A bold reorientation of art history that bridges the divide between fine art and material culture through an examination of objects and their uses Art history is often viewed through cultural or national lenses that define some works as fine art while relegating others to the category of craft. Global Objects points the way to an interconnected history of art, examining a broad array of functional aesthetic objects that transcend geographic and temporal boundaries and challenging preconceived ideas about what is and is not art. Avoiding traditional binaries such as East versus West and fine art versus decorative art, Edward Cooke looks at the production, consumption, and circulation of objects made from clay, fiber, wood, and nonferrous base metals. Carefully considering the materials and process of making, and connecting process to product and people, he demonstrates how objects act on those who look at, use, and acquire them. He reveals how objects retain aspects of their local fabrication while absorbing additional meanings in subtle and unexpected ways as they move through space and time. In emphasizing multiple centers of art production amid constantly changing contexts, Cooke moves beyond regional histories driven by geography, nation-state, time period, or medium. Beautifully illustrated, Global Objects traces the social lives of objects from creation to purchase, and from use to experienced meaning, charting exciting new directions in art history.

Global Objects: Toward a Connected Art History

Arts & Photography

Cooke, Jr., Edward S.

History & Criticism

Princeton University Press

"Several years ago, 26 prominent studio furniture-makers were asked to design works of furniture based on period pieces in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The result is an explosion of form and fantasy in which past and present are mergedUa celebration of the continued existence of small-scale furniture making in the midst of mass production. Among the works discussed in this lavishly illustrated book are pieces by Garry Knox Bennett, JohnCederquist, Kristina Madsen, Judy Kensley McKie, Michael Pierschalla, and Paul Sasso. In an insightful and detailed essay, author Edward Cooke Jr. contextualizes these works, outlining their complex relationship with American traditions of furniture design."

New American Furniture: The Second Generation of Studio

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Cooke Jr, Edward

Antiques & Collectibles

MFA Publications

To connoisseurs of modern furniture, names such as Wendell Castle, Wharton Esherick, Sam Maloof and George Nakashima are signposts to a revolution in the decorative arts that remains one of the most vital of our time. For the past half-century, the Studio Furniture movement has grown in reaction to the traditionally designed and mass-produced furnishings generally available to Americans. Instead, studio furniture makers offer works that are innovative in design, finely hand-crafted and representative of a unique sensibility--works that stand midway between function and fine art. The Maker's Hand is one of the first, and to date the most authoritative, books about the Studio Furniture movement. Written by two of the leading experts in the field, it details the history and development of Studio Furniture, from its origins in post-World War II America through its explosion in the "back-to-nature" 60s, metamorphosis in the "techno" 70s and professional emergence in the 80s. Along the way, the authors show how changes in American tastes, technology and culture have influenced these pieces. Also included are extensive biographies of some 40 furniture makers, as well as guides to the main exhibitions, schools and galleries. Profusely illustrated with works by Castle, Maloof, Molly Gregory, John Cederquist, Judy Kensley McKie and many others, this is an invaluable guide to the inventive, often witty, always surprising world of Studio Furniture.

The Maker's Hand: American Studio Furniture 1940-1990

Ward, Gerald W.R.

Cooke, Edward

WARD, Gerald

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

Cooke offers a fresh and appealing cross-disciplinary study of the furnituremakers, social structure, household possessions, and surviving pieces of furniture of two neighboring New England communities. Winner of the Decorative Arts Society, Inc.'s Charles F. Montgomery Prize Originally published in 1996. In Making Furniture in Preindustrial America Edward S. Cooke Jr. offers a fresh and appealing cross-disciplinary study of the furnituremakers, social structure, household possessions, and surviving pieces of furniture of two neighboring New England communities. Drawing on both documentary and artifactual sources, Cooke explores the interplay among producer, process, and style in demonstrating why and how the social economies of these two seemingly similar towns differed significantly during the late colonial and early national periods. Throughout the latter half of the eighteenth century, Cooke explains, the yeoman town of Newtown relied on native joiners whose work satisfied the expectations of their fellow townspeople. These traditionalists combined craftwork with farming and made relatively plain, conservative furniture. By contrast, the typical joiner in the neighboring gentry town of Woodbury was the immigrant innovator. Born and raised elsewhere in Connecticut and serving a diverse clientele, these craftsmen were free of the cultural constraints that affected their Newtown contemporaries. Relying almost entirely on furnituremaking for their livelihood, they were free to pay greater attention to stylistically sensitive features than to mere function.

Making Furniture in Preindustrial America: The Social Economy of Newtown and Woodbury, Connecticut

Johns Hopkins University Press

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