms Marcel Breuer's steel club armchair, (Plate XXVI) conceived of and realized in 1925, would certainly be a contender for top honors. If that ranking was for furniture alone, Breuer's chair would have no equal. It is, beyond doubt, an extraordinary object one which has much to reveal as it is scrutinized under contextual filters. It is a prime example of an artifact which stretches the boundaries of its function class. It is an object abundant with a network of meanings, so rich that practical perception is constantly subject to challenge.

The chair is designed to be functional, to take its place in the domestic environment; yet it is an artifact when exhibited in a museum of art, that assumes the stature equal to any other object of "fine art" housed under the same 325

Plate XXVI. Marcel Breuer. Wassily chair. Manufacturer: Thonet 326

roof. Arguably indeed, this chair is so significantly

emblematic that the canopy of a museum may not be required

for it to be designated as a work of art.

Where, though, ought one begin the quest for the

chair's significance? Is there a fixed point of entry

within the model of inquiry? One advantage of utilizing the

concept of the mobius band is, according to Kenneth Marantz,

that "a journey begun at any point on the surface will touch

all points of the band and will return to its starting

point."(27) Francois Burkhart, in her essay "Design and

'avant-postmodernism',"(28) provides a clue to the quandary.

She hypothesizes:

Someone sitting in a Mart Stam chair today finds it beautiful in its most abstract quality - because Mart Stam was part of the Bauhaus, and designed his chair in a particular doctrinal perspective and with a particular method. The chair consequently possesses considerable historical interest. But someone who knows nothing about that history can hardly be expected to find the object beautiful.(29)

History will therefore be the starting point of this

journey, but as the investigation procedes, other

"contextual filters" will be applied to assist in our

understanding of the importance of this specific chair.

While Burkhart's words are directed at a chair by Mart Stam, another Bauhaus teacher, the observations are equally applicable to the Breuer chair. Breuer's chair pre-dated

Stam's, but while the Stam chair is generally acknowledged

to be one of the first cantilever chair designs of the 327

Modern Movement, (30) it would be Breuer's, not Stam's,

version of a chair incorporating this principle which would

ultimately spawn what is now a ubiquitous style in chair

design.(Plate XXVII)

Mart Stam and Mies van der Rohe exhibited cantilever

chair designs at the 1927 Stuttgart Werkbund exhibition.

But Benton and Scharf speculate that it was Breuer, who

while producing his tubular stools in 1925, was the "first

[to have] conceived of the possibilities of using a single

loop of cantilevered steel tube as a means of elastic

suspension when placing these stools on its side and sitting

on the upper loop."(31) While the speculation as to exactly who was responsible for the first cantilever chair design is

intriguing, there is no doubt that Breuer's steel club armchair, designed and built in 1925, was "the first chair

[constructed] entirely of chromium plated, tubular steel."(32) There is a degree of paradox in the fact that this technologically revolutionary design solution should be born not out of the Bauhaus' Metal Workshop but out of

Cabinet Making. But as a student in the Bauhaus, it was

Breuer who had designed and constructed a series of wooden chairs (Armchair,1922; Chairs and Table, 1923); chairs which reflected Constructivist and De Stijil ideals.

Peter Blake's monograph, Marcel Breuer: Architect and

Designer. suggests that the Constructivist precept of "the separation of functions in any design object, and the 3 28

Plate XXVII. Marcel Breuer. Side chair 329

expression of that separation by visual and structural

means,”(33) was very evident in the club armchair.

Breuer's chair is clearly a manifestation of this

design philosophy, and as Reyner Banham argues, it was also

"Rietveld's chair reworked in fabric and steel."(34) Here,

the tubular steel frame support and the intersecting planes

of the seat and back all speak of their independent

functions, yet in their relationships, establish a unified

design statement. It is evident that while Breuer's earlier

explorations of wooden furniture do indeed owe much to de

Stijil aesthetics, his chairs are very solid objects when

compared with the scaffolded space frame of Gerrit

Rietveld's 'Red-blue chair,' 1918-1919. Theodore M. Brown

suggests: "Conceived as though he had never seen a chair,

Rietveld established planes for horizontal and vertical

support and a skeletal frame to suspend them."(35) The chair, he continued, was "a pristine space composition of

classical degree."(36)

In his club armchair, Breuer was able to produce a

piece of furniture whose interdependent elements similarly defined space, but on this occasion, steel and leather captured the spirit of the Machine Age. The chair was exhibited at the 1938 Bauhaus Exhibition held at The Museum

of Modern of Art. The Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art

identified it as "an important monument historique of modern

furniture for it was the first chair of metal tubing,"(37) 330

It is somewhat ironic that this potent symbol of a new

technological age was in fact a hand-crafted object.

Breuer's creation of a chair from bent steel tubing indeed

became "a legend of the Modern Movement."(38) Much of the

legend centered on the fact that the inspiration for this

technological and aesthetic development emanated from

Breuer's observation of the tubing of his Alder bicycle.

Larabee and Vignelli, in their book Knoll Design,, record

that Breuer allegedly said it was then that he "started to think about steel tubes which are bent into frames - probably that is the material you could use for an elastic and transparent chair ... I was very much engaged in the transparency of the form."(39) The Alder company, the manufacturers of the bicycle were, however, unresponsive when approached by Breuer to his suggestions for the mass-production of steel furniture. But undeterred, he obtained quantities of steel tubing (bent to his specifications) directly from the Mannessman Steel Works which he welded together with the assistance of a plumber.(40) Breuer was captivated by the structural and aesthetic potential of the steel tubing. Gillian Naylor observes that the steel was able to provide him with the strength, lightness and anonymity which had alluded him in the wooden furniture made in Weimar.(41) During the exploratory development of the club armchair, Breuer experimented extensively with both aluminium and steel. The 331 aluminium, however, proved to be more costly and considerably more difficult to weld. As a result, the later designs were carried-out only in steel. In 1927, Breuer recalled that he had "first experimented with duralumin, but because of its high price I went over to using precision steel tubing."(42) Wllk argues that "It is unclear whether

Breuer experimented with aluminium before making his first chair or whether, in fact the first models were made of aluminium."(43)

It is hard, while looking at the crisp curves of the chair's steel frame, not to be reminded of the Austrian

Michael Thonet's bentwood furniture, furniture which was as radical a new form in 1830's as was the Breuer chair, almost a century later. The similarities between the Thonet and

Breuer furniture do not stop at the comparable linear forms; both men were also interested in the potential for modular design offered by industrialization. While Thonet's invention was a major technological breakthrough, the advance was still within the tradition of wooden furniture.

Breuer's chair, however, marks a severance with tradition, and this sets him apart as being "among the first to address the task of designing unflinchingly in an idiom for the industrial age."(44)

Breuer had suspected that his use of steel may have been too radical a break with tradition for it to gain acceptance, as a statement from 1927 betrays: 332

Two years ago, when I first saw the finished version of my steel club armchair, I thought this out of all my work would bring most criticism. It is my most extreme work both in outward appearance and in the use of materials; it is the least artistic, the most logical, the least 'cosy1 and the most mechanical.(45)

There were those who found the objects conceived within

a Machine Aesthetic to be devoid of the essential stamp of

humanity. John Gloag was such a critic, and in a 1929

article for Studio, he argued that while metal was an

appropriate material for commercial and business worlds, it

had limited application in the home. He pulled few punches

as he attacked the Modern Movement's "relentless logic [and]

its utter inhumanity."(46) His comments regarding aluminium

furniture could well have been directed specifically at

Breuer's club armchair:

Dramatic possibilities of design in metal were discovered. Nickelled steel and polished aluminium came into alliance with yielding upholstery of leather and rubber, and chairs and couches appeared which were strictly metallic in character, and were as efficient and about as interesting as modern sanitary fittings.(47)

