{"title":"Kristina Wilson","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"livable-modernism-book-kristina-wilson-9780300104752","title":"Livable Modernism","description":"A fascinating look at how designers in the 1930s mixed avant-garde principles with middle-class taste and marketing savvy to generate a distinctly American streamlined aesthetic   During the years of the Great Depression in America, modernist designers developed products and lifestyle concepts intended for middle-class—not elite—consumers. In this remarkable book, Kristina Wilson coins the term “livable modernism” to describe this school of design.   Livable modernism combined International Style functional efficiency and sophistication with a respect for consumers’ desires for physical and psychological comfort. Wilson offers a new view of many popular designs for living rooms, dining rooms, and bedrooms of the 1930s and investigates the remarkable marketing savvy of the furniture and decorative arts companies of the day. As the first study of the advertising and retailing of modern design during the Depression years, Livable Modernism alsofeatures an extensive array of vintage advertisements from such popular magazines as House Beautiful and Ladies’ Home Journal.   Engagingly written and handsomely designed, Livable Modernism is an essential book for anyone interested in modern furniture and decorative arts. The author demonstrates that the work of these designers—including Russel Wright, Donald Deskey, and Gilbert Rohde—paved the way for Charles and Ray Eames and other post-World War II designers, and that the importance of their philosophies, innovations, and influence has until now been underappreciated.    Published in association with the Yale University Art Gallery","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49631635308817,"sku":"GOR005587210","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50347940872465,"sku":"CIN0300104758G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0300104758.jpg?v=1751291683"},{"product_id":"modern-eye-book-kristina-wilson-9780300149166","title":"The Modern Eye","description":"The Modern Eye explores the origins and development of early 20th-century modernism in America through the lens of the major exhibitions that introduced this art to the general public. Author Kristina Wilson shows how modern artists and curators sought to relate high art to mass culture in order to make it accessible to more people, and successfully popularized modern painting and design during the interwar years.      A major contribution to our understanding of the origins of modernism, this book  captures the vibrant diversity that the term “modern art” meant at this time. The chapters examine exhibitions held in New York in the 1920s and 1930s, including those organized by Alfred Stieglitz, the Little Review, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art. In examining the marketing of modernism, Wilson reveals how these exhibitions attempted to stage an intersection between art and everyday life, and how they taught viewers to look at, and care about, modern art.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49856411369745,"sku":"CIN0300149166G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0300149166.jpg?v=1751070815"},{"product_id":"mid-century-modernism-and-the-american-body-book-kristina-wilson-9780691208190","title":"Mid-Century Modernism and the American Body","description":"The first investigation of how race and gender shaped the presentation and marketing of Modernist decor in postwar America  In the world of interior design, mid-century Modernism has left an indelible mark still seen and felt today in countless open-concept floor plans and spare, geometric furnishings. Yet despite our continued fascination, we rarely consider how this iconic design sensibility was marketed to the diverse audiences of its era. Examining advice manuals, advertisements in Life and Ebony, furniture, art, and more, Mid-Century Modernism and the American Body offers a powerful new look at how codes of race, gender, and identity influenced—and were influenced by—Modern design and shaped its presentation to consumers.  Taking us to the booming suburban landscape of postwar America, Kristina Wilson demonstrates that the ideals defined by popular Modernist furnishings were far from neutral or race-blind. Advertisers offered this aesthetic to White audiences as a solution for keeping dirt and outsiders at bay, an approach that reinforced middle-class White privilege. By contrast, media arenas such as Ebony magazine presented African American readers with an image of Modernism as a style of comfort, security, and social confidence. Wilson shows how etiquette and home decorating manuals served to control women by associating them with the domestic sphere, and she considers how furniture by George Nelson and Charles and Ray Eames, as well as smaller-scale decorative accessories, empowered some users, even while constraining others.  A striking counter-narrative to conventional histories of design, Mid-Century Modernism and the American Body unveils fresh perspectives on one of the most distinctive movements in American visual culture.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51005741007121,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51005743989009,"sku":"NIN9780691208190","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0691208190.jpg?v=1751394403"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-kristina-wilson.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}