A little sweet but also a little sour

For a book that is basically visual nostalgia I found this a very dreary looking title. Nowhere near as fascinating as Opie's famous scrapbooks or the beautiful 'The art of the label' published in 1988, a year earlier than 'Sweet memories'.

Most of the images are pre-forties with lots of whole page pack shots or show-cards for shop windows. Into the fifties and sixties there are several magazine ads from the leading confectioners like Cadbury, Mars, Fry's, Rountree, Payne's, Mackintosh, Sharp, Pascall and other smaller brands. Boxes of chocolates aren't really covered except for Black Magic, Milk Tray and After Eight. At the back of the book there are twelve pages devoted to the history of the leading makers.

All the visual material was available for a super looking book but who ever designed it took the easy, bland look route. 

The Jensen look

A very readable and enjoyable book on Georg Jensen houseware rather than the jewellery that the name is more famous for.  Though the book is probably three-quarters excellent photos of the companies output over the decades there are three illustrated essays, two (by Alison Fletcher and Maggie Taft) consider the company in relation to Scandinavian design especially during the forties to the sixties when design from these four northern European countries spread around the world. Another essay is by Thomas Thulstrup, a very much reduced version of his excellent 2004 published history of the company (ISBN 8712041300).

The beautiful still-life photos are in fact in color (printed with a two hundred screen) though they give the appearance of being in black and white, silverware photographed against a white background would always look like this. The pieces are dated from 1905 to 1990. The back pages have an illustrated chronology of the company followed by a very comprehensive listing of all the items in the 2018 Art Institute of Chicago exhibition that is the basis of this book.

I thought this was an excellent visual review of the Jensen company that has to be considered an important part of Scandinavian creativity.

Fantasy in motion

Originally published in French with an English edition in 1981. I had a copy years ago and probably loaned it to someone and then forgot all about it so I was pleased to come across it again on the net recently and bought a used copy (inexpensive and in really good condition, too). What I liked about the book are the more than four hundred photos in color and mono and the coverage fortunately doesn't include anything before 1939, so the reader doesn't have to wade through a lot of irrelevant auto design history.

The cars are from the three main America manufactures but in Europe the vehicles are mostly from coach builders, page ninety-one explains why there isn't anything from Japan. The contents are arranged in year order with quite detailed captions for each photo. the back pages have list of companies and their output (and slightly annoying there isn't an actual Index). There is also a listing of cars produced by toy makers.

A great book for anyone who wants a visual record of fantasy cars from the forties to the seventies.