Visual Preferences (20th Century: 1979)

Dorothy Eisner
Desk II 
1979
oil on canvas
Portland Museum of Art, Maine

Eve Arnold
Art Class, Chungking
1979
dye transfer print
San Diego Museum of Art

Alighiero Boetti
Reflexive Verbs
1979
silk embroidery on textile backing
Kunstmuseum, The Hague

Harry Callahan
Calais, Maine
1979
dye transfer print
San Diego Museum of Art

Mario Algaze
Manuel Alvarez Bravo
1979
gelatin silver print
Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami

Richard Avedon
Francis Bacon
1979
gelatin silver print
San Jose Museum of Art, California

Richard Estes
New York Pressing Machinery Corp.
1979
screenprint
Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami

Howard Hodgkin
For Bernard Jacobson
1979
hand-colored lithograph
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh

John Furnival
Omphale Goes Out Walking
1979
aquatint
Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami

André Kertész
24 Oct 79
1979
Polaroid
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Frank Lobdell
Sag no. 9
1979
gouache and colored chalks on paper
San Jose Museum of Art, California

Anton Heyboer
2+
1979
oil on canvas
Kunstmuseum, The Hague

Eric Lindbloom
Untitled #2
1979
gelatin silver print
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Richard Misrach
Cypress Trees
(Louisiana series)
1979
C-print
New Orleans Museum of Art

David Mecalco
El Santo gives Thanks to the Dear Virgin
for winning the Lucha Libre championship
1979
paint on metal (ex voto)
Fowler Museum at UCLA

David Graham
Marge Gapp's Studio, Philadelphia
1979
C-print
Art Institute of Chicago

from Precious Five

Praise, tongue, the Earthly Muse

By number and by name

In any style you choose,

For nimble tongues and lame

Have both found favor; praise

Her port and sudden ways,

Now fish-wife and now queen,

Her reason and unreason:

Though freed from that machine,

Praise Her revolving wheel

Of appetites and seasons

In honor of Another,

The old self you become

At any drink or meal,

That animal of taste,

And of his twin, your brother,

Unlettered, savage, dumb,

Down there below the waist:

Although your style be fumbling,

Half stutter and half song,

Give thanks however bumbling,

Telling for Her dear sake

To whom all styles belong

The truth She cannot make.

Be happy, precious five,

So long as I'm alive

Nor try to ask me what

You should be happy for;

Think, if it helps, of love

Or alcohol or gold,

But do as you are told.

I could (which you cannot)

Find reasons fast enough

To face the sky and roar

In anger and despair

At what is going on,

Demanding that it name

Whoever is to blame:

The sky would only wait

Till all my breath was gone

And then reiterate

As if I wasn't there

That singular command

I do not understand,

Bless what there is for being,

Which has to be obeyed, for

What else am I made for,

Agreeing or disagreeing?

– W.H. Auden (1950)

Pattern Making

Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff
Church Council at Florence
1493
hand-colored woodcut and letterpress
(illustration to the Nuremberg Chronicle)
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Albrecht Dürer (designer)
Allegory of Divine Justice
1521
hand-colored woodcut
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Anonymous German Artist
Imperial Eagle with Coats of Arms of Electors and Cities
16th century
hand-colored woodcut
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Giuliano di Piero Pandolfini
Tabletop with Liechtenstein Coat of Arms
ca. 1636
pietra dura framed in gilt bronze
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Simon Renard de Saint-André
Still Life
ca. 1645
oil on canvas
Musée d'Art et d'Histoire de Narbonne

Anonymous British Artist
Panel with Sequence of Stories from Genesis
17th century
beadwork-embroidery on silk
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Marco Carlone (et al)
Design for Ceiling Decoration
ca. 1775-80
watercolor and gouache on paper
(after painted fragments from the Baths of Titus, Rome)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Friederike Meinert
Upper Round Hall, Schloss Charlottenburg
1843
watercolor on paper
Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin

Édouard Vuillard
Café au Bois de Boulogne
ca. 1897-98
oil on paper
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Besançon

Charlotte Rollius
Hohenzollern Kunstgewerbehaus
1907
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Otto Carl Lendecke
Fashion Illustration
ca. 1910
watercolor on paper
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Frank Cousins
Staircase - Moses Williams House - Boston
ca. 1910
collodion print
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Natalia Goncharova
The Forest
ca. 1913
oil on canvas
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

Friedrich Skurawy after Dagobert Peche
Decorative Composition
1922
woodcut
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Wassily Kandinsky
Composition X
1939
oil on canvas
Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf

Gudmundur Gudmundsson Ferro
Revolutionary Landscape
1988
screenprint
(commissioned for Bicentennial of the French Revolution)
Cabinet d'Arts Graphiques des Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Antony

     But have I no remembrance?

Alexas                                        Yes, a dear one:

     Your slave, the Queen –

Antony                               My mistress,

Alexas                                                     Then your mistress,

     Your mistress would, she says, have sent her soul,     

     But that you had long since. She humbly begs

     This ruby bracelet, set with bleeding hearts,

     The emblem of her own, may bind your arm.

                                                                       (Presenting a bracelet)

Ventidius

     Now, my best Lord, in honour's name I ask you,

     For manhood's sake, and for your own dear safety,

     Touch not these poisoned gifts,

     Infected by the sender; touch 'em not.

     Myriads of bluest plagues lie underneath 'em,

     And more than aconite has dipped the silk.

Antony

     Nay, now you grow too cynical, Ventidius:

     A lady's favours may be worn with honour,

     What, to refuse her bracelet! On my soul,

     When I lie pensive in my tent alone,

     'Twill pass the wakeful hours of winter nights

     To tell these pretty beads upon my arm,

     To count for every one a soft embrace,

     A melting kiss at such and such a time,

     And now and then the fury of her love

     When – and what harm's in this?

Alexas                                             None, none my Lord,

     But what's to her, that now 'tis past forever.

Antony (going to tie it)

     We soldiers are so awkward – help me tie it.

Alexas

     In faith, my Lord, we courtiers too are awkward

     In these affairs. So are all men indeed;

     Even I, who am not one. But shall I speak?

Antony  

     Yes, freely.

Alexas           Then, my Lord, fair hands alone

     Are fit to tie it: she who sent it can.

Ventidius

     Hell's death! this eunuch pander ruins you,

     You will not see her?

– John Dryden, All for Love (1677)

Bags

Anonymous Spanish Maker
Purse
ca. 1675
embroidered silk and linen
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous French Maker
Reticule
ca. 1810
crocheted silk netting with steel beads
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous Tibetan Maker
Money Pouch
19th century
leather, trimmed with gold and silver repoussé
National Museum of Natural History, Washington DC

Anonymous French Maker
Pocketbook with Lock
ca. 1850
morocco leather with silver fittings
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous American Maker
Reticule
ca. 1917-18
beaded silk on metal frame
National Museum of Natural History, Washington DC

Jacques Majorelle and Andrée Longueville
Folding Purse
1920
leather embroidered in silk
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous American Maker
Evening Bag
ca. 1920-30
beaded silk satin on celluloid frame
National Museum of Natural History, Washington DC

Anonymous Philippine Maker
Handbag
ca. 1949-50
raffia on wooden frame with leather and brass
National Museum of Natural History, Washington DC

Anonymous American Maker
Clutch Bag from Saks Fifth Avenue, New York
1964
leather on metal frame
National Museum of Natural History, Washington DC

Michaele Vollbracht
Bloomingdale's Shopping Bag, New York
ca. 1978
screenprint on paper bag
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Michaele Vollbracht
Bloomingdale's Shopping Bag, New York
ca. 1978
screenprint on paper bag
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Michaele Vollbracht
Bloomingdale's Shopping Bag, New York
ca. 1978
screenprint on paper bag
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous American Designer
Clarence House Shopping Bag, New York
1978
offset-print on paper bag
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous American Designer
Bloomingdale's Shopping Bag, New York
1982
offset-print on paper bag
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous American Designer
Bloomingdale's Shopping Bag, New York
1984
offset-print on paper bag
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous American Designer
Bloomingdale's Shopping Bag, New York
1987
offset-print on paper bag
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous American Designer
Bloomingdale's Shopping Bag, New York
1989
offset-print on paper bag
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

The End of Summer

I'm from St. Louis and Budweiser.

I'm from the Seidel Coal and Coke Company and the Mississippi.

I'm from the old streets near Forest Park,

And T.S. Eliot and the B-movie actress Virginia Mayo. 

