Furniture refers to movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating, eating (tables), storing items, eating and/or working with an item, and sleeping. Furniture is also used to hold objects at a convenient height for work, or to store things. Furniture can be a product of design and can be considered a form of decorative art. In addition to furniture's functional role, it can serve a symbolic or religious purpose. It can be made from a vast multitude of materials, including metal, plastic, and wood. Furniture can be made using a variety of woodworking joints which often reflects the local culture.
Charles Rohlfs, was an American actor, patternmaker, stove designer and furniture maker. Rohlfs is a representative of the Arts and Crafts Movement, and is most famous for his skill as a furniture designer and maker.
The Wolfsonian–Florida International University or The Wolfsonian-FIU, located in the heart of the Art Deco District of Miami Beach, Florida, is a museum, library and research center that uses its collection to illustrate the persuasive power of art and design. For fifteen years, The Wolfsonian has been a division within Florida International University.
The Birmingham Museum of Art is a museum in Birmingham, Alabama. It has one of the most extensive collections of artwork in the Southeastern United States, with more than 24,000 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, and decorative arts representing numerous Cycultures, including Asian, European, American, African, Pre-Columbian, and Native American. Among other highlights, the museum's collection of Asian art is considered the finest {|we and most comprehensive in the Southeast, and its Vietnamese ceramics one of the finest in the world. The museum also is home to a collection of Renaissance and Baroque paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts from the late 13th century to c.1750.
American craft is craft work produced by independent studio artists working with traditional craft materials and processes. Examples include wood, glass, clay (ceramics), textiles, and metal (metalworking). Studio craft works tend to either serve or allude to a functional or utilitarian purpose, although they are just as often handled and exhibited in ways similar to visual art objects.
Shelburne Museum is a museum of art, design, and Americana located in Shelburne, Vermont, United States. Over 150,000 works are exhibited in 39 exhibition buildings, 25 of which are historic and were relocated to the museum grounds. It is located on 45 acres (18 ha) near Lake Champlain.
Virginia furniture is furniture that originates from the U.S. state of Virginia. Furniture was first produced in Virginia during the Colonial period and continued through the Industrial Revolution. Furniture production has decreased in recent times due to imported furniture, but Virginia is still home to a few large furniture companies.
The Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design is an art museum integrated with the Rhode Island School of Design, in Providence, Rhode Island, US. The museum was co-founded with the school in 1877, and still shares multiple buildings and facilities. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the United States, and has seven curatorial departments.
The Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum is a general interest museum within historic Roscoe Village, a restored Ohio & Erie Canal town in Coshocton, OH. It has four permanent themed exhibits within five galleries, including a Native American Gallery, Historic Ohio, Asian, and 19th and 20th Century Decorative Arts. There are more than 17,000 items in its collections.
Jonathan Leo Fairbanks is an American artist and expert of American arts and antiques. Fairbanks created the American Decorative Arts and Sculpture department at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and served as the Curator of the department from 1970 to 1999.
Founded in 1885, the Prague Museum of Decorative Arts is housed in a Neo-Renaissance edifice built from 1897 to 1899 after the designs of architect Josef Schulz. It opened in 1900 with exhibitions on the first floor. The Museum's rich collections include decorative and applied arts and design work ranging from Late Antiquity to the present day with focus on European objects, particularly arts and crafts created in the Bohemian lands. The impressive interior of the permanent exhibition, “Stories of Materials,” offers visitors an excursion into the history and development of decorative arts in the disciplines of glass, ceramics, graphic art, design, metal, wood and other materials, as well as objects such as jewellery, clocks and watches, textiles, fashion, toys and furniture.
Conservation and restoration of movable cultural property is a term used to denote the conservation of movable cultural property items in libraries, archives, museums and private collections. Conservation encompasses all the actions taken toward the long-term preservation of cultural heritage. Activities include examination, documentation, treatment, and preventive care, which is supported by research and education. Object conservation is specifically the actions taken to preserve and restore cultural objects. The objects span a wide range of materials from a variety of cultures, time periods, and functions. Object conservation can be applied to both art objects and artifacts. Conservation practice aims to prevent damage from occurring. This is called ‘preventive conservation’. The purpose of preventive conservation is to maintain, and where possible enhance, the condition of an object, as well as managing deterioration risks, such as handling and environmental conditions. Historically, object conservation was focused on the category of fine arts but now many different types of objects are conserved. Each type of object material, typically denoted by organic or inorganic then the specific medium, requires a specialized professional conservator and often requires collaborative work between museum staff, scientists, and conservators.
The Campeche is a reclining, non-folding, sling-seat chair with a distinctive side-placed curule base. In North America, they are named for the Campeche region of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, and were popular in the Americas during the early nineteenth-century. Similar versions of the form are found throughout Europe, such as the Schinkel writing chair at Schloss Charlottenburg in Berlin. Other related forms include the "planter's chair" or "bootjack" which is associated with equatorial climes and plantation-based societies.
The National Museum of Ceramics and Decorative Arts "González Martí", located in Valencia, Spain, is a museum dedicated to ceramics, porcelains and other decorative arts such as textile art, traditional costumes and furniture.
The American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA) is an art museum for ceramic art, located in Pomona, California. Founded in 2003 as a nonprofit organization, the museum exhibits historic and contemporary ceramic artwork from both its permanent collection of 10,000 objects and through temporary rotating exhibitions.
The Haan Mansion Museum of Indiana Art is a public museum in Lafayette, Indiana, housing the largest collection of Indiana art anywhere in the world. The museum is located in the Potter-Haan Mansion at 920 E State Street. The museum's collection includes over 100 paintings by Hoosier Group, Indiana Regionalism artists as well as ceramics, antique furniture and decorative items. The museum is a member of American Alliance of Museums.
Glenn Adamson is an American curator, author, and historian whose research and work focuses on the intersections of design, craft, and contemporary art. Adamson is currently Editor-at-Large of The Magazine Antiques, Editor of Journal of Modern Craft, and a freelance writer and curator. Adamson has held previous notable appointments as the Director of the Museum of Arts and Design, Head of Research at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and as Curator at the Chipstone Foundation.
Lucia Mathews was an American painter born and raised in San Francisco, California, primarily known for her work depicting California landscapes and the state flower, the California Poppy. A lifelong Californian, she was the wife and partner of artist, Arthur Frank Mathews, a well-regarded painter, muralist, and teacher in the Bay Area. Together they founded the Furniture Shop and the Philopolis Press in 1906. Her work is featured in museum collections throughout California and the United States and is evocative of the California Arts and Crafts style.
Beth Katleman is an American artist known for porcelain assemblage sculpture cast from found objects. Her allegorical installations fall within the genre of pop surrealism, combining decorative elements, such as Rococo embellishments and 19th century Toile de Jouy wallpaper scenery, with satirical references to consumer culture, fairy tales and classic literature. Katleman's work is in private and institutional collections and is exhibited internationally, including an installation commissioned by architect Peter Marino for Christian Dior, in the Hong Kong and London flagship boutiques. She lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, and is the recipient of the 2011 Moët Hennessey Prize, a Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation grant, the Watershed Generation X Award, a Kohler Arts/Industry Fellowship and a residency in Cortona, Italy sponsored by the University of Georgia, Athens. Katleman holds a BA in English from Stanford University, an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art and an MBA in Arts Management from UCLA.
Objects: USA (1969) was a groundbreaking exhibition considered a watershed in the history of the American studio craft movement. It "blurred lines between art and craft, artist and artisan". The exhibition featured a survey collection of craft works by artists from across the United States. Artists were approached and works chosen by New York gallery owner Lee Nordness and curator Paul J. Smith, the director of the Museum of Contemporary Crafts. The exhibition was funded by S. C. Johnson & Son, which purchased the pieces for the exhibition and later donated many of them to American museums. The Objects: USA exhibition appeared at thirty-three locations in the United States and Europe. The accompanying exhibition catalog Objects: USA (1970) became a classic reference work.