Gloag, however, admitted that well-considered metal

furniture was "preferable to the gummy brown things of wood that hide their poverty of design, by some pretentious label such as 'Jacobean' and their weakness of construction by a tangle of ornament."(48) Honesty to materials was essential

in an object's design and Gloag was disdainful of one material charading as another. Metal furniture, particularly that designed for the home, being a celebration 333 of the essential qualities of its very substance, was obviously too much of a challenge to Gloag's traditionalist perspective. Metal's associative qualities (industrial, mechanical, and inhuman) were the very antithesis of the personal world of the home. Gloag was not only critical of the furniture of the Modern Movement, he objected to the whole design philosophy which defined new relationships between object and space:

The designer may design an interior in which chairs of shining aluminium are an essential part of the composition; but in such schemes human beings appear intrusive; there is no sympathy between them and the setting. Metal is cold and brutally hard, and whether it is used for a mid-Victorian brass bedstead or a chair that is formed by simple loops of polished steel tubing and leather cushions, it gives no comfort to the eye.(49)

Gloag was seemingly unable to accept the notion that furniture, like other utilitarian objects, would inevitably take on new forms as new technologies and materials were explored. Metal epitomized the spirit of the Machine Age, and it would, according to the designer Charlotte Perriand

(in a rebuttal to Gloag's article), play "the same part in furniture as cement has done in architecture."(50) The architects and designers of the Modern Movement sought a rationalization of the physical environment. They had a vision of a designed environment consisting of "Standard

Functions - Standard Needs - Standard Objects - [and]

Standard Dimens ions."(51) It is not surprising that with such goals in mind, Modern Movement designers felt there was 334 no place for traditional attitudes. This was an out-and-out revolution, Le Corbusier, in a 1929 essay The Furniture

Adventure said "that the traditional furniture of the cabinet maker and salesman does not serve us well at all, that it is a cumbersome relic, which opposes the economic and efficient solution."(52) Breuer's club armchair is a product of such a reductionist aesthetic which relished in systematizing architectural and utilitarian forms:

The severe rationalisation of components - the use of the same components in different types of furniture, the possibility of reducing them to two dimensional parts (over fifty club armchairs can be packed into a space of one cubic meter, with obvious advantages for transport), and a full regard for industrial and manufacturing considerations all contributed to the social yardstick of a price which could be paid by the broadest possible mass of the population. And I might say that without this yardstick, I could not have found the project particularly satisfactory.(53)

Breuer was intrigued by the potential of a modular approach to furniture design. The interchangeability of component parts could provide variants in the object's form, while the systematic reduction of the object into separate elements would make for ease of mass-production. These ideas were very much in accord with those of Michael Thonet, whose production and distribution philosophies pre-empted

Breuer by some seventy-five years. A perusal through

Thonet's 1904 catalog "illustrates the astounding diversity of furniture types sold by this manufacturer."(54) It is worth noting that both Thonet bentwood (though not in the complete 1904 range) and Breuer's club armchair are still 335 available today. An inquiry of a retailer specializing in contemporary furniture indicated that the Breuer chair is available at prices ranging form $190 to in excess of $1500, the differential being due the quality of the materials of manufacture (steel & leather), and the extent to which it was a close replica of the original.

Breuer's interest in the standardization of furniture was not only due to the fact that he felt this principle was more compatible with the processes of mass-production, but also because this reduction of a form into only the most essential elements resulted in a more anonymous object.

Walter Gropius in The New Architecture and The Bauhaus defined standardization as:

that simplified practical exemplar of anything in general use which embodies a fusion of the best of its anterior forms - a fusion preceded by the elimination of the personal content of their designers and all otherwise ungeneric or non-essential features.(55)

In defense against any possible criticism that such a design philosophy was contrary to the celebration of individuality,

Gropius argued:

In all great epochs of history the existence of standards - that is the conscious adoption of type forms - has been the criterion of a polite and well-ordered society; for it is a commonplace that the repetition of the same things for the same purposes exercises a settling and civilizing influence on men's minds.56

According to Naylor, standardization enabled Breuer "to provide a de-personalized furniture that could be used in any setting."(57) It was important to Breuer that 336

utilitarian objects within the domestic environment should

not possess an identity separate from the space in which

they were placed:

A piece of furniture is not an arbitrary composition: it is a necessary component of our environment. It is itself impersonal, it takes on meaning only from the way it is used or as part of a complete scheme. A complete scheme is no arbitrary composition either but rather the outward expression of our everyday needs; it must be able to serve both those needs which remain constant and those which vary. This variation is possible only if the very simplest and most straightforward pieces are used; otherwise changing will mean buying new pieces. Let our dwellings have no particular "style," but only the imprint of the owner's character. The architect, as producer, creates only half a dwelling; the man who lives in it, the other half.(58)

Breuer's armchair has become so much a symbol of the

Modern Movement aesthetic that it is difficult for the contemporary viewer to perceive of it as not having a very definite persona. But one can see how its skeletal structure provides a minimal barrier to penetration by the space of the surrounding environment. Indeed, Breuer's

imagination even conceived of the ultimate design solution where "in the end we will sit on resilient air columns."(59)

This chair was part of an exploration of new relationships between furniture and interior spaces. Writing in Das Neue

Frankfurt in 1927, Breuer argued that:

The pieces of furniture and even the very walls of a room have ceased to be massive and monumental, apparently immovable and built for eternity. Instead they are more opened out, or so to speak, drawn in space. They hinder neither the movement of the body nor the eye. The room is no longer a self-bounded composition, a closed box, for its dimensions and 337

different elements can be varied in many ways. One may conclude that any object properly and practically designed should "fit” in any room in which it is used as would any living object, like a flower or a human being. (60)

Breuer's experiments with a reassessment of the nature of a building's internal architecture, and in particular, the use of standardized furnishings, was a concept which was very much in accord with De Stijil and Constructivist architectural theory. As Breuer considered his club armchair an integral element of a total environment, so too

Gerrit Rietveld sought to establish a union between furnishings and space. This concept is typified in his 1924

'Schroder House'; a building, which it is argued is an example of "the first really open interior of the Modern

Movement."(61) In Russia, Alexander Rodchenko and El

Lissitsky were similarly spurred to design radically new interior spaces which were defined by the adoption of standardization and rationalist thought. They created systems of modular furnishings, where, according to

Alexander Laurentiev in "Experimental Furniture Design in the 1920s,""Furniture completely disappeared, seemingly to dissolve into the walls and floor of the room. The space itself was transformed into furniture."(62) The Russian's environments, however, lacked the flexibility of either

Rietveld's or Breuer's work, and Laurentiev indicates that

"it was not uncommon for the chair to be the only object 338 that was not fixed to the floor and which could be moved about."(63)

Breuer's club armchair is often referred to as the

"First tubular steel chair," but the version which is displayed in The Museum of Modern Art and which is currently still in production by companies such as Arch Nova, Knoll, and Thonet, underwent a number of subtle, yet significant changes since the production of the prototype.

This chair, illustrated in Bayer's book Bauhaus 1919-1928f shows a chair which has four legs, connected front and rear with cross-bracing.(64) Breuer was apparently dissatisfied with the prototype because according to Wilk, it "had no resiliance ... [and] was bulky and difficult to store."(65)

It was the protoype which was in fact the 'first' tubular steel chair, though not the first to be mass produced. In a model constructed later in 1925 the cross-bracing was dispensed with, being replaced with the now familiar "runner or sled arrangement ... [which allowed] for easy moving about."(66)

Breuer became actively involved in the manufacture, promotion, and sale of his own designs. His association with Standard-Mobel caused some consternation among Bauhaus authorities, (Walter Gropius in particular), who had expressed a wish that all products emanating from the

Bauhaus would be manufactured under license as Bauhaus products and would be promoted as such.(67) Critic Wolf von 339

Eckardt dubbed Breuer's armchair "the first true tangible

Bauhaus product."68 Larabee and Vignelli in Knoll Design

commented, though, that it was somewhat ironic that in

actuality, it was an "extracurricular project, created

outside the Bauhaus as an institution."(69) Although Breuer

had expressed concern about the acceptability of his designs, the interest shown by Wassily Kandinsky in the club

armchair and his wish to furnish his home with this and

other Breuer furniture, must have somewhat allayed Breuer's

fears. While certain Bauhaus personnel may have been

critical of Breuer's independant traits, very soon his

furniture would become the standard fare of the Bauhaus

buildings.

