Looking Back,
Looking Forward

On the occasion of our 10th anniversary, Modernism asked experts active in the modern design field to respond to
the following questions:

1. What was the most important moment for 20th-century modernism in the past 10 years?

2. What is the greatest discovery of 20th-century modernism yet to be made?

Their answers, varied and thought provoking, show that modernism is alive and well and still evolving. —Andrea Truppin

Dan Tolson
Associate Director, 20th-Century Decorative Art & Design
Christie’s, London, UK
The groundbreaking 2001 traveling exhibition on supremely gifted and prolific Finnish designer Tapio Wirkkala (1915—85) was key to developing new awareness of mid-century Scandinavian design. “Tapio Wirkkala, Hand, Eye,Thought,” which originated at the Museum of Art and Design (now the Design Museum) in Helsinki, had spectacular visual punch, with such displays as a stunning series of large laminated birch Pyrörre (Whirl) wall panels. The exhibition communicated the great breadth and diversity of Wirkkala’s genius, from his collaborative efforts with Venini glassworks in Venice, Rosenthal ceramics in Germany and Mexican silversmiths, through to sculpture, painting, architecture and mass-produced objects, such as tableware, furniture, lighting, posters, postage stamps and packaging. A selection of Wirkkala’s sketches, notes and models helped to reveal his poetic approach to design, which he expressed, in part, as “all materials have their own unwritten laws.... the designer should aim at being in harmony with his material.” The accompanying catalogue remains an unsurpassed guide, ensuring Wirkkala’s standing among the greatest designers of the 20th century.

Ettore Sottsass, who sadly passed away last December, is well known in name, but his work is arguably undervalued and overdue for rediscovery. His passing provides a valuable opportunity for reappraisal. Significantly, the Los Angeles County Museum held the first major survey exhibition of his work in the United States in 2006, followed by an exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Last year, the Design Museum in London mounted “Ettore Sottsass: Work in Progress.” Sottsass, and the work of his collaborators at Memphis and Studio Alchymia, is surely one of the few remaining neglected, yet key, areas of 20th-century design.

Garth Clark
Historian, critic, private dealer, recipient of the Mather Award for distinguished art criticism, New York, New York
The last decade has been the most decisive for 20th-century ceramics. It is now appreciated and understood as never before. Its art stature has grown; its prices have soared. But there has been a major casualty: the American craft movement, which died in the late 1990s. It lost its flagship, the American Craft Museum, now the Museum of Arts and Design, and its main organization, the American Craft Council, has been in a moribund state for nearly two decades.

What killed craft? It could just be old age; the movement was over 100 years old and its role in society had steadily been diminishing. The final coup de grâce may have come from the success of contemporary design, which is now so creative, diverse and