Wolfsonian-FIU

The Wolfsonian–Florida International University or The Wolfsonian-FIU, located in the heart of the Art Deco District, is a museum, library and research center that uses its collection to illustrate the persuasive power of art and design. For over one decade, The Wolfsonian has been a division within Florida International University. The Wolfsonian collection comprises approximately 120,000 pieces from the period 1885 to 1945 — the height of the Industrial Revolution until the end of the Second World War — in a variety of media, including: furniture; industrial-design objects; works in glass; ceramics; metal; rare books; periodicals; ephemera; works on paper; paintings; textiles; and medals. The museum is an affiliate within the Smithsonian Affiliations program, sharing affiliation with the Frost Art Museum.^[1]

The countries most strongly represented are Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United States. There are also significant holdings from a number of other countries, including Austria, Czechoslovakia, France, Hungary, Japan, and the former Soviet Union. Among the collection’s strengths are: the British Arts & Crafts movement; Dutch and Italian variants of the Art Nouveau style; American industrial design; objects and publications from world’s fairs; propaganda from the First and Second World Wars and the Spanish Civil War; New Deal graphic and decorative arts; avant-garde book design; and publications and design drawings relating to architecture.

Principal collections

• American Industrial Design - posters, graphic designs, patent models, trade catalogs and samples, as well as objects such as cameras, clocks, radios, and phonographs. Designers include Donald Deskey, Walter Dorwin Teague, Kem Weber, and John Vassos.

• British Arts and Crafts Movement - works by C.R. Ashbee, Christopher Dresser, Ernest Gimson, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, William Morris, M.H. Baillie Scott, etc. Said to be the largest such collection outside the United Kingdom.

• Dutch and Italian Art Nouveau (Nieuwe Kunst and Stile Floreale) - objects, period rooms, and a large collection of Nieuwe Kunst bookbindings.

• German Design Reform - objects by the Darmstadt Art Colony, Vereinigte Werkstätten in Munich, and Deutscher Werkbund.

• New Deal America - designs produced by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Federal Art Project.

• Political Propaganda - prints, posters, drawings, books, and magazines. Propaganda from Russia/USSR, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Spain are well-represented. The British, Dutch, German, Italian, and American holdings may be the most comprehensive in the United States.

• Transportation and Travel - objects relating to ocean liners, airplanes, zeppelins, and trains.

• World's Fairs and Expositions - furnishings, sculpture, paintings, and ephemera from World's Fairs since 1851.

In early 2006, the Wolfsonian-FIU opened a branch institution in Nervi, on the Italian Riviera. The sister museum is housed in a renovated school overlooking the sea, and is administered by the City of Genoa and the Region of Liguria. It features mainly Italian fine and decorative arts, design, and architecture.

Wolfsonian-sponsored Conferences and Symposia

• Creator, Collector, Catalyst: The University Art Museum in the Twenty-First Century, December 2006
• The Wolfsonian Education Symposium
• 2008 IMLS WebWise Conference

References

• Art & Antiques magazine article
• Art in America article

1. ^ "Florida International University - Frost Art Museum & The Wolfsonian". Affiliate Detail. Smithsonian Affiliations. 2011. http://affiliations.si.edu/AffiliateDetail.Asp?AffiliateID=25. Retrieved 15 Jul 2011. 

External links

• The Wolfsonian-FIU Website
• The Wolfsonian-FIU Library Catalog
• Current Exhibitions at The Wolfsonian-FIU
• Calendar of Events
• Official FIU Website