The Art Institute of Chicago is home to one of the world's finest collections of American folk art. For Kith and Kin provides an introduction to that collection through more than sixty of its most outstanding objects. Selected by premier American art scholar Judith A. Barter, the majority of these objects have never before been published.
In a groundbreaking opening essay, Barter revisits the earliest days of folk-art collecting in Chicago, beginning in the 1890s. She pays special attention to the passionate individuals who sought out unique and expressive examples of American folk art, building private collections that they later donated to the Art Institute. Including beautiful reproductions and detailed entries for each of the sixty-one objects it features, this book highlights an array of masterworks such as "primitive" New England portraits, a face jug from South Carolina, New Mexican ceramics, a weathervane, and ship figureheads.

For Kith and Kin: The Folk Art Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago

Arts & Photography

BARTER, Judith A.

Obniski, Monica

History & Criticism

Art Institute of Chicago

A lively exploration of eclecticism, playfulness, and whimsy in American postwar design, including architecture, graphic design, and product design This spirited volume shows how postwar designers embraced whimsy and eclecticism in their work, exploring playfulness as an essential construct of modernity. Following World War II, Americans began accumulating more and more goods, spurring a transformation in the field of interior decoration. Storage walls became ubiquitous, often serving as a home’s centerpiece. Designers such as Alexander Girard encouraged homeowners to populate their new shelving units with folk art, as well as unconventional and modern objects, to produce innovative and unexpected juxtapositions within modern architectural settings. Playfulness can be seen in the colorful, child-sized furniture by Charles and Ray Eames, who also produced toys. And in the postwar corporate world, the concept of play is manifested in the influential advertising work of Paul Rand. Set against the backdrop of a society that was experiencing rapid change and high anxiety, Serious Play takes a revelatory look at how many of the country’s leading designers connected with their audience through wit and imagination.

Serious Play: Design in Midcentury America

Alfred, Darrin

Yale University Press

A multifaceted look at the work of award-winning American industrial designer Stephen Burks\nThrough essays, photo-essays, and a conversation between Black designer Stephen Burks (b. 1969) and the late cultural critic bell hooks, this book contextualizes Burks’s wide-ranging work while exploring design’s influence on politics, society, and culture. Burks’s work is underpinned by his belief in a pluralistic vision of design that is inclusive of all cultural perspectives; 
the award-winning designer has been commissioned by many of the world’s leading design-driven brands to develop collections that engage hand production as a strategy for innovation.\nThe book centers the industrial design and craft collaborations within Burks’s workshop-based design practice and offers an opportunity to reflect on the potential of design at a time when racial, social, and environmental justice remain in jeopardy. Topics explored in the book include an overview of the designer’s practice, from the foundational architecture culture of Chicago (Burks’s birthplace) to his latest speculative project; the workshop-based collaborative ethos of his studio, Stephen Burks Man Made; and the politics of design. In the conversation between bell hooks and Burks, hooks brings her critical eye to design as it relates to the broader field of African American cultural production.\nDistributed for the High Museum of Art\nExhibition Schedule:High Museum of Art, Atlanta 
(September 16, 2022–March 5, 2023)

Stephen Burks: Shelter in Place

High Museum of Art

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Books by Obniski, Monica