THE JAZZ AGE

How to Live Like You’re the Great Gatsby


7059-39-2015 copy.jpg
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum; Promised gift of George R. Kravis II; Photo: Matt Flynn © Smithsonian Institution

All angles and curves, chrome and enamel, the aesthetic of the Jazz Age bebopped away from boring boxes toward a future filled with exotic forms, materials, and images. Opening April 7 (through August 20) at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, in New York, “The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s” showcases more than 350 objects, including flapper dresses and skyscraper-shaped bookcases. It’s a celebration of America’s wittiest and most daring design era, when technology brought us Bakelite and aluminum, airplane travel to exotic places, and, not least, a sense that anything goes.

1
© Rose Iron Works Collections, LLC.

Muse with Violin Screen (detail), c. 1930. Rose Iron Works, Inc. (American, Cleveland, est. 1904). Paul FehÈr (Hungarian, 1898-1990), designer.

2
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum; Promised gift of George R. Kravis II; Photo: Matt Flynn © Smithsonian Institution

AD-65 Radio, designed 1932, manufactured 1934, designed by Wells Wintemute Coates, manufactured by E.K. Cole, Ltd. (England).

3
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum; Promised gift of George R. Kravis II; Photo: Matt Flynn © Smithsonian Institution

Screen, ca. 1928; Designed by Donald Deskey (American, 1894-1989).

4
Matt Flynn; Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Daybed, 1933-1935; Designed by Frederick Kiesler (American, b. Austro-Hungarian Empire 1890-1965).

5
Matt Flynn; Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Dressing Table and Bench, ca. 1929; Alter Leon Jallot (French, 1874-1967).

6
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, Gift of Donald Deskey, 1975-11-20; Photo: Matt Flynn © Smithsonian Institution

Drawing, Textile Design: Party Ashtray, 1930–31, designed by Donald Deskey.