Photo By Gail Worley
Giorgio de Chirico’s description of New York as a “feverish and dreamy city” finds form in this painting from 1972, Metaphysical Interior in Manhattan. Everyday objects pile into a vaguely human shape within a distorted room that opens onto city skies. The artist founded Metaphysical Painting, a movement that trafficked in the unexpected and irrational.
Photographed in the New York Historical Socially in Manhattan.
All Photos By Gail
A proposed remedy for problems faced by crowded New York City classrooms, the Workbox (2000) is a collapsible elementary school desk featuring a side blackboard for sanctioned graffiti and a private locker to stow clothes, preventing the spread of lice.
All Photos By Gail
Tiffany artisans made the irregularly surfaced Turtlebacks, a Tiffany Studio invention, by pressing glass into molds.
All Photos By Gail
Vision or vandalism? New Yorkers had different reactions to the “tags” scrawled on subway trains in the 1970s. Many saw them as a sign of urban blight. Artist and photographer Jack Stewart saw them as a new American Art Form.
Photo By Gail
One of Tiffany Studios‘ most popular models, the Wisteria, was priced as $400 in 1906, placing it among the firm’s most costly lamps. The glass selection for the two lamps (both circa 1901) seen in the above photo created two dramatically different interpretations of the same design. One has a refined color palette ranging from pale blue to azure and cobalt, while the other displays bold contrasts of blue and white clusters.
Wisteria abounded in LC Tiffany’s leaded glass windows and on the grounds of his country estate, Laurelton Hall, and although the vine was a Tiffany favorite, Clara Driscoll’s correspondence identifies her as the designer of the iconic Wisteria lamp, which is composed of nearly 2,000 tiny pieces of glass. Designs for the Trumpet Creeper, Grape, and Apple Blossom, each sold with the same treelike base, followed shortly after the Wisteria.
Photographed in the New York Historical Society on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.