The now familiar name of "Wassily" was suggested by

Dino Gavina, head of the Italian furniture firm. Gavina had travelled to New York in 1962 with the purpose of gaining approval to manufacture "the venerable prototypes of the

Bauhaus."(70) Vercelloni observed that "In reality, it was more a matter of manufacturing for the first time those old designs, since in the Twenties, only a few of each item were constructed by hand."(71) Breuer's working relationship with Gavina would according to all accounts be a positive experience for both men:

Thus began my friendship with Dino Gavina, the most emotional and impulsive furniture manufacturer in the world. There is seemingly no end to the enjoyment I derive from his idealistic/practical wisdom; his profound interest in things to come; his warm and 340

expansive nature; his obsession with the visual arts; his profound understanding of artists. What is remarkable about Gavina is that one has fun working on serious things.(72)

Breuer's furniture would be copied and manufactured by

a number of furniture firms; it came to be one of the Knoll

/ line, when Knoll Associates acquired the Gavina company in

1968. Breuer would credit, though, Gavina for "really

putting it [furniture] on the map."(73) Thonet, a firm

synonymous with the design and manufacture of bentwood, also manufactured Breuer furniture. Wilk provides a fascinating, and detailed account of confusion and contested claims

surrounding the promotion and manufacturing rights of this

furniture. His story reveals an intricate web of claims and counter-claims, though much of it was connected, not to the

"Wassily" chair, but to Breuer's and Mart Stam's side chair.

Wilk's account paints a chronology so complex that it appears that any would-be contemporary purchaser of a

"Breuer" chair might be well advised to approach any manufacturer's claim with a degree of healthy suspicion. In the exhibition "The Modern Chair"(74) staged at the

Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 1988, three

"Wassily" chairs were exhibited side by side.(Plate XXVIII)

The "reproductions" were all attributed to Breuer as designer, but one was tempted to request that "the real

Breuer step forward." 341

Plate XXVIII. Wassily chairs at The Institute of Contemporary Art 342

Original Breuer chairs, and indeed original Bauhaus products in general, are now increasingly difficult to find.

In 1988, the Friedman Gallery in New York, staged the exhibition "Bauhaus: Masters and Students." The show featured original nickel plated Breuer chairs of the 1920's.

Rita Rief, in her 1988 New York Times article "When Chairs

Were of Sterner Stuff," commented that while Bauhaus furniture was familiar to the public because of the availability of reproductions, the copies "differ from the originals subtly or dramatically, in their finishes, fabrics, colors, structure, or scale."(75) Rief observes that "The metal frames of Breuer's [chairs] ... show wear and a dark patina that is absent from post-war reproductions in stainless steel and chromed metal."(76) To the "informed eye," the level of aesthetic response is conditioned by the quality of the furniture's material. Barry Friedman, gallery owner and collector of Bauhaus products, indicates that for him "There is a gut feeling of excitement that I get when I see an original nickel-plated-metal-tubing chair."(77)

Clement Meadmore in The Modern Chair: Classics in

Product ion describes Breuer's Wassily chair as being "a welcoming and beautiful chair, both aesthetically and physically satisfying."(78) It is certainly all these things, and more. It is, without a doubt, an object of historical significance. It is an object which has managed 343

to maintain a symbolic potency that transcends the whims of

fad or fashion, during the nearly seven intervening decades

since the prototype was first conceived. This chair is an

illustration of innovation in product design. As Siegfried

Gideon in Mechanization Takes Command argued, it is a

supreme example of a designer having the vision to utilize

material in a manner hitherto unexplored:

The tubular steel chair is as truly a part of the heroic period of new architecture as are the transparent shells of glass that replace bearing walls. The tubular chair also draws upon the new potentialities evolved in our period - media that were accessible to all eyes, but that remained useless so long as their implications were not grasped.(79)

While the 19th century did give rise to furniture in

England, France, and America which could be interpreted as antecedents for Breuer's Wassily chair, Gideon argued:

These antecedents do not help to explain the rise of the modern type. The modern type is a wholly new one. Behind it was the urge to create a light and semi- hovering structure. It grew up in the atmosphere of the Bauhaus. The one center in the 'twenties where educational training ventured into the unknown.(80)

Breuer's chair marks a watershed in the reassessment of

the relationship between furnishings and their setting. It

bears witness to a design theory which saw external and

internal architecture, not as separate elements, but as

interrelated components of a unified whole. As such, it is a key object which speaks as much about a redefinition of

the scope of the "architect" and "designer" as it does about

its own aesthetic or utility. For it foreshadowed a 344

significant shift for the architect, who could be at "the same time formulating chairs and shaping cities: A sign that the architect's vocation is one of the first of our time to transcend specialization and to approach problems in a universal way."(81)

Breuer left Germany in 1935 and moved to England in order to escape the oppression of Nazism, which had

increasingly made it impossible for architects and designers to practice without fear of political interference. Marian

Page, in Furniture Designed bv Architects, observed that the

intervention was apparently more accutely felt by those

individuals associated with the Bauhaus, or that "hotbed of cultural Bolshevism" as it was apparently referred to by the

Nazis.(82) During Breuer's stay in England he became associated with Isokon and designed his now famous reclining chair.(83) (Plate XXIX). The chair developed concepts explored in Breuer's prize winning designs for the 1933

Paris International Aluminium Furniture Design Competition.

In the design of this chair, Breuer trod a similar path to that previously investigated by Michael Thonet and the

Finnish designer Alvar Aalto. Jill Lever argues that it was

"the only generally accepted piece of pre-war modern furniture design produced in Britain."(84) Architect designed furniture such as Breuer's was not always received with critical acclaim; Lever observes that "a less favorably disposed critic ... sourly described the intervention of 345

chair, 1932-35. XXIX. Marcel Breuer. Long Plate 346 architects as 'the ultra-modernists playting] about with industrially produced materials and claimting] a lot of attention'."(85) Breuer left Britain for the United States in 1937, in order to join Walter Gropius in the Department of Architecture at Harvard. (86) While there were those whose conservatism prevented them from recognizing the aesthetic potential of the combination of new technology and a class of materials ordinarily not associated with furniture design, there were those, fortunately who would not let such innovation pass unheralded. Breuer's Wassily chair was exhibited in "The Bauhaus 1919-1928" exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art,in 1939; and in the same year his reclining chair was exhibited in MOMA's "Art in Our Time" exhibition, alongside chairs by Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies

Van Der Rohe and Alvar Aalto.(87)

Breuer's designs in tubular steel (Wassily, 1925) and

Plywood (Long Chair, 1932-35) were both examples of adventures into new, though not entirely unchartered territory. The Art Digest in 1939 observed that designers of the New York World Fair, (of which the MOMA "Art in Our

Time" exhibition was a part), were inevitably concerned with an ephemeral nature of the event. Design, it was argued, was "Here Today, gone tomorrow."(88) But Breuer's furniture designs, metal and wood, have withstood the test of time, and the Wassily chair is without doubt one of the "modern classics"(89) of the twentieth century. 347

Ed iloaue

When, however, theory frames its conception of experience from the situations that drive so many persons to find relief and excitation in the purely fanciful, it is inevitable that the idea of the "practical" should stand in opposition to the properties that belong to a work of art.(90)

These words by John Dewey capture the essence of a philosophical rationale which determines the content of contemporary art education curricula. Art educators appear to be locked into a perpetual polarization of human-made objects. This mind-set "elevates" the fine arts and generally ignores other utilitarian things. Jerome Hausman argues that "the art educator must conceive his role as the part of the dynamics that mold and shape contemporary ideas and values."(91) In order to do this successfully, and for art education to to make a significant contribution to the general education of an individual, we cannot afford to continue to overlook the aesthetic value of those yet

"unseen" objects of utility. Current curricular practice in art education fails to address the available panorama of human-made objects. Students are therefore presented with a narrow vision of what art is, and are subsequently

ill-prepared to meet the demands of their kaleidoscopic world. The prevalence of elitest dominance prevents all but selected "masterpieces" acquiring a place in the curriculum.

