Dallas Museum of Art
Organizes Groundbreaking Exhibition
Modernism in American Silver: 20th-Century Design

Exhibition to travel to Washington, D.C., Reno, Dallas, Miami, and Memphis

The Dallas Museum of Art announces the national tour of Modernism in American Silver: 20th-Century Design, a groundbreaking exhibition that explores the aesthetic richness and cultural significance of modern silver design in America between 1925 and 2000. The exhibition, which opens at the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery on September 16, 2005, will serve as a major contribution to decorative arts scholarship and as a touchstone for future projects in the field.

Modernism in American Silver will feature more than 200 magnificent works that explore the creative development of the American silver industry’s forays into modernist design.

The primary goal of Modernism in American Silver is to chart the stylistic design history of modern American production silver. The exhibition will also explore economic and cultural factors that influenced silver design, manufacture, and marketing across more than seven decades and seven major thematic areas:

• The Modernist Impulse: Art Moderne
• The Machine Age: Streamline Design
• Modern Classicism
• Naturalism: Scandinavian Influences
• A New Look: Free Form and the 1950s
• Future Dreams: The Space Age
• The Boutique: Architects and Fashion Designers

The exhibition includes the works of widely recognized designers such as Eliel Saarinen, Robert Venturi, Michael Graves, Elsa Peretti, and Richard Meier, and will also offer important revelations concerning the role of designers such as John Prip, Robert King, John Van Koert, Donald Colflesh, and Tommi Parzinger, and a host of individuals who were seldom recognized by the general public. Many of the works featured in the exhibition are from the Dallas Museum of Art’s Jewel Stern American Silver Collection, the world’s most significant collection of modern American silver.

In addition to the exhibition, a book of the same title will thoroughly catalogue the works and serve as an immensely important resource on American silver—more extensive than any other of its kind currently available. Beginning in the 1920s with the growing fascination with progressive European works, Modernism in American Silver: 20th-Century Design will detail all aspects of the American silver industry’s efforts to capture the market for modern design, resulting in a richer understanding of the transformation of the American silver industry and its explorations of various movements and styles. Modernism in American Silver: 20th-Century Design, published by Yale University Press, will be approximately 350 pages in length and heavily illustrated in color.

Modernism in American Silver: 20th-Century Design opens at the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery (September 16, 2005, to January 22, 2006). Additional venues include the Dallas Museum of Art (June 18, 2006, through September 24, 2006), The Wolfsonian–Florida International University, Miami (in November 2006), and the Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis (in April 2007).

Modernism in American Silver: 20th-Century Design was organized by the Dallas Museum of Art.

The exhibition is supported by a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

American Masterpieces is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts supporting exhibitions, performances, and educational activities throughout the United States.

Additional support provided by the Judith and Richard Bressler/The Bressler Foundation, Ajax Foundation, and General Mills Foundation, and by the Donor Circle Membership Program through a leadership gift by the Gay and Lesbian Fund for Dallas.

Publication of the exhibition catalogue was underwritten by The Tiffany & Co. Foundation.