Selling Good Design: Promoting the Early Modern Interior

Selling Good Design is an illustrated history of how prestigious and trend-setting New York department stores introduced modern design, especially Art Deco, to the press and the public during the late 1920s. Macy's, Lord & Taylor, Altman's, Wanamaker's, and other New York department stores teamed with designers such as Pierre Chareau, Francis Jourdain, Josef Hoffman, Gio Ponti, William Lescaze, and Paul Frank to create exhibitions that featured modern home interiors. Macy's and Lord & Taylor collaborated with The Metropolitan Muscum of Art in these efforts to elevate the taste of the American public. Author and decorative arts historian Marilyn F. Friedman details how this cooperation among the museum, designers, and retailers not only encouraged more discriminating consumer taste, but also promoted the manufacture of quality products. The elegant and thoroughly modern design of the late 1920s is evoked through rich duotones of over 100 photographs culled from archival sources and period magazines. Incorporating Friedman's knowledgeable and comprehensive text, which enables the reader to visualize the room settings in color, Selling Good Design is an alluring feast and an essential reference tool for interior designers, collectors, decorative art historians, design merchants, and Art Deco enthusiasts. Book jacket.