The exclusion of industrial products from serious consideration is, according to Gillo Dorfles,: "completely 348 erroneous, it is instead in these objects that we must discover some of the fundamental aesthetic 'constants' of our epoch."(92) The more we continue to deny recognition to a diversity of objects within art education curricula, the more we deny that "all events or objects can be touchstones

for some kind of important human experience."(93) The scope, then, of any art curricula, should, I propose, be broad visual education. I suggest that the time has come when we should look not to Janson,(94) or Gombrich,(95) to shape our curricular practices, but perhaps to a recent copy

Metrolpol1 tan Home, (found in a local supermarket) which celebrates those individuals, objects, and ideas which it believes shape our lives:

Design has become our new currency - as international competition increases and boundaries disappear, it is often design that determines the character of products, nations, even our environment. Design has become, in fact, breaking news. And so we felt the need to make clear sense of it by applauding the people, the objects and the ideas that are transforming our world at the beginning of the 21st century. Design's very nature is changing. No longer the rhetoric of style, design defines who we are and the times in which we live: It has become a social force, with the power to help heal, solve and connect us to each other.(96)

I am under no illusion that my call for a reconfiguration of the content of art education curricula, that my plea that art educators, bridge the gulf between art and daily life is, as Marantz argues, "a tough one, particularly if we look over the shoulders for new directions or are kept too tightly shut up in our little 349 empires."(97) As John Thackara writes in "Beyond the Object in Design": "art and design cannot be allowed to lurk in a

'priviliged realm'."(98) If we are to develop a program of art education which moves students toward a more complete understanding of the meanings that are embodied in the multifaceted forms of their visual experience, the empires which exist in art education will inevitably have to be breached. Critic Hal Foster suggests that:

A desire to think in terms sensitive to difference, a sceptism regarding autonomous "spheres" of culture or separate "field" of experts ... signals a practice, cross-disciplinary in nature, that is rooted in a venacular or sensitive to forms that deny the idea of a privileged realm.(99)

It is my contention that our students' sensuous acuities must be awakened, for, "ears were not made for such trivial uses as men are wont to suppose, but to hear celestial sounds ... [and] eyes were not made for such groveling uses as they are now put to and worn out by, but to behold beauty now invisible."(100) It is the responsibility of the art educator to illuminate beauty in objects which are yet "unseen". This dissertation represents but one stage in my journey to achieve this goal, but having completed it, I also recognize all too well that

"one's last word is but a beginning."(101) 350

NOTES: CHAPTER VI

(1)Vincent Lanier, 1983. "Beyond Aesthetic Education" Art Education. 36(6):33.

(2)Ibid.

(3)T. R. Adam, 1937. The Civic Value o£ Museums. (New York: American Association for Adult Education),vii.

(4)Ibid.,36.

(5)J Carter Brown, 1988. "Art Education Flunks Out." Artnews,190. January.

(6)"Before the Revolution: At The J. Paul Getty Museum, Curator Gillian Wilson Puts the Decorative Arts in Context." The J. Paul Getty Trust Bulletin. 4(3):10.

(7)The V & A Album 3. 1984. (London: The Associates of the V & A),24.

(8)Ibid.,107.

(9)Paul Goldberger. 1989. "A Conran's Without Price Tags? Hardly." The New York Times,40. Sunday December 3.

(10)The Design Museum. 1989. "Design Museum Education"

April. London: The Design Museum. Informational mater ial.

(11)National Endowment for the Arts. 1988. The Arts in America: A Report to the President and to Congress. (Washington: Government Printing Office).

(12)Ibid.,205-206.

(13)National Endowment for the Arts. 1988. Toward Civilization. (Washington: Government Printing Office ),54 .

(14)Laura Chapman, 1982. Instant Art Instant Culture: The Unspoken Policy for American Schools. (New York: Teachers College Press).

(15)Vincent Lanier, 1987. "A*R*T, A Friendly Alternative to 351

D.B.A.E." Art Education 4(5):46-52.

(16)F. Graeme Chalmers, 1987. "Beyond Current Conceptions of D.B.A.E." Art Education 4(5):58—61.

(17)June King McFee, 1987. "Art in Society." In Issues in Discipline-Based Art Education: Strengthening the Stance, Extending the Horizons. (Los Angeles: The Getty Center for Education in the Arts).

(18)Arlene Lederman, 1988. "Art Beyond the Real World." In J. Burton, A Lederman, and P. London, Beyond DBAE: The Case For Multiple Visions of Art Education. (North Dartmouth: Peter London).

(19)John Steers, 1988. "Art and Design in the National Curriculum." Journal of Art and Design Education 7(3):303-323. Quote from a letter to the National Society for Education in Art and Design, from Angela Rumbold, Minister of State for Education.

(20)United Kingdom. Hansard Parliamentary Debates, 3d ser., vol.29. (1835).

(21)Stephen Bayley, 1989. "The Shape of the Future." The Times Educational Supplement December 8.

(22) Ibid.

(23)Ibid.

(24)National Endowment for the Arts, 1988. Five-Year Planning Document: 1990-1994. (Washington: Government Printing Office),141.

(25)Isaac Edwards Clarke, 1885. Art and Industry: Education in the Industrial and Fine Arts in the United States, part 1. Drawing in Public Schools. (Washington: Government Printing Office),xxi. Quotation taken from Introduction.

(26)Brian Allison, 1982. "Identifying the Core in Art Education." Journal of Art and Design Education. 1(1):59-66.

(27)Kenneth Marantz, 1988. "On The Conservation Of Ideas: Landmarks On Our Moebious Band." Studies in Art Education. 29(4 ):196-197 . 352

(28)Francois Burkhardt, 1988. "Design and Avant-Postmodernism" In Design After Modernism: Beyond the Object, edited by J. Thackra. (New York: Thames and Hudson)

(29)Ibid,149.

(30)Peter Blake, 1949. Marcel Breuer: Architect and Designer. (New York: The Museum of Modern Art),18.

(31)Tim Benton, Charlotte Benton, and Aaron Scharf. 1975. Design 1920s: German Design and the Bauhaus 1925-32, Modernism in the Decorative Arts: Paris 1910-30. (Milton Keynes, England: The Open University Press),40.

(32)Blake, Marcel Breuer,17.

(33)Ibid,16.

(34)Reyner Banham, 1977. Theory and Design in the First Machine Age. (London: Architectural Press),198.

(35)Theodore M. Brown, 1966. Rietveld and the Man-Made Object. In the Man-Made Object, edited by Gyorgy Kepes, (New York: George Braziller),126.

(36)Ibid .

(37)Bauhaus Exhibition. 1938. The Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art, 6(5),8.

(38)Christopher Wilk, 1981. Marcel Breuer, Furniture and Interiors. (New York: The Museum of Modern Art),37.

(39)Eric Larrabee, and Massimo Vignelli. 1981. Knoll Design.(New York: Harry N. Abrams),170.

(40)Wilk, Marcel Breuer,37.

(41)Gillian Naylor, 1968. The Bauhaus. (London: Studio Vista),114.

(42)Marcel Breuer, 1927. "Metal Furniture," In Architecture and Design 1890-1939, edited by Tim Benton, Charlotte Benton, and Dennis Sharp. (New York: The Whitney Library of Design, 1975),226.

(43)Wllk, Marcel Breuer,37.

(44)Institute of Contemporary Art. 1988. The Modern Chair. (London: Institute of Contemporary Art),19. 353

(45)Breuer/ Metal Furniture, 226.

(46)John Gloag, 1929. "Wood or Metal?" In Architecture and Design 1890-1939, edited by Tim Benton, Charlotte Benton, and Dennis Sharp. (New York: The Whitney Library of Design, 1975),231.

(47)Ibid.

(48)Ibid.

(49)Ibid.

(50)Charlotte Perriand, 1929. "Wood or Metal? A Reply" In Architecture and Design 1890-1939, edited by Tim Benton, Charlotte Benton, and Dennis Sharp. (New York: The Whitney Library of Design, 1975),232.

