DEPRESSION MODERN
THE THIRTIES STYLE IN AMERICA
Martin Greif
Martin Greif: DEPRESSION MODERN: THE THIRTIES STYLE IN AMERICA. New York: Universe Books, 1975. First edition. Maroon quarter cloth and silver stamped boards. Photographucally-printed dust jacket. A fine copy book in a near fine dust jacket. Interior unmarked and very clean. Out-of-print.
8.5 x 11 softcover book with 192 pages and 200 b/w photos and illustrations. One of the best, most comprehensive and visually compelling anthologies dealing with American Streamline, Moderne, Machine Age design. Highly recommended.
From the book: "By focusing on the period between two great expositions -- Chicagoıs Century of Progress (1933) and the New York Worldıs Fair (1939) -- Martin Greif shows that a relatively small group of young, brilliant, energetic designers of the 1930s created, perhaps for the first time, a national style that was uniquely American.
DEPRESSION MODERN corrects a misconception, that Art Deco was the predominant style of the decade -- a misconception which obscures the essentially modern spirit of the time. On the contrary, the major American designers of the Great Depression hated Deco (which they considered "the modern deprived of its manhood") and despised its effete luxuriousness. In his informed, informal, essentially personal text, and in two hundred carefully captioned illustrations, Martin Greif gratefully acknowledges the accomplishments of Raymond Loewy, Donald Deskey, Russel Wright, Norman Bel Geddes, George Fred Keck, Walter Dorwin Teague, Gilbert Rohde, and other founders of the style.
Contents:
- Acknowledgments
- Preface
- Depression Modern: An Appreciation
- The Thirties Style In America
- Credits
- Index
Includes work by the following designers, firms and artisans: John Vassos, Henry Dreyfuss, Raymond Loewy, Donald Deskey, Russel Wright, Norman Bel Geddes, George Fred Keck, Walter Dorwin Teague, Gilbert Rohde, Wallace Harrison, William Lescaze, Jens Risom, Frank Lloyd Wright, Eliel Saarinen, J. Andre Fouilhoux, Sidney Waugh, Steuben, Frederick Carder, Fostoria, George Sakier, Lurelle Guild, Electrolux, Edward Durell Stone, John D. Gerald, Herman Miller, Heywood-Wakefield, Herbert Tullgren, James Eppenstein, Trip Russell, Igor Polevitzky, Dan Cooper, Virginia Conner, Harold Spitznagel, Abel Faidy and many others.
out of stock