Designs on Paper

Tommi Parzinger
Design for Printed Textile
ca. 1930
gouache on paper
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Tommi Parzinger
Design for Wallpaper
ca. 1940
gouache on paper
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Tommi Parzinger
Design for Cigarette-Holder and Lighter
ca. 1950
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Claes Oldenburg
Proposal for a Colossal Monument in the Form of a Typewriter Eraser for Alcatraz
1972
graphite and watercolor on paper
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC

Gilles-Marie Oppenord
Design for Mirror Frame
ca. 1730
ink and watercolor on paper
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Gilles-Marie Oppenord
Design for Clock Case
ca. 1700
ink and watercolor on paper
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous French Artist
Design for Window Hanging
ca. 1790-1800
drawing (ink and watercolor on paper)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous French Artist
Neoclassical Design for Woven Textile
ca. 1820
drawing (ink and gouache on paper)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous Austrian Artist
Design for Painted Ceiling and Wall
ca. 1830-50
watercolor and gouache on paper
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous Austrian Artist
Design for Painted Wall
ca. 1830-50
watercolor and gouache on paper
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous Austrian Artist
Design for Painted Wall
ca. 1830-50
watercolor and gouache on paper
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous Austrian Artist
Wallpaper Design
ca. 1840-60
gouache on paper
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous European Artist
Design for Bronze Clock
ca. 1810-30
ink and watercolor on paper
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous French Artist
Acanthus Design for Woven Textile
ca. 1815-25
gouache on paper
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous French Artist
Design for Candelabrum with Gilt-Bronze Mounts
ca. 1780
ink and watercolor on paper
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Dorothy Pease
Staccato
(textile design for Perspectives Inc, New York)
ca. 1942
ink and gouache on paper
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Dorothy Pease
Butterflies
(textile design for Perspectives Inc, New York)
ca. 1942
ink and watercolor on paper
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Medea

[from the speech of the Chorus to dissuade Medea from her purpose of putting her Children to death, and flying for protection to Athens]

O haggard queen! to Athens dost thou guide

    Thy glowing chariot, steep'd in kindred gore;

Or seek to hide thy damned parracide

    Where Peace and Mercy dwell for evermore?

                                  *

In thine own children's gore? – oh! ere they bleed,

    Let Nature's voice thy ruthless heart appal!

Pause at the bold, irrevocable deed –

    The mother strikes – the guiltless babes shall fall!

Think what remorse thy maddening thoughts shall sting,

    When dying pangs their gentle bosoms tear;

Where shalt thou sink, when ling'ring echoes ring

    The screams of horror in thy tortur'd ear?

No! let thy bosom melt to Pity's cry –

    In dust we kneel – by sacred Heaven implore –

O! stop thy lifted arm, ere yet they die,

    Nor dip thy horrid hands in infant gore! –

– Euripides (485-406 BC), translated by Thomas Campbell (1799)