(51)Le Corbusier. 1929. "The Furniture Adventure" In Architecture and Design 1890-1929, edited by Tim Benton, Charlotte Benton, and Dennis Sharp. (New York: The Whitney Library of Design, 1975),234.

(52)Ibid,235.

(53)Breuer, Metal Furniture,227.

(54)Christopher Wilk, 1980. In Thonet Bentwood & Other Furniture: The 1904 Illustrated Catalogue. (New York: Dover Publications),ix. Wilk's remarks appear in the introduction to an unabridged republication of the original catalog.

(55)Walter Gropius, 1936. The New Architecture and The Bauhaus. (New York: Museum of Modern Art),26. Translated from the German by Joseph Hudnut.

(56)Ibid,27.

(57)Naylor, The Bauhaus,119.

(58)Herbert Bayer, Walter and Ise Gropius ,1938. Bauhaus 1919-1928. (New York: The Museum of Modern Art),126.

(59)Gillian Naylor, 1985. The Bauhaus Reassessed: Sources and Design Theory. (New York: Dutton),106.

(60)Bayer,Bauhaus 1919-19 28,126.

(61)Tim Benton, 1975. The New Objectivity. (Milton Keynes, England: The Open University Press),52. 354

(62)Alexander Lavrentiev, 1989. "Experimental Furniture Design in the 1920s." Journal of Decorative and Propoganda Arts,146.

(63)Ibid.

(64)Ibid.

(65)Wilk, Marcel Breuer,37.

(66)Ibid,53.

(67)Ibid,54.

(68)Larrabee and Vignelli, Knoll Design,168.

(69)Ibid.

(70)Virgilo Vercelloni, 1989. The Adventure of Design: Gavina. (New York: Rizolll),13.

(71)Ibid.

(72)Ibid,15.

(73)Larrabbee and Vignelli, Knoll Design,172.

(74)The Institute of Contemporary Art. 1988. The Modern Chair. (London: The Institute of Contemporary Art).

(75)Rita Rief, 1988. "When Chairs Were Made of Sterner Stuff." The New York Times, 1 May.

(76)Ibid.

(77)Ibid.

(78)Clement Meadmore, 1975. The Modern Chair Classics in Production. (New York: Van Nostrand Re inhold),54.

(79)Siegfried Gideon, 1948. Mechanization Takes Command. (New York: Oxford University Press),488.

(80)Ibid,489 .

(81)Ibid,509 .

(82)Marian Page, 1983. Furniture Designed by Architects. (New York: Whitney Library of Design),177.

(83)The Institute of Contemporary Art, The Modern Chair,22. 355

(84)Jill Lever, 1982. Architects' Designs for Furniture. (New York: Rizzoli),29.

(85)Ibid.

(86)Blake, Marcel Breuer,62.

(87)Museum of Modern of Art. 1939. Art In Our Time. (New York: The Museum of Modern Ar t),332-333.

(88)The Art Digest, 1939 . "A Brighter Future." 13(17) :18.

(89)Peter Blake, 1983. "AIA Honors a Firm with a Lengthy History of Commitment to Design Quality." Architecture, April.,72-76.

(90)John Dewey, 1934. Art as Experience. (New York: Milton Balch and Company),260.

(91)Jerome Hausman, 1966. "The Plastic Arts, History of Art and Design ... Three Currents Towards Identifying Content for Art Education. In E. L. Mattil ed. A Seminar in Art Education for Research and Curriculum Development. (University Park, PA.: The Pennsylvania State University),90.

(92)Gillo Dorfles, 1966. "The Man-Made Object." In G. Kepes ed. The Man-Made Object. (New York: George Braziller), 6.

(93)Kenneth Marantz, 1972. "Visual Education and the Human Experience." In M. M. Krug e d . What Will be Taught in the Next Decade. (Itasca, IL.: Peacock Books),12.

(94)Horst Janson, 1986. History of Art. (New York: H. Abrams).

(95)Ernst Gombrich, 1978. The Story of Art. (Oxford: Phaidon).

(96)Metropolitan Home, 1990, April. 67.

(97)Marantz, Visual Education,15.

(98)John Thackara, 1988. "Beyond the Object in Design" in John Thackara, e d . Design After Modernism. (London: Thames and Hudson),14.

(99)Ibid. 356

(100)Herbert Read, 1955. Icon and Idea: The Function of Art in the Development of Human Consciousness. (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press),132.

(101)Lewis Mumford, 1960. Art and Technics, 2d ed. (New York: Columbia University Press. APPENDIX A

CONVERSATION WITH ARTIST ROGER WILLIAMS

357 358

P .S What was the inspiration behind this piece ? R.W Ok, I've got an answer for this - this was done in New York, and around the building. This particular piece was done when New Expressionism was at its height and th point of New Expressionism was grafitti, mysticism, masochism, romanticism and every other ism that goes along with New Expressionism. But to describe it, but these - the overall image of the chair is mystic and these figures are primarily from grafitti. Now this represents - these represent somebodys name in the East Village - every building is covered with grafitti, everywhere over as far as you can reach up - but nobody sees them do it. P.S So it's a kind of personal tag ? R.W Yes, as long as I've been in New York I've never seen any of those people do any of it. My own building is covered with grafitti, the doors, the windows, if you paint it in the morning by the next morning its got grafitti on it, nobody ever seen them doing it - but I got to looking at it and some of those stylized grafitti images had great beauty. I said to myself, why fight this ? why not just join up and make an issue out of It and I went around the East Village and picked up a very nice image, put them on paper and brought them back and put them into the chair. P.S Why did you choose the chair ? R.W Because I was already doing chairs at the time. P.S As functional pieces, or as sculpture ? R.W Both, they are comfortable, they are durable, but I don't want anybody ever sitting in them. I just want the audience to perhaps look at them and talk about them. P.W Why did you want people not to sit in them ? R.W What's the use ? I mean you can sit in them. P.S Yes. R.W I sit in them all the time, but they have cultural interpretations - I suppose as pices af art. P.S You would prefer to call them art ? R.W Yes, there is alot of art involved with it and people are buying them as art and looking at them, they are not really 359 buying them because the need a chair. They didn't buy them because they needed a chair they wanted something to look at. P.S So it's a sculpture ? R.W Yes P.S Is it ? R.W Yes it is - well, yes it is, I put everthing I had into it in the form of aesthetics and - P.S What is it made of ? R.W Birch P.S Do you make the whole thing, or do you design it and someone else constructs it ? R.W I've made almost all of it, I don't think anybody ever put their hand on it. I could'nt get anybody to do what I've done - I mean I had to do it myself. P.S Do you title your chairs ? R.W No. I don't think - well the "honeymoon chair" - but I don't think I've put titles on any of the other chairs so far - that's a good question, it never crossed my mind - they are signed. P.S Even the pieces that you can't see are important R.W The underbelly is also slightly considered, but not totally. P.S What is it about the chair that fascinates you, or chairness ? R.W Em - I've decided that our culture was fragmented and everything was borrowed from the past from other cultures and nobody was really interpreting culture and making chairs that reflected it and so in the East Village I said well, first I'm going to make a chair, it's going to be functional, but what does a chair have to do with all these forces hitting me ? Grafitti - the other artpersons in the community and my set of sensibilities. What would this chair look like ? So - and what do I want it to look like ? I want it to be romantic and mystic, and I made this particular piece a few years ago, 3 or 4 years ago and so in that case we make it, so I run with that feeling - Imake it mystic, romantic, with tonalities of color, and what is 360 happening in society while this is happening here, and the culture where I live and that's how it turned out. P.S You talked about the fact that the chair had to be functional, but you really wouldn't want people to sit in it ? R.W Yes well at this point, that's not what's happening, the original point, the original concept was - artist - artist has no money - artist has no furniture - artist makes furniture. P.S Yes R.W Artist may have furniture, but does not like what is for sale in Cowboy Bob's Furniture Barn, therfore artist makes chair for himself. Then a conscious note is struck, saying well look at this - is'nt that interesting - then will shoe these and then it gets recognition but - my original pieces, I've done alot of cabinets, tables, alot of chairs and the original (point) was that I didn't have a stick of furniture to my name. So the first piece was a coffee table, and then as I had a coffee table I had to have a chair. P.S So we transcend you utilitarian need just to have furniture an we have extended beyond that into the realm of art ? R.W Yes - well I don't really like almost all the furniture that's being done in this country, for the simple reason that it's being done for mediocrity and done for commercial reasons and they are not interesting to me and they have no meaning to me and if I had to go out and buy furniture in Columbus I would be embarassed to put it in this space (his studio) because they (the chairs) would automatically say - they would get no attention. So if you are going to ba an artist and put plates on the wall, why don't you go ahaed and be - if you are going to control that force, why don't you go ahead and control the architecture and then you can go ahead and control the whole interior including the music and the furniture and the fashion. I mean if you are going yo make a cultural statement - P.S So you are making no separation really between your art and your life ? R.W No. P.S The spaces you live in, the objects you use ? R.W No, if it can be done - you know if I had a shirt like that (a painting) I'd wear it. I couldn't get anybody to wear it, 361

