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.

Valentine’s Day at Cranbrook

CRANBROOK SIGHTINGS: INSIDE THE VAULT Shiro Ikegawa Valentine’s Day at Cranbrook Suite of eighteen prints Photo-Lithography and serigraphy three-color separation relief Photography and lithography by David W. Wharton and Michael D. Powe Printed at Cranbrook Academy of Art All photos of Valentine's Day at Cranbrook (c) Estate of Shiro Ikegawa What better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day than by taking a leisurely stroll around the Cranbrook campus in sub-zero temperatures, photographing ice formations and footprints in the snow? In 1977, artist Shiro Ikegawa (1933–2009) did just that, commemorating one of America’s most beloved and reviled holidays with a suite of eighteen photo-lithographs and silk-screened prints. Cranbrook Academy of Art’s printmaking department invited Ikegawa for a two week visit, during which time he led critiques and became an acting art director of sorts, supervising students as they executed his works on the lithographic press. The three images below were published in a Birmingham-Bloomfield Eccentric article about Ikegawa’s visit. Photos by ...

Tagged: Prints, Shelley Selim, Shiro Ikegawa

Anders Ruhwald at Saarinen House: The Anatomy of a Home| cfile.daily

If there is an impossible venue for site-specific art, it is the Saarinen House on the campus of the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. It’s known as a “total work of art” for a reason; the Finnish-American architect Eliel Saarinen attended to every inch of the house, down to the block printed linen placemats that are his design. However, for his first solo museum exhibition in North America, Danish ceramist Anders Ruhwald installed seven site-sensitive objects in the Saarinen House. The Anatomy of a Home (May 1 – October 31, 2013) explored the interpersonal relationships of the Saarinen family, including the father-son dynamic between Eliel and Eero Saarinen. Designed in the late 1920s and located at the heart of Cranbrook Academy of Art, Saarinen House served as the home and studio of Eliel Saarinen and Loja Saarinen from 1930 through 1950. The extraordinary interior features the Saarinens’ original ...

Cranbrook Art Show Examines the Process of Thinking | The Oakland Press

It’s believed that most people favor either the “logical” left hemisphere of their brains or the “creative” right hemisphere of their brains. Cranbrook Institute of Art combines the two in its upcoming exhibit, “My Brain Is in My Inkstand: Drawing as Thinking and Process,” curated by Nina Samuel. An exhibit in New York, "The Islands of Benoit Mandelbrot," also curated by Samuel, inspired Cranbrook Art Museum Director Gregory Wittkopp to demonstrate the process of thinking with contemporary art. Mandelbrot, who died in 2010, was a mathematician who used images called “fractal geometry” to explain his works. “This exhibition is about the role that drawing and images play in the process of scientific thought,” Wittkopp said. With 22 artists from around the world, the exhibit combines two different concepts to create contemporary artwork. It includes the works of biologists, philosophers, mathematics and more to get a sense of how drawing is an activity between thought ...

New Curator of Contemporary Art and Design

Bloomfield Hills, Mich., Nov. 21, 2013 – Cranbrook Art Museum is pleased to announce the appointment of Laura Mott as Cranbrook’s new Curator of Contemporary Art and Design. Mott will be responsible for the Art Museum’s exhibition programs as well as the development and presentation of its collection of modern and contemporary art, architecture, and design. “Laura is an artist’s curator,” says Gregory Wittkopp, Director of Cranbrook Art Museum and the Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research. “She is a professional for whom working directly with artists and the objects they make is at the core of her work.” Wittkopp continues, “With an innovative curatorial practice that has been based in both the United States and Europe, Mott’s exhibitions and writing have demonstrated her ability to actively engage the public with the work of an impressive range of contemporary artists, architects, musicians, and choreographers.” Mott began her career in New York working with ...