Pipsan: The Lesser-Known (But No Less Impressive!) Saarinen Sibling

CRANBROOK SIGHTING: INSIDE THE VAULT Sol-Air Canvas Chaise Lounge, c. 1950 Pipsan Saarinen Swanson and J. Robert F. Swanson for Swanson and Associates Iron, rope, and canvas 34 x 23 x 24 in. (86.4 x 58.4 x 61 cm) Transfered from the Cranbrook Academy of Art If it were up to me, every month would be Women's History Month, but alas for the foreseeable future it is *officially* delegated to March in the United States, and today is our last chance to celebrate! How auspicious that March 31 also happens to be the birthday of Pipsan (born Eva Lisa) Saarinen Swanson, designer of furniture, interiors, fashion, and textiles, and younger sister of one of the most recognizable names in modern architecture, Eero Saarinen. Pipsan's father Eliel was of course the architect of the Cranbrook Campus and President of the Cranbrook Academy of Art from 1932-1946, but before being lured to Bloomfield Hills by Cranbrook founder George ...

Tagged: Eero Saarinen, Eliel Saarinen, Furniture, Pipsan Saarinen, Robert F. Swanson, Shelley Selim

Cranbrook Opens Its Doors to Showcase Graduate Work and Work Spaces

2014 Graduate Degree Exhibition of Cranbrook Academy of Art and OPEN(STUDIOS) Art Sale + Community Day Return Bloomfield Hills, Mich., March 27, 2014 - The 2014 Graduate Degree Exhibition of Cranbrook Academy of Art opens to the public on April 22, and will showcase work from the next generation of architects, artists and designers who are shaping the future of art and design. The exhibition features pieces that are the culmination of two years of studio work from a diverse group of 75 graduates. The exhibition will run from April 22 – May 11, 2014. Visitors can see installations such as an outdoor chandelier composed entirely of small bags of water, participate in an interactive virtual video work based on their movements in the gallery and experience a self-activated mechanical arm that brings speakers directly to the listener. The exhibition will fill the entire 15,000 square feet of Cranbrook Art Museum and surrounding ...

Happy Birthday, May Morris!

CRANBROOK SIGHTINGS: INSIDE THE VAULT May Morris Bed-Hangings (Two Curtains) 1916, or earlier Embroidered wool on linen Each panel: 76 ¾ x 27 inches Gift of George Gough Booth and Ellen Scripps BoothMay Morris, Bed Hangings, c. 1916. Photo courtesy Cranbrook Art Museum.On the 152nd anniversary of her birth all of us at Cranbrook Art Museum are excited to wish artist and designer May Morris a very happy birthday! Born March 25, 1862 in Bexley Heath, England, May Morris grew up in an artistic community fueled by the beliefs of her father William Morris, a founder of the British Arts and Crafts Movement. Intellectually committed to her father’s movement, she learned needlecraft at the feet of her mother Jane, a Pre-Raphaelite model and muse for Morris and others. As an adult, May Morris advocated both for her father’s artistic movement and for women’s involvement in art through needlework. She traveled the United States for five months between ...

Tagged: Arts and Crafts Movement, Cranbrook House, May Morris, Shoshana Resnikoff, Textiles

Music-Mushrooms-Manuscripts: John Cage at Cranbrook

John Cage Listens to John Cage, 1974. Offset lithograph poster designed by Michael McCoy, with photography by Frances Greenberg. Printed at Cranbrook Press. (c) Michael McCoy. Photo courtesy Stephen Milanowski.In early April of 1974, artist-composer John Cage traveled to Cranbrook to celebrate the opening of Music–Mushrooms–Manuscripts at the Art Museum, an exhibition of his drawings, photographs, books, poems, prints, and sound recordings. Featured works included his 1969 series of Plexigrams, Not Wanting to Say Anything About Marcel, and the Mushroom Book, both printed by Irwin Hollander (1973-1975 head of the Cranbrook Academy of Art Printmaking department). On the evening of April 12, Cage attended a concert of his own music—aptly titled “John Cage Listens to John Cage”—performed by local musicians as well as students from the Cranbrook Upper School and neighboring Andover and Seaholm high schools. The program featured a 35-piece ensemble of brass, string, woodwind, and non-pitched percussion instruments for ...

Tagged: Chuck Baughman, Doug Huston, Graphic Design, John Cage, Michael McCoy, Prints, Shelley Selim, Stephen Milanowski, Steve Tennent

Cranbrook and the American Look

Cranbrook Sighting # 11 Sighter: Shelley Selim Sighted: Cranbrook Art Museum and Library Location: the Internet Date: March 10, 2014The Internet Archive continues to be a hardy source of endearment for me, and this weekend I found myself traipsing through a favorite district of its offerings--Prelinger's backlog of mid-century Populuxe videos. The term "Populuxe" was coined by cultural and design historian Thomas Hine for his 1986 book of the same name, which analyzed the hyper-consumerism that swept the United States in the 1950s and '60s. Product styling--an extension of a collective fervor for material abundance and variety--became a wellspring of national pride during the Cold War, particularly as a means of counter-defining American capitalist prosperity against the Soviet Union's Communist economy. Many "Populuxe" promotional films were produced in the mid-century, and American Look, sponsored by General Motors' Chevrolet Division, is a champion of its genre. It has it all: bright colors (in the '50s, practically ...

