Martin Eidelberg | Men of Modern Design: Philip Johnson and His Circle in 1930

The introduction of the International Style of architecture and design into the United States has generally been linked with Philip Johnson and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). However, Johnson was but one member of an exciting circle of young men—almost all Harvard graduate, almost all either homosexual or bisexual—who formed an elitist avant-garde in New York. Their social and aesthetic bonds created not only a new American architecture but also influenced American culture as a whole, embracing literature, music, photography, and dance.

At this talk, Martin Eidelberg will highlight major figures such as museum directors Alfred Barr (MoMA) and Chick Austin (Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford), architectural historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock, ballet impresario Lincoln Kirstein, photographer Walker Evans, music composer and critic Virgil Thomson, and author and collector Gertrude Stein.

Martin P. Eidelberg is an American professor emeritus of art history at Rutgers University. He has published widely on modern design and twentieth-century decorative arts. and with Paul Johnson is the author of Design 1935-1965: What Modern Was.

$10; $5 MIA members, free for Decorative Arts, Textiles & Sculpture Affinity Group.

To register, call (612) 870-6323 or reserve online.