Craft in the Machine Age, 1920-1945

The period between the two world wars has come to be known as the machine age, the era of the airplane and the ocean liner, the time when Manhattan became a beacon of modernism symbolized by that indominitable structure, the great American skyscraper. This was also the time when hundreds of European artists fled to this country, seeking liberty and a better life, and bringing with them new ideas and new technical skills, thereby significantly influencing and altering the face of American craft. Craft in the Machine Age: 1920-1945 focuses on this period in American design. International in spirit, these twenty-five years witnessed a great many influences and styles: the influx of emigre artists, such as Eliel Saarinen, Josef Albers, Gertrud and Otto Natzler, and Paul T. Frankl; the landmark 1925 Paris exposition; the Bauhaus both in this country and abroad; the famous "World of Tomorrow" exhibition at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Individually and collectively, each contributed to the shift in craft as it moved away from the handcrafted objects of the Arts and Crafts Movement to the streamlined and geometric forms of European modernism. Some of the finest works in the areas of cer