My mother thought she was the daughter of Helen Traubel,

The vast Wagnerian soprano born in St. Louis,

And thought J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI, was probably her father.

I'm from Stan Musial and the Brown Shoe Company.

I remember the brick alleys behind the massive houses.

Palaces and their stables (turned into garages) lined the outside of a long oval.

At each end was a turreted guardhouse above the iron gates.

These were the famous St. Louis private streets.

Imagine freestanding Florentine palazzi on little American plots,

Complete with rusticated masonry and brutal grandeur.

H.H. Richardson, the designer of Harvard's Sever Hall,

Designed one of them, forty-seven rooms in all, hardly small.

Vandeventer Place and Portland Place and Westmoreland.

The Congress Hotel and the Senate Apartments.

Lindbergh's medals were on display nearby on Lindell Boulevard.

I could climb down an embankment and play on the train tracks.

Where demolished Vandeventer Place once stood,

Some magnificence where Teddy Roosevelt once stayed,

Was not that far from the demolished Opera House, where

Mother took me to hear Traubel with the visiting Metropolitan Opera.

My father had a season box at the outdoor Muny Opera.

My father had a cop he paid who parked our car there.

The 1904 World's Fair was in the magical Forest Park night air.

I hear crickets singing in the dark sweet Missouri heat their insolent despair.

– Frederick Seidel (2016)

American Frocks

Anonymous American Needleworker
Two-Piece Day Dress
ca. 1815-25
silk satins (striped and solid)
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Anonymous American Needleworker
Wedding Gown
1847
silk taffeta and embroidered silk chiffon
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Anonymous American Needleworker
Summer Dress
ca. 1855-65
printed silk gauze
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Anonymous American Needleworker
Ensemble worn by Mary Todd Lincoln
1861
silk velvet and silk satin
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Anonymous American Needleworker
Wedding Gown
1867
silk satin and needle lace
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Anonymous American Needleworker
Ball Gown worn by Minnie Maddern Fiske in silent film Becky Sharp
1915
embroidered silk
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Anonymous American Needleworker
Evening Gown worn by Mrs Woodrow Wilson
1915
beaded silk crepe, silk satin and silk velvet
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Anonymous American Needleworker
Evening Gown worn by Mrs Woodrow Wilson
1916
brocaded silk satin and tulle
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Anonymous American Needleworker
Wedding Gown
1927
beaded silk satin crepe
National Museum of American History,
Washington DC

Anonymous American Needleworker
Coconut Grove Caricature Dress
(depicting silent film stars)
ca. 1927
printed silk
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Anonymous American Needleworker
Child's Dress
ca. 1930-40
silk satin
Anacostia Community Museum, Washington DC

Anonymous American Needleworker
Wedding Gown made from a World War II Parachute
1945
parachute silk
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Ruth Hensinger
Wedding Gown made from a World War II Parachute
1947
parachute nylon
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Ann Lowe
Dress
ca. 1960
silk taffeta and silk chiffon
National Museum of African American
History and Culture, Washington DC

Oleg Cassini
Evening Gown worn by Jacqueline Kennedy
ca. 1962
embroidered and beaded silk satin
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Carolina Herrera
Dress
ca. 1987
printed silk with ribbon trim
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Arnold Scaasi
Evening Gown worn by Barbara Bush
1989
silk velvet and silk satin
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

    In my own shire, if I was sad,

Homely comforters I had:

The earth, because my heart was sore,

Sorrowed for the son she bore;

And standing hills, long to remain,

Shared their short-lived comrade's pain.

And bound for the same bourne as I,

On every road I wandered by,

Trod beside me, close and dear,

The beautiful and death-struck year:

Whether in the woodland brown

I heard the beechnut rustle down,

And saw the purple crocus pale

Flower about the autumn dale;

Or littering far the fields of May

Lady-smocks a-bleaching lay,

And like a skylit water stood

The bluebells in the azured wood.

    Yonder, lightening other loads,

The seasons range the country roads,

But here in London streets I ken

No such helpmates, only men;

And these are not in plight to bear,

If they would, another's care.

They have enough as 'tis: I see

In many an eye that measures me

The mortal sickness of a mind

Too unhappy to be kind.

Undone with misery, all they can

Is to hate their fellow man;

And till they drop they needs must still

Look at you and wish you ill.

– A.E. Housman (1896)