Skip to Content

My Museum Tour

 Mmtlandingpageheader Desktop2 Mmtlandingpageheader Mobile1

In a Midcentury Mood

6 artworks from 6 artists across 5 galleries
The tour is ordered to begin from the Michigan Avenue entrance. If you are starting in the Modern Wing, simply do your tour in reverse order.

From furniture to home accessories, this tour is serving up midcentury modern style.

Share

  • Miniature room with two tall windows framing a small Cubist painting and a fireplace, two golden scuptures set before the windows. At right, a small red couch is flanked by two Lucite chairs. At left, an open glass door is flanked by oak chaises with red cushions. A plush cream rug fills the space.

    A37: California Hallway, c. 1940

    Narcissa Niblack Thorne

    Gallery 11, lower level, Thorne Miniature Rooms

    One of 68 miniature rooms imagined by Narcissa Thorne to evoke historic interiors across the centuries, this room explores the elegant restraint of contemporary design from the 1930s. Thorne took the extraordinary step of commissioning original, tiny paintings for this space from renowned Cubist artists Fernand Léger and Amadée Ozenfant, as well as a studio pottery piece from Gertrud Natzler.

    "While many of the rooms Thorne designed were historical, this is one of the few that captured the modern designs popular in her own time. The commissioned miniature artworks enhance the contemporary feel of the space."

  • A work made of ebonized plywood, aluminum, and lucite.

    Chess Table

    Isamu Noguchi

    Gallery 262, second level, Arts of the Americas Galleries

    Noguchi first designed this sculptural chess table for the 1944 Surrealist exhibition The Imagery of Chess. He drew from the gestural profiles of Chinese calligraphy for the tabletop form and Japanese joinery techniques for the base’s interlocking legs. The designer George Nelson bought the original table and a few years later connected Noguchi with the manufacturer Herman Miller, who briefly put the table into commercial production.

    "While the table's irregular biomorphic shape epitomize Noguchi's exploration of Surrealism, the form also demonstrates his synthesis of Eastern and Western influences."

  • A work made of spun aluminum and cork.

    Cocktail Set, Model 26

    Russel Wright

    Gallery 264, second level, Arts of the Americas Galleries

    In 1930 Russel Wright began producing informal serving accessories, including this cocktail service. His design reveals the great allure that streamlined forms had during the 1930s: one reviewer commented that “cylindrical and spherical forms are indicative of the speed of our age.” Despite Wright’s goal of reaching a wide audience through mass production, this set was always completely handmade, and great variations exist between known examples.

    "Wright marketed these accessories as 'featherweight,' so that 'even the frailest hostess finds no difficulty in handling' them. The cork feet of the glasses provide built-in coasters, while the shaker’s cork-covered neck doubles as an insulated handle."

  • A work made of steel and maple, with original upholstery (later laminated surface).

    Desk

    Frank Lloyd Wright

    Gallery 265, second level, Arts of the Americas Galleries

    When businessman H. F. Johnson Jr. set out to build new offices for the S. C. Johnson company in Racine, Wisconsin, he wanted “the greatest architect in the world.” That meant Frank Lloyd Wright, who was renowned for his designs based on natural principles. Wright also designed the building's furniture, like this desk, whose curved forms and earth tones echo the project's architectural designs.

    "This desk and the accompanying armchair (also in this gallery) echo Wright’s architectural designs for the S. C. Johnson project, which included rounded brick buildings filled with columns that widened as they reached the ceiling."

  • A work made of silver-plated brass, glass, and ebony.

    Table Lamp

    Walter Von Nessen

    Gallery 265, second level, Arts of the Americas Galleries

    Meant to accompany a series of tables that Walter von Nessen created around 1930, this lamp illustrates America’s shift to a streamlined modern aesthetic during the 1930s. Von Nessen championed the use of metal as an appropriate material to capture the look and spirit of the modern age.

    "This lamp's sleek lines convey standardized manufacturing, and its exposed hardware is characteristic of industrial fabrication. The lamp’s silver finish and added vertical strip of ebony give it a sumptuous quality."

  • Tall black painted wooden cabinet, white trim, shape of skyscraper.

    Skyscraper Cabinet

    Paul Theodore Frankl

    Gallery 271, second level, Arts of the Americas Galleries

    Trained as an architect in Vienna and Berlin, Paul T. Frankl immigrated to New York in 1914 and began designing interiors and championing the skyscraper as a source of a uniquely American modernist vision. The geometric form of this cabinet rests on a sharply molded base; the bottom cabinet is topped with compartments and shelves, whose unadorned surfaces exemplify modernist design.

    "Frankl experimented with spare, geometric furniture that mimicked New York skyscrapers. By 1926 these pieces were touted in Good Furniture magazine as the 'skyscraper type of furniture, which is as American and as New Yorkish as Fifth Avenue itself.'"

Sign up for our enewsletter to receive updates.
Learn more

Image actions

Share

Suggested Terms