but it's hard to get anybody to do anything outside their own fantasies. P.S Can we talk about this one ? R.W This piece - I did this a few years back a few years after I was in New York - a woman realized that I had abit of talent but she did'nt want to coolect my art because it did'nt fit in with her interior furniture and whatnot she had - and she asked me to reproduce Claude Monet's kitchen in her new house in Connecticut - and I got to thinking, Claude Monet had a kitchen that he designed and I did'nt realize that and I loked at the photographs and he had designed an interior and so did a number of other artists through history did the same. Lucas Samaurez did alot of things and the guy who transformed trees into - P.S Mondrian ? R.W Mondrian, Yes - and I see the Pace gallery showing Mondrian interiors and furniture - Chris Burdon has a table at the Whitney - Lucas Samaurez is making chairs, so consciously I said, I call myself an artist and why don't I investigate all this and see why am I not doing this, that was a few years ago. P.S There was no sense that his was not as important a piece as one of your paintings ? R.W I was just as serious about the chair - no matter what I do I am just as serious about a chair as this painting. P.S So there is no hierarchy ? R.W Well the painting takes over - I'm interested in painting at the moment - the chair has function which is a compromise, but then it's a necessity at the same time. P.S Why do you say compromise, because of the idea of functionality ? R.W Yes, even though it could be a bad chair - or if it's a bad chair you can still sit in it, but if it's a bad painting, you can't do anything with it - you can't look at it, so its like a bad piece of jewelry, nobody wants a bad piece of jewlery, but it's still a ring - solid gold - still worth something. P.S So the chair is still a chair because it has function ? R.W Yes, whether its good or bad 362

P.S So how would you describe - how do you make decisions about good and bad in terms o£ pieces you have made ? R.W I don't, others do probably. The good intention and the intent means that you are trying to do something with it. I don't know whether they are good chairs or not - you can sit in them. P.S They are good chairs R.W Good to who, I could'nt unload them on the corner, I could'nt sell them in Bexley, they would'nt fit in, I know people who would absolutely not put them in their homes around Columbus and elsewhere. Then I said to myself why do chairs have to have two arms and this and that, and why do chairs have to be a certain height ? So this was designed after Frank LLoyd Wright because he had chairs which were very uncomfortable, which this is - very uncomfortable and with tall backs - I think his tall backs were 10 ft and this is only 6 ft and this is a 'Queen of the Nile Chair'. This is mysticism and machosism and a touch of 'S and M' with the black and white. In the village everybody is black and white with studs - that's the New York image - and around here it's unheared of - people wear browns and are very nice, but in New York the S and M culture is very big. P.S I immediately thought of zebras, and I thought of an African connection especially with the fabric. R.W Yes, Queen of the Nile - that's what was happening in New York, and this was an influence, like this after an image in New York, Black and White, Black and Black, Chrome and Chrome, Chrome and Leather, Zebra skin - Exotic. P.S It's also set in a corner, with colored light behind it, so now the colored light becomes part of the chair, was that a deliberate decision of yours ? R.W Well when the photographers were here they did that to bring out the lights, and what I want to do was for either these lights to shine through, or for the lights shining through to create shapes P.S They are real secrets are'nt they ? R.W These chairs are interpretations of the same things as the computer. These are computer images in space - fractel light -space vehicles and computer animated images, that are doing similar things to the paintings. P.S 363

What was the decision behind putting only one arm on this chair ? R.W I decided that I only needed one arm. You are forced to lean on one side, often times you only lean on one side, depends whether you are right or left handed. I did 2 or three chairs like this. P.S How important is the material to you, or is it just a vehicle for carrying the paint ? R.W No, this is a canvas. This laminate is canvas,canvas is painted with sand to give the reveal and painted and then laminated on to the wood, then you have a a handmade laminate. I will not show common materials especially raw wood - raw wood is something that is something that is so commonly seen and taken at face value for the wrong reasons and I have eliminated that from the vocabulary. P.S You don't want to show that they are made of wood ? R.W I don't want to show that they are made of wood. I want to shoe that they are made maybe of steel or plexiglass or any material but of wood. What's so unusual about another wooden chair ... what are we going to do when all the trees are dead ? APPENDIX B

MEMBERS: SELECT COMMITTEE ON ARTS AND MANUFACTURES

APPOINTED BY PARLIAMENT JULY 14 1835

364 365

Mr . Ewart Mr . Roebuck Mr. Beral Lord John Russell Dr. Bowring Mr. Patrick Stewart Mr. Ridley Colborne Mr . Strutt Mr . Clay Mr. Poulet Thomson Lord Francis Egerton Mr. Warburton Mr. Elphinstone Mr. Morrison M r . Grote Sir Robert Inglis M r . Hawes Mr. Wyse M r . Hume Mr Schlefield The Lord Advocate Mr. Edward Lytton Bulwer Mr. Lewis Mr. Henry Lytton Bulwer Mr. Ostwald Earl of Kerry Sir Robert Peel Lord Viscount Mahon Mr. O'Connell Mr. Yorke Mr. Shiel Mr. Heathcote Lord Viscounnt Sandon Mr. Baines Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer Mr. Stewart Mackenzie Sir Matthew White Ridley Mr. Williams Mr. Brotherton Mr. Fort Mr . Potter Mr Davenport M r . George Evans

Added July 22 1835

Mr . Hanbury Tracy Mr. Hope Mr. Buckingham

Added August 7 1835

Mr. Brocklehurst Mr. Jephson APPENDIX C

WITNESSES

SELECT COMMITTEE ON ARTS AND MANUFACTURES 18 35

366 367

Professor Gustave Friedrick Waagen. Director Royal Gallery Berlin.

Mr. John Jobson Smith. Stewart Smith & Co. (Iron Foundry applled)

James Morrison, Esq. M.P. James Morrison & Co. (Purchasers of manufactured goods in Britain and the Continent)

Mr. Samuel Smith. Harding Smith & Co of Pall Mall

Mr. Benjamin Spalding. Harding Smith (Buyer)

Thomas James, Esq. (Wholesaler for silk and cotton manufactures)

Mr. Thomas Field Gibson. (Silk manufacturer)

Mr. John Howell. Howell & James, Regent Street

Mr. Robert Harrison. Bridges, Campbell & Harrison. (Silk manufacturers)

Mr. George Eld. Mayor of Coventry. (Corn Trade)

Mr. Robert Butt. Howell & James, Regent Street. (Manager of porcelain and bronze Department)

Mr. Charles Harriot Smith. (Sculptor of architectural ornaments)

George Foggo, Esq. (Historical painter)

Samulel Wiley. Jennings & Betteridge, Birmingham. (Jappaning trade)

Monsieur Claude Guillotte. (Jaquard loom manufacturer)

Mr. John Henning. (Architectural sculptor)

Mr. John Martin. (Painter)

George Rennie, Esq. (Sculptor)

Mr. James Crabb. (Interior designer)

James Skene, Esq. Secretary Board of Trustees for the Encouragement of Maufactures in Scotland, and Secretary Royal Institution for the Encouragement of Fine Arts in Scotland. 368

John B. Papworth, Esq. (Architect, Norwich).

Messers. Philip Barnes & Robert Barnes. (Philip Barnes, architect).

Charles Robert Cockrell, Esq. Architect of the Bank of England, Associate of the Royal Academy.

Professor M. F. Boggerts. Professor of Art History, Antwerp.

Charles Toplis, Esq. Vice-President Mechanics Institution, and Director Museum of National Manufactures, Leceister Square.

Mr. Joseph Clinton Robertson. Mechanics Magazine.

William Wyon, Esq. Chief engraver Royal Mint, and Associate of the Royal Academy. APPENDIX D

MUSEUM OF MODERN ART NEW YORK

PERSONNEL

DEPARTMENTS OF DESIGN 1932-1958

369 370

DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE (1932-35)

Philip Johnson, Chairman, 1932-35

DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE AND INDUSTRIAL ART (1935-40)

Philip L. Goodwin, Chairman, 1935-40 Ernestine Fanti, Curator, 1935-37 John McAndrew, Curator, 1937-40

DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN (1940-49)

Eliot F. Noyes, Director, 1940-46 Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., Director, 1946-48 Alice M. Carson, Curator, 1941-43 Susanne Wasson-Tucker, Curator, 1943-49 Greta Daniel, Assistant Curator, 1943-49

DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE (19 40-49)

Philip L. Goodwin, Chairman, 1940-48 Janet Henrich, Director, 1941-42 Elizabeth Mock, Director, 1942-46 Mary Cook-Barnes, Curator, 1947-48 Ada Louise Huxtable, Assistant Curator, 1946-50 Ruth Bookman, Assistant, 1943-48

DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN (1949)

Philip Johnson, Director, 1949-54 Peter Blake, Curator, 1949-50 Arthur Drexler, Curator, 1950-54, Director, 1956 Mildred Constantine, Assistant Curator, 1949-52 Associate Curator, 1952-67 Greta Daniel, Assistant Curator, 1949-55, Associate Curator, 1955 Wilder Green, Assistant Director,1957

DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN (1958)

Arthur Drexler, Director Wilder Green, Assistant Director Mildred Constantine, Associate Curator Greta Daniel, Associate Curator Eileen Langley, Secretary

(Source La Rinascente (1958), II Museo d'arte moderna di New York] APPENDIX E

MUSEUM OF MODERN ART NEW YORK

DESIGN EXHIBITIONS 1933-1947

371 372

GRAPHICS INDUSTRIAL DESIGN TEXTILES

Poster Competition (Feb.- Mar.1933) Objects: 1900 and Today. (Apr.1933) Typography Competition (Mar.- Apr.1933) Machine Art (Mar.- Apr.1934) European Commercial Printing of Today (May.- Jun.1935)

Ignatz Wiemeler Modern Bookbinder (Sep.- Oct.1935)

Posters by Cassandre (Jan.- Feb.1936) Rugs from the Crawford Shops designed by American Artists (Jan.- Feb.1937) Posters by McKnight Kauffer (Feb.- Mar.1937)

Spanish & U.S. Government Posters (Nov.1937) Alvar Aalto Architecture & Furniture (Mar.- Apr.1938)

Useful Objects under $5 (Sep.- Oct.1938)

Bauhaus 1919-1928 (Dec 1938 - Jan 1939)

Useful Objects under $5 (1938 - 1939) * 373

GRAPHICS INDUSTRIAL DESIGN TEXTILES

Art in Our Time Industrial Arts Section (May.- Sep.1939)

Useful Objects of American Design under $10 (Dec 1939 - Jan 1940) History of Rugs by Modern the Modern Poster Artists (June 1941) (1941) *

Salvage Posters by New York High School Students (Jun.- Sep.1941)

National Defense Poster Competition (Jul.- Sep.1941) Organic Design in Home Furnishings (Sep.- Nov.1941)

Manufacturing Modern Furniture: Organic Design (1941 - 1945) *

Furniture Design Today: Organic Design (1941 - 1945) *

Useful Objects New Posters under $10 New Rugs by England (Dec.1941 - Jan.1942) American (Sep.- Oct. 1942) Artists (Jun.- Aug.1942) United Hemisphere Poster Competition (Oct.- Nov.1942)

National War Poster Competition (Nov.1942 - Jan.1943) 374

GRAPHICS INDUSTRIAL DESIGN TEXTILES

Useful Objects in Wartime under $10 (Dec 1942 - Jan 1943)

What is Good Design? Useful Objects under $10 (1942 - 1944)

Art in Progress: Design for Use Section (Summer 194 4)

Building in Wood (Nov.1944 - Jan.1945)

Integrated Building Modern Textile (Feb.- May.1945) Design (1945)

Integrated Building (1945) *

Modern Chair Design (1945) *

Useful Objects under $10 (Nov.1945 - Jan 1946)

Eames Furniture (Mar - Apr 1946)

Modern China by Eva Zeisel (Apr.- Jun.1946)

Unit Furniture (1946) *

Useful Objects '46 (Nov.1946 - Jan.1947) APPENDIX F

MUSEUM OF MODERN ART NEW YORK

MACHINE ART EXHIBITION

MARCH 6 TO APRIL 30 1934

EXAMPLES OF OBJECTS EXHIBITED

Number indicates catalog reference, an asterisk indicates that work is illustrated by a plate which bears the same number in the catalog

375 376

Division 1: INDUSTRIAL UNITS

*1. Bearing spring American Steel & Wire Co. Subsidiary United States Steel Corp.

*2 . Section of Spring American Steel & Wire Co. Subsidiary United States Steel Corp.

*5. Typewriter carriage spring American Steel & Wire Co. Subsidiary United States Steel Corp.

*41. Outboard propeller Aluminium Company of America.

*50. Self-aligning ball bearing S K F Industries.

*54. Gasoline pump Standard Oil Co. of Ohio.

Division 2; HOUSEHOLD AND OFFICE EQUIPMENT

*61. Niedecken mixer faucet Hoffmann & Billings Mfg. Co. $25.00. Henry Stein, 50 Cliff St., N. Y.

*65. Streamline Monel metal sink The International Nickel Co., Inc. Gustav Jensen, designer $193.50. Licensed plumbers

*73. Silver Streak carpet sweeper Bissell Carpet Sweeper Co. $5.00. Department, furniture and hardware stores

*76. Wafflemaster, automatic electric waffle baker Waters-Genter Co. Division of McGraw Electric Co.

*81. Door knob and lock P. & F. Corbin Howe & Lescaze, designers $14.75.

*85. Yale Junior Lock Yale & Towne Mfg. Co. 60cents. Hardware stores. 377

Division 3; KITCHENWARE

*113. Crusader hotel sauce pots Lalance & Grosjean Mfg. Co. $14.55 to $31.65

*117 . Crusader hotel ladles Lalance & Grosjean Mfg. Co. $1.08 to $4.45

*135. Mixing bowls Revere Copper & Brass Inc. Rome Manufacturing Divis ion 90cents to $1.30. Department stores

*143. Beverage tumblers, rustless steel Polar Ware Co. 90cents

*149. Nestrite paper containers Lily-Tullp Cup Corp.

*151. Squat Nestrite containers Lily-Tulip Cup Corp.

Division 4: HOUSEHOLD FURNISHINGS

*207. Salad bowl, wood Russel Wright Studio Russel Wright, designer $3.30 each. Department stores and gift shops

*228. Bowl. Corning Glass Works - Steuben Division Walter Dorwin Teague, designer Steuben Glass, Inc., 748 Fifth Avenue

*257. Inkstand and calendar I. S. Pertofsky Howe & Lescaze, designers $32.00. Howe & Lescaze, architects

*248. Meerschaump pipe Alfred Dunhlll of London, Inc. $25.00. Dunhill shops, tobacco shops and departmental stores.

*279. Chair Thonet Bros., Inc. Marcel Breuer, designer. $20.00. 378

Division 5: SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS

*289 . Vernier depth gauge number 616 Brown & Sharpe of New York, Inc. $16.25. Harware stores

*326. Diaphot Carl Zeiss, Inc. $ 2.20

*336. MacMichael viscosimeter Eimer & Amend $210.00

*340. Pocket polarimeter Carl Zeiss, Inc, $83.25

*365. Anemometer Taylor Instrument Companies $50.00. Department, optical & hardware stores

*366. X-ray unit, model "B", stationary type Ritter Dental Mfg. Co., Inc. $820.00 Di-Vlslon 6; LABORATORY GLASS AMP PORCELAIN

*367. Crystallizing dishes Corning Glass Works 45cents to $1.25. Eimer & Amend

*368. Boiling flasks Corning Glass Works 57cents to $3.30. Eimer & Amend

*394 . Retort Corning Glass Works $3.60. Eimer & Amend

*395. Capsules Coors Porcelain Co. 15cents to 25 cents. Eimer & Amend

*397 . Dish Coors porcelain Co. $1.60. Eimer & Amend

*398 . Beakers Coors Porcelain Co. 15cents to 20cents. APPENDIX G

INDUSTRIAL ART A NATIONAL ASSET

A SERIES OF GRAPHIC CHARTS

PUBLISHED BY DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR BUREAU OF EDUCATION

WASHINGTON DC

MAY, 1919

379 380

CHART I. ALL THINGS PRODUCED and U S E D B Y MAN PASS THROUGH SIMILAR STAGES o f •ZTAe CONSTRUCTIVE PROCESS P E O P LE W tV O L V E q •STEP O NE- TfEQUmEMF/Or A R T IS T S , tMAOlMATION SCIENTISTS I UNDERSTAND A NEED }ABMTM1LTTY INVENTORS ■STEP TWO• U I B R A n V CAPITALISTS STUDY DE5T EXAMPLES}!MUSBUM t£ - STEP THREE- DESIGNERS. DIUWINS it MAKE ORIGINAL SKETCHES}DESIGN MANUFACTURERS ^ -STEPFO U n- b c h N i q u i ARCHITECTS D' MAKE FINISHED DESIGNS}MATERIACX 0 ■ STEP FIVE - DfUUMMTSMEN DETAILERS 0 MAKE WORKING DRAWINGS] MATTiEMATKS c 'STEPS/X ARTISANS PROCESSES WORKMEN H CONSTRUCTION] EFFICIENCY LABORERS ■ STEP SEVEN MERCHANTS PSYCHOLOGY SALESPEOPLE !{ SELLING wtfBUYING ] BUSINESS HCXVIOUALS i -STEPEKHT BCONOMY ■tsirnmoNs | { USE-DKeNEED FULFILLED]ENJOYMENT IT IS EVIDENT THAT % OF ALLTHESTERS IN MAKING ANY ARTICLE REQUIRE ART EDUCATION. COMPETENCE IN ANY ONE 0FTHESTER5 NECESSARILY INVOLVES A THOROUGH UNDERSTANDING -o f ALL THE OTHER STAGES, 381

CHART 4. CHARACTER If INFLUENCED by ART EDUCATION OUR SURROUNDINGS AFFECT OUR DISPOSITION* EXCEPT WE DE TAUGHT TO CHOOSE WISELY WE AND OUR CHILDRENS CHILDREN SHALL BE - THE VICTIMSo/OUROWN BAD TA STE you are One ifthe /02MMiaiktistslnthe U. S . A .

VOU WHO UNDERSTAND T H E INFLUENCE OF BEAUTY IN LIVIN6 ARE MASTERS

CHART 5.

CHART 11. HOW CAN YOUR CITY IMPROVE W INCREASE THE GOODS SOLD IN ? THESE AMERICAN STORES? GROCERY STORES 56.00Q DRUG - 42.00Q HARDWARE - 3Q 00Q DRYGOODS - 2Q 00Q FURNITURE - 27.00Q CLOTHING • 2Q00Q dEVVELRY * 2Q00Q FOOTWEAR * ISOOQ DOOKS - I200Q menSwear * aooa IDu training uour WdlOIEH,DESSfEKandSALESMENh bndixeotdstll moreottmtrr* and substantial!>roducts. tDytrainingthe BUYERSandUSERS - a/wagsto amid the ugiyandJtrvmd beautiful things. ART EDUCATION IS DOING THESE THINGS. HOW ARE YOU DOING YOUR PART IN THE THINGS YOU MAKE AND BUY 9 APPENDIX H

STAFF OF

THE OWATONNA ART EDUCATION PROJECT

384 385

Director, 1933-37, Melvin E. Haggerty Directing Committee since 1937, Wesley E. Peik, Chairman, August C. Krey, and Edgar B. Wesley Resident Director, 1933-34, Robert S. Hilpert Resident Director, 1934-38, Edwin Ziegfeld

Helen Almars, 1934-38 Frances Obst, 1935-37 Clifton A. Gayne, Jr., 1937-38 Marion Overby, 1933-34 Marjorie Johnson, 1935-38 Barbara J. Smith, 1933-35 Winthrop 0. Judkins, 1936-38 Ernest Wenner, 1935-36

Summer Staff

Loreen Atchison, 1935 Ray Fulkner, 1934-38 Loretta Barry, 1935 Mary Elinore Smith, 1935-38 Alice Dahl, 1936-38 APPENDIX I

HOME REPORT FOR

THE OWATONNA ART EDUCATION PROJECT

386 Exter ior

General Effect ...... Architecture; relation to period of construction ...... Spacings; relation to all openings & architectural divisions ...... Realtion to lot ...... Painting and finish ......

Inter ior

General effect ...... Architecture ...... Walls; relation to furnishings and woodwork Texture ...... Color ...... Surface design ...... Floors; quality, color, finish, etc...... Woodwork ...... Furniture Arrangement; for convenience and effect ...... Intrinsic value; design, construct ion,workmanship, material ...... Relation to other features, period, design, finish, etc Draper ies Style ...... Color and value ...... Surface design ...... Floor coverings Size and shape ...... Color and texture ...... Surface design, relation to other furnishings ...... Lights; efficiency, design, approprlateness Wall and ceiling fixtures . Portable lamps ...... Pictures Intrinsic value ...... Appropriateness ...... Accessories Intrinsic value ...... Appropriateness ...... APPENDIX J

PUBLICATIONS OF

THE OWATONNA ART EDUCATION PROJECT

388 389

Art a Way of Life by Melvin E. Haggerty (Number 1)

A City That Art Built by August C. Krey (Numer 2)

Enrichment of the Common Life by Melvin Haggerty (Number 3)

Art for Daily Living: The Story of the Owatonna Art Education Project by Edwin Ziegfeld and Mary Elinore Smith (Number 4)

Art Units for Grades 1-3 by Project Staff (Number 5)

Art Units for Grades 4-6 by Project Staff (Number 6)

Art Units for High School: The Home by the Project Staff (Number 7)

Art Units for the High School: The Urban Community by the Project Staff (Number 8)

Art Units for High School: Graphic Art by the Project Staff (Number 8)

Owatonna: The Social Development of a Minnesota Community By Edgar B. Wesley APPENDIX K

SUMMER SCHOOL ENROLLMENT 19 35-19 36

THE OWATONNA ART EDUCATION PROJECT

390 391

Community Program

1935 1936

Primary Class 25 (14 boys, 11 girls)

Intermediate Class Intermediate Class Grade level: 4,5,6 Grade level:4,5,6 33 (20 boys, 13 girls) 33 (20 boys, 13 girls)

Junior High School Class Junior High School Class Grade level: 7,8,9 Grade level: 7,8,9 13 (4 boys, 9 girls) 16 (7 boys, 9 girls)

Senior High School Class Senior High School Class Grade level: 10,11,12 Grade level: 10,11,12 14 (2 boys, 12 girls) 17 (3 boys, 14 girls)

Adult Class Adult Class Age range: 25-50 Age range: 25-50 25 (chiefly homemakers) 25 (chiefly homemakers)

Teachers Course

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