Solos

Carlo Scarpa for Venini (Murano)
Ashtray
1935
glass
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Hiroshi Sugimoto
U.A. Playhouse, Great Neck, New York
1979
gelatin silver print
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Blaise-Alexandre Desgoffe
Still Life with Rock Crystal Vase in the Louvre
1887
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Saracchi Family (Milan)
Lidded Cup with Lion
ca. 1575
agate with enameled gold mounts
(collection of Louis XIV)
Musée du Louvre

Diana de Solares
Untitled
2015
shoelaces and iron
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

David Stephenson
Dome #31202 (St Bernard’s, Plassy)
2000
C-print
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Joseph Cornell
Untitled
1933
printed paper collage
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Andy Warhol
Dollar Sign
1981
screenprint on canvas
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

Alvar Aalto for Huonekalu ja Rakennustyötehdas (Finland)
Paimio Lounge Chair
1931
laminated birch and molded plywood
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Shi Guorui
Sidechair
2006
gelatin silver print
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
(Achenbach Foundation)

John Thomson
Siam Tiger
1865
albumen silver print from glass negative
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Erwin Wurm
Psycho VII
2010
painted aluminum
Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York

Alison Watt
Boscawen
2019
oil on canvas
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

Paul Thek
Warrior's Leg
1966-67
leather, metal, plaster, wood, wax, plexiglas
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC

Max Weber
Air Light Shadow
1915
plaster
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Studio Tetrarc for Alberto Bazzini (Milan)
Tovaglia Coffee Table
1969
polyester resin
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Isaiah Taber
The Moon viewed from Lick Observatory
1888
albumen print
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Moving along the track which is himself,

He loves what he hopes will last, which gone,

Begins the difficult work of mourning,

And as foreign settlers to strange countries come,

By mispronunciation of native words

And by intermarriage create a new race

And a new language, so may the soul

Be weaned at last to independent delight.

– W.H. Auden (1928)

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)

Curio Cabinet

Anonymous American Makers
Candlesticks
ca. 1920
glass
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

Anonymous French Makers
Candlestick
19th century
ormolu, with porcelain figurine
Newport Mansions Preservation Society,
Rhode Island

Anonymous Persian Makers
Bottle
AD 1100-1200
glazed earthenware
Asian Art Museum, San Francisco

Anonymous German Makers
Reliquary
ca. 1550-1650
rock crystal, silver gilt, gold
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Anonymous Greek Makers
Collection Box depicting the Legend of St Charalambos
18th or 19th century
painted wood
Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto

Anonymous Dutch Makers
Wallcovering
17th century
painted and gilded leather
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Anonymous German Makers
Mirror
ca. 1750
mirrored glass with frame of carved oak,
papier-mâché and stucco (all gilded)
Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich

Anonymous English Makers
Etui
ca. 1760-70
enamel on copper
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Anonymous German Makers
Planter-Vase as Miniature Rococo Folding-Screen
19th century
porcelain
Newport Mansions Preservation Society, Rhode Island

Anonymous English Makers
Toilet Bowl
1895
glazed earthenware
Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto

Anonymous Russian Makers
Cigarette Case
19th century
enamelware
Newport Mansions Preservation Society, Rhode Island

Anonymous Russian Makers
Icon Cover
19th century
cloisonné on silver-gilt
Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto

Anonymous Persian Makers
Bowl of Water Pipe
ca. 1850-1900
brass with turquoise inlay
Asian Art Museum, San Francisco

Anonymous Persian Makers
Storage Jar
AD 500-700
glazed earthenware
Asian Art Museum, San Francisco

Anonymous French Makers
Apothecary Jar
ca. 1675-1725
glazed earthenware
Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto

Anonymous European Makers
Wine Jar
17th or 18th century
blown glass
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Telemachus' Fantasy

Sometimes I wonder about my father's

years on those islands: why

was he so attractive

to women? He was in straits then, I suppose

desperate. I believe

women like to see a man

still whole, still standing, but

about to go to pieces: such

disintegration reminds them

of passion. I think of them as living

their whole lives

completely undressed. It must have

dazzled him, I think, women

so much younger than he was 

evidently wild for him, ready 

to do anything he wished. Is it

fortunate to encounter circumstances

so responsive to one's own will, to live

so many years

unquestioned, unthwarted? One

would have to believe oneself

entirely good or worthy. I

suppose in time either

one becomes a monster or

the beloved sees what one is. I never

wish for my father's life

nor have I any idea

what he sacrificed

to survive the moment. Less dangerous

to believe he was drawn to them

and so stayed

to see who they were. I think, though,

as an imaginative man

to some extent he

became who they were.

– Louise Glück (1996)