Tagged: Advertisements, Film, Harry Bertoia, Populuxe, Shelley Selim

Happy Birthday Albert Herter!

CRANBROOK SIGHTINGS: CRANBROOK HOUSE Albert Herter The Great Crusade 1920 Cotton, wool, and silk tapestry Manufactured by the Herter Looms, Inc., New York, New York 156 x 120 inches Gift of George Gough Booth and Ellen Scripps Booth A day late but with no less affection, we here at the Cranbrook Art Museum wish a very happy birthday to Albert Herter, born on March 2, 1871. The son of Christian Herter, one half of New York's famed Herter Brothers design and decorating firm, Albert went on to become a successful artist and decorator in his own right. Over his lengthy career he painted portraits of the Bouviers, executed many private and civic murals in the United States and Europe, opened and decorated an exclusive Montecito hotel for America's elite, and in 1908 founded the Herter Looms weaving company. Although Herter Looms manufactured a variety of textiles for home furnishings, it is perhaps best known for its output of revivalist ...

Tagged: Albert Herter, Arts and Crafts Movement, Cranbrook House, Gerhardt Knodel, Shelley Selim, Textiles

The Seen Examines My Brain Is in My Inkstand

Drawing is often perceived as the beginning of an expression, as well as the culmination of a concept, a message, and a story. It may also be the precursor to, the draft of, a finished product; we imagine the artist that first sketches the scene that will become the painting. In the exhibition My Brain Is In My Inkstand: Drawing as Thinking and Process, currently on view at the Cranbrook Art Museum, viewers are invited to dig deeper into the discipline of drawing – to understand it as evidence of a space where thought and action overlap, and continuously unfold into processes, rather than two distinct stages of completion. Presented in five chapters – Translations of Reality, Performative Lines, Controlled Randomness, and Drawing Into Form – this exhibition examines drawing from the fields of art, science, sports, design, and architecture. With works by twenty-two practitioners on display, the traditional notion of ...

Catherine Murphy’s Nighttime Self-Portrait

CRANBROOK SIGHTINGS: INSIDE THE VAULT Catherine Murphy Nighttime Self-Portrait 1985 Oil on canvas 16 ¾ x 16 1/8 inches Gift of Rose M. Shuey, from the Collection of Dr. John and Rose M. Shuey Image © Catherine Murphy From this gusty tundra of unrelenting frigidity (-20 degrees with windchill today!), we here at Cranbrook Art Museum would like to extend our warmest and most heartfelt congratulations to Catherine Murphy, the 2013 winner of the Robert De Niro, Sr., Prize, awarded to one outstanding mid-career artist each year. Since the 1960s, Murphy’s representational paintings have been widely exhibited and prolifically produced, but the artist’s talent for nuanced channels of perception remains at times underappreciated.Catherine Murphy, Nighttime Self-Portrait, 1985Cranbrook Art Musum holds Murphy’s Nighttime Self-Portrait (1985) in its permanent collection, acquired as part of a generous gift of contemporary paintings and sculpture from the Collection of Dr. John and Rose M. Shuey in 2001. The Shueys were principally drawn to ...

Tagged: Catherine Murphy, Painting, Shelley Selim

Cars, the Cranbrook Way

Cranbrook Sighting # 10 Sighter: Shoshana Resnikoff Sighted: Cranbrook Art Museum and Library Location: the Internet Date: January 16, 2014There are few things that history buffs love more than archives, and there is almost no archive that can rival—digitally at least—the Internet Archive for sheer volume and accessibility. Looking for a late 19th-century trade catalogue for a New York lantern company? They probably have that.  Interested in Princeton University’s 1886 Scientific Expedition? Well, read all about it. What about former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s visit to Morocco in 1957? Enjoy! Every once in a while, though, a researcher comes upon a treasure that feels strangely personal. That is exactly what happened when I was bumming around on the Internet Archive and stumbled upon this compilation of 1948 Oldsmobile “Minute Movies.” This blog is all about Cranbrook sightings off-campus; places where Cranbrook-related artists and makers have put their mark on the world. This sighting, though, is ...

Tagged: Advertisements, Eliel Saarinen, Oldsmobile, Shoshana Resnikoff

“Strauss Deconstructed” in the Detroit Free Press

The Detroit Free Press takes an inside look at the upcoming performance from the Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings at Cranbrook Art Museum, and the innovative way the group plans to get the audience “more involved in the creation of art,” says Maury Okun, executive director of Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings.