Looking through "Vintage Furniture: Collecting and Living with Modern Design Classics" by Fay Sweet (Antique Collectors Club) is like entering a still-futuristic world of hanging acrylic bubble chairs, disposable armchairs, lamps adorned with feathers, boomerang desks and sofas in the shape of Marilyn Monroe's lips.
The more restrained classics are here as well - Thonet's bentwood chairs, Rietveld's primary-colored chairs, Marcel Breuer's iconic tubular steel and leather Wassily chair, Le Corbusier's stylish Grand Confort chairs, and Mies van der Rohe's elegant Barcelona chair. This book captures all the bravado, innovation and fun of midcentury (and earlier) modern furniture via 250 color illustrations of the pieces, primarily in period settings, and an informed text spanning a time frame from early modernism to Frank Gehry's cardboard pieces, plus a useful section on buying and collecting and lists of key designers, auction houses, stores and manufacturers.
"American Presidential China: The Robert L. McNeil Jr. Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art" by Susan Gray Detweiler (Yale University Press) presents a fascinating array of the fine porcelain pieces acquired for the White House from presidents ranging from George Washington to Ronald Reagan.
The more than 200 rare items included indicate shifting aesthetic tastes and more general cultural trends. George and Martha Washington acquired the kind of French and Chinese export porcelain that reflected the prevailing neoclassic sensibility. The first surviving official state service is the 166-piece dessert service commissioned from Paris for use in the White House by James Monroe, featuring an elaborate display of American eagles and other national symbols. It wasn't until the presidency of William McKinley that entirely American-made china was acquired for the executive mansion.
This handsomely illustrated volume also includes the tableware used privately by the first families, including the Kennedys' modern-looking Wedgwood cream ware, plus interesting documentary photographs of state dinners and an informed text.
"Silent Movies: The Birth of Film and the Triumph of Movie Culture" by Peter Kobel and the Library of Congress (Little, Brown) features Hollywood's early years. Most people today know little of silent film beyond the classic comedians (Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton) and perhaps a few other names: Rudolph Valentino, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks.
This lavish volume, which draws on the considerable resources of the Library of Congress, brings to life, via more than 400 striking images, the rich, diverse world of early film, when conventions were established, technologies developed and publicity machines set in motion. Among the topics treated are a thorough pre-history of film, the business side of the nascent industry, the various genres, serials, documentaries and animation, individual stars from John Barrymore to Rin-Tin-Tin, directors such as D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. De Mille, promotion materials, including some fabulous posters, international silent cinema and early experiments in sound and color. This highly recommended book is an instant classic on the subject.
"American Photobooth" by Nakki Goranin (W.W. Norton) is another example of objects previously considered trivial, if not throwaway, suddenly becoming not only collectible but taken seriously enough to be presented in a fine-art context.
This eye-opening book presents hundreds of images taken in photobooths (variously called Photomatons, Phototerias and Photomats, to name a few), both in actual size and blown up to impressive full-page dimension. Black-and-white and color-tinted, some still in their enamel frames, the images range from a little old lady with her dressed-up dog to romantic couples (including JFK and Jackie Kennedy on their honeymoon) to brides and graduates, chefs and soldiers, lots of cigarette smokers and a virtual chronicle of 20th century hair and makeup.
The author (committed enough to the subject to own three vintage photobooths of her own) provides a comprehensive history of the phenomenon, from its beginnings with automatic penny-photo machines at the turn of the last century.
Linda Rosenkrantz has edited Auction magazine and authored 18 books, including "Cool Names for Babies" and "The Baby Name Bible" (St. Martin's Press; www.babynamebible.com). She cannot answer letters personally.
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