MODERN TIMES
American Gifts
Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts has been
thrust into the forefront of American
modern decorative arts with the gift
of the John Axelrod Collection, nearly
400 pieces of furniture, silver, ceram-
ics, glass and metalwork by the most
renowned American designers, crafts-
men and manufacturers of the 1920s
through the 1940s. Amassed over 30
Traveling through Arts & Architecture
years by the Boston-based Axelrod, the
For lovers of midcentury modernism, nothing would beat the excitement of traveling back
collection includes such masterpieces as
in time to when the modern was new. Taschen is now providing a simulacrum of that
Donald Deskey’s painted room screen,
experience with the publication of a facsimile edition of Arts & Architecture, the design
Paul Frankl’s Skyscraper desk and book-
magazine founded by John Entenza in 1945. Best known for its sponsorship of the Case Study
case and Kem Weber’s Airline armchair,
House program, which nurtured the creation of groundbreak-
as well as rare examples of Gilbert
ing affordable modern designs by such architects as Richard
Rohde desk clock designs and ceramics
Neutra, Richard Schindler, Eero Saarinen, Craig Ellwood, John
and sculpture by Viktor Schreckengost.
Lautner, Charles Eames and Pierre Koenig, the magazine was
Rare pieces include Wilhelm Hunt
much more. With covers by Herbert Matter, Harry Bertoia,
Diederich’s firescreen and Warren
Alvin Lustig and Luis Barragán, it proclaimed its bold aesthetic
MacArthur’s aluminum magazine rack,
ideals; it introduced the now classic work of countless furniture
with mass production represented by
and interior designers; and it helped establish the legitimacy of
such items as Walter Von Nessen’s
the modern approach as it was developing on the West Coast.
metalwork for Chase Copper and Brass
The boxed set covers the magazine’s first 10 years (1945–
Company, Walter Dorwin Teague’s
54): 118 magazines in 10 boxes with more than 6,000 pages,
glass vases for Steuben and Norman
including a supplement with thumbnails of each cover and a
Bel Geddes’s seltzer bottles. The col-
comprehensive table of contents. A future edition will cover
lection will be housed, along with fine
the balance of the issues, from 1955 to 1967. Priced at $700,
art from the same period, in the new
Arts & Architecture 1945–54 has been limited to 5,000 num-
American Wing, designed by the British
bered copies. For information, visit www.taschen.com. –AT
firm of Foster and Partners, currently
under construction and due for comple-
tion in late 2010. —AT
Nakashima Archives Gifted
to Michener Art Museum
Admirers of George Nakashima (1905–90) will be happy to
learn of an important new resource: the designer’s archives of
letters, drawings, photographs and awards, donated last fall
to the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Bucks
County, Pennsylvania, by his children, Mira Nakashima-Yarnall,
a designer, and Keven Nakashima. George Nakashima’s free-
ts, Boston. edge furniture, which allowed the natural, unsawn contours
of the stumps, logs and other natural wood forms he worked
with to dictate its shape, drew on his deep respect for nature.
Born in Spokane, Washington, to Japanese parents, Nakashima
trained as an architect at the Massachusetts Institute of
tesy Museum of Fine Ar Technology and under Czech architect Antonin Raymond in
Japan. He learned traditional Japanese woodworking skills
while in an Idaho internment camp during World War II. At
war’s end, Raymond brought him to Bucks County, where
Nakashima opened his workshop; run by his children, it is still
in operation today. —SM
Lent by John Axelrod; photograph cour
Bonus Content Online
Look here for winter house tours, glass on display,
Helvetica on screen and more.
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124