Sarah Coffin

Cooper-Hewitt Museum

Flamboyant. Ornamental. Unconventional. An unprecedented exploration into Rococo style. Rococo: The Continuing Curve, which accompanies a major exhibition opening March 2008 at the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York, is a groundbreaking work exploring the sensuous and organic rococo style and its many revivals (such as art nouveau) from the early eighteenth century up to the present day in multiple fields, including furniture, decorative arts, prints, drawings, and textiles. More than 300 lavish full-colour illustrations and more than a dozen original essays chart the progress of the styles as it radiated from master craftsmen in Paris throughout France, England, Germany, the Netherlands, and other European countries, and later crossed the Atlantic to the United States. AUTHOR: Rococo: The Continuing Curve is organized by Sarah Coffin, head of the product design and decorative arts department. Gail Daidson, head of drawings, prints, and graphic design department. Guest curator Penelope Hunter-Stiebel. Ellen Lupton, is curator of contemporary design. 300 illustrations

The Continuing Curve, 1730-2008

Rococo

Ellen Lupton

Darra Goldstein

Jennifer Goldsborough

Barbara Bloemink

Eating is a social ritual. From dinner dates to everyday suppers, casual picnics to lavish feasts, dining brings people together for far more than satisfying the needs of the body. For centuries, cutlery has served as extensions of our hands, enriching how we experience food and the act of eating. Knives, forks, and spoons come between hand and mouth, articulating the experience of dining. Accompanying an exhibition at the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum (May 5 - October 29, 2006), Feeding Desire is the first book to showcase the Museum's astonishing permanent collection of American and European cutlery. Complementing and expanding on the content of the exhibition, seven original essays, accompanied by over two hundred lavish color and black-and-white illustrations, relate the surprisingly different histories of the knife, spoon, and fork, and reveal how cutlery has influenced food, fashion, design, mobility, hygiene, and consumption over the centuries. In addition, Feeding Desire looks toward the future of the tools of the table as we progress into the twenty-first century.

Design and the Tools of the Table, 1500-2005

Feeding Desire

Sarah Coffin

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