A Modern World: American Design
from the Yale University Art Gallery,
1920–1950
Yale University Art Gallery
438 pages | 348 images
This extensive catalogue of roughly three hundred examples from the collection of American decorative arts at the Yale University Art Gallery is divided into twelve sections, each with an introduction that gives a sense of the politics, society and economy of the time. The details that open each introduction tell a visual story of the new materials of modernism, first developed for industry, then used in domesticity. A modern color palette is used throughout. The typeface, Futura, designed by Paul Renner in 1924–26, echoes the geometric forms in the furniture, objects, jewelry and textiles.
