So how did we live in 1942? The Christmas Book was obviously not as comprehensive as a full Sears catalog but this 224 page book still gives a good impression of what must have been in millions of homes, especially the seventy-five pages of toys. Some of these are quite impressive, a Marx dial typewriter, portable phonograph, movie projector (and a selection of movies like Mickey Mouse, Popeye, the Three Stooges, Our gang, Charlie Chaplin) kitchen appliances: Prosperity stove, Coldspot refrigerator, Kenmore washer. As the country was now at war toy tanks, battleships, cardboard fighter planes were available and how about a Junior air raid warden kit for $1.10.
I was surprised at how little everything cost, though the average wage in 1942 was $36 a week. Sears was proud of their low prices and three pages list the ceiling price as decided by the Office of Price Administration, everything in the catalog is always below these prices. The most expensive item I could find was a Platform rocker at $24.88 (Ceiling price $28.08) hundreds of everyday household items cost between a few cents and three dollars.
The book is paperback size unlike a normal Sears catalog and it's nicely produced with sixty-two pages in color and printed on a reasonable matt art paper. For those of a certain age this will make an ideal present under the tree.
The book is a remarkable visual record of over four hundred houses that accurately convey the feel and scope of mid-century modern around the globe. Predictably the US has the most examples, one hundred and fifty (Canada has ten) and the mid-century style could be said to have originated there, especially in California where creative architects, including several Europeans, designed houses that took advantage of the pleasant climate and featured open-plan living like the well known Case Study Houses, several are included. The next largest collection is the UK with forty-one houses.
The book divides the world into nine regions with Europe in two sections and 151 homes, Africa and the Middle East have fourteen and the Far East thirteen, Central and South America fifty-one. Australia and New Zealand twenty. Each house has one exterior photo and sometimes the addition of one or more interiors. The captions include the structures name, architect, location and date followed by the author's very comprehensive background detail about the property and designer. The back pages have a Timeline, Glossary, Bibliography and Index.
I thought the Timeline (1945 to 1974) over twenty pages, was quite fascinating. Each page has twenty largish thumbnