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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DESIGN IN AMERICA: THE CRANBROOK VISION 1925-1950 TO OPEN AT

THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

Exhibition dates: April 20 - June 17, 1984

Location: The Charles Engelhard Court and The Erving and Joyce Wolf Gallery, The American Wing

Press Preview: Wednesday April 18, 1984 10:00 a.m. - noon

Design in America: The Cranbrook Vision 1925-1950, an exhibition commemorating the 50th anniversary of the founding of Cranbrook Academy of Art, one of the foremost design schools of the twentieth century, will open at the Metropolitan Museum on April 20. The exhibition, which will be on view through June 17, is the first major show to document the emergence of American design in the second quarter of the twentieth century. Included in the show are approx­ imately 240 works by three dozen American and European artists who taught or were students at the Cranbrook Academy. The exhibition was organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Detroit In­ stitute of Arts in cooperation with Cranbrook Academy of Art.

The exhibition has been made possible by a grant from IBM. Additional support was received from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The exhibition opened in Detroit in December, 198 3, and, after its stay at the Metropolitan Museum, will travel to the Suomen Rakennustaiteen Museo in Helsinki for summer 1984 and to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London for spring 1985.

Since its founding in 1932, Cranbrook has made a major contribu­ tion to the development of modern architecture and design. It

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was one of the few schools in the United States to teach modern design in the 19 30s. Like its European counterparts, such as the Wiener Werkstatte in Austria and the Bauhaus in Germany, Cranbrook developed a program that stressed the relationship between the fine and applied arts.

The campus itself, as well as the educational program, was the creation of the renowned Finnish-American architect Eliel Saarinen and the Detroit philanthropist George G. Booth, publisher of the Detroit News and an ardent proponent of the Arts and Crafts movement. Both men visualized the Academy as a place for artists to live and work without constraints, a "working place for creative art," as Saarinen put it. Set on Booth's farm estate in Bloomfield Hills, Mich­ igan, some twenty miles north of Detroit, Cranbrook became just that: a community that made it possible for students to explore a wide range of the visual arts, as well as the sciences, and their interrelation­ ship in one educational complex. The community ultimately included an elementary school, Brookside School Cranbrook; a boys' secondary school, Cranbrook School; a girls' secondary school, Kingswood School Cranbrook; the Cranbrook Institute of Science; and Cranbrook Academy of Art.

Saarinen came to Cranbrook in 1925 with his talented family: his wife Loja, a textile designer and weaver; their daughter Pipsan, known for her work in costume and interior design; and their son Eero, one of the most significant architects of the 1950s. Over the years Saarinen attracted other major artists to teach at Cranbrook: ceramist Maija Grotell, sculptor Carl Milles, painter Zoltan Sepeshy, textile designer/weaver Marianne Strengell, silversmith Arthur Nevill Kirk, and bookbinder Jean Eschmann. Works by all these influential teachers are included in the exhibition.

These early European faculty members proved to be important figures in the transition between nineteenth-century art and the modern movement and thus gave Cranbrook a unique approach to the arts that respected both tradition and the avant-garde. During the 1930s and 40s, the combination of advanced students and an exceptional teaching staff spread Cranbrook's fame internationally. Students were free to devise their own projects, experiment in all media, and collaborate with each other and with the faculty. Cranbrook produced

(more) DESIGN IN AMERICA: The Cranbrook Vision 1925-1950 Page - designers such as Charles and Ray Eames and Florence Knoll; sculptors such as Harry Bertoia; architects such as Ralph Rapson and Harry Weese; and textile designers such as Jack Lenor Larsen. The first generation of students played a decisive role in post-World War II design in both the United States and abroad. Design in America: The Cranbrook Vision 1925-1950 focuses on the initial Cranbrook faculty and the first generation of students. The show includes architectural drawings and models, furniture, interior design, textiles, ceramics, metalwork, bookbinding, sculpture, and painting. The exhibition begins in The Charles Engelhard Court of the Museum's American Wing with large-scale objects related to Cranbrook, including Eliel Saarinen's gates to the boys' school and Carl Milles's sculptures, Europa and the Bull and Orpheus. The exhibition proceeds chronologically in The Erving and Joyce Wolf Gallery where late twenties designs for the Cranbrook community are displayed. The boys' school and Kingswood, the girls' school, are represented by furniture and architectural drawings. Furnishings from the living room of Saarinen House are on view, along with the first of three period settings: the dining room from Saarinen House, complete with rug, table, chairs and chandelier.

Next to the Cranbrook designs are Saarinen's independent pro­ jects from the early to mid-1920s: the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Lakefront, and the Christian Science Church project in Minneapolis. The exhibition makes a transition into the 1930s with a dining room side chair designed by Saarinen in 1929 for the Metropolitan Museum's exhibition "The Architect and the Industrial Arts," and, secondly, a tapestry (c.1932) by Loja Saarinen and a silver urn designed for Saarinen's "Room for a Lady" at the Metropolitan in 1934.

The exhibition continues into the 1930s with a shift away from architecture. On display in this area are textiles, sculptures, paintings, ceramics, and metalwork, including works by Maija Andersson Wirde, Carl Milles, Waylande Gregory, Harry Bertoia, Zoltan Sepeshy, and Maija Grotell. At the end of this section there is a shift back to architecture as the exhibition moves into the 1940s. On view in this transitional section are architectural drawings by Eliel and Eero Saarinen, including the First Christian Church

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(1939-42) of Columbus, Indiana, and the Smithsonian Gallery of Art project (1939-41) . The 1940s saw a move away from the handicrafts of the 1930s. There was an increased interest in industrial design and a stylistic shift towards the International Style. This section of the exhib­ ition includes designs by the first generation of Cranbrook students and concentrates mainly on furniture design and architecture. On view are Charles and Ray Eames' Case Study House series, Eliel Saarinen's architectural drawings of the St. Louis Arch, objects representing Eero Saarinen's General Motors Technical Center, and the second of the three period settings: a room with furniture designed by Charles and Ray Eames.

The last section of the exhibition concentrates on the 1950s and 1960s. In furniture design, a greater interest in the use of metal, plastics, and primary colors may be seen in the works by Charles and Ray Eames, Florence Knoll, Harry Bertoia, and Eero Saarinen. Saarinen's architectural designs include the Thomas J. Watson Research Center for IBM and the M.I.T. Chapel and Auditorium. Also on view is the third of the three period settings: an office designed by Florence Knoll. The exhibition ends where it began, in the Engelhard Court with Tony Rosenthal's Cube/Alamo and Eero Saarinen's model of Dulles International Airport.

R. Craig Miller, Associate Curator, was in charge of the organization and installation of the Cranbrook exhibition at the Museum. The show was designed by George Sexton Associates, Wash­ ington, D.C. David Harvey of the Museum's Design Department co­ ordinated the installation; William Riegel designed the lighting.

The exhibition is accompanied by a 352-page catalogue pub­ lished by Harry N. Abrams, Inc., in association with The Metro­ politan Museum of Art and the Detroit Institute of Arts. It contains 62 color plates and 203 black and white photographs (paperbound $24.95, hardbound $39.50). A free illustrated brochure with a map of the exhibition also accompanies the show; it was made possible by IBM.

The Museum's Department of Public Education has scheduled two days of lectures on May 6 and May 13 as part of the Sunday at

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the Met series. The programs, which begin at 12:00 noon, include all seven of the scholars who contributed to the catalogue and several films by Charles and Ray Eames. Gallery talks are also planned.

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FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, please contact John Ross or Holly Evarts, Public Information Department, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Tel: (212) 879-5500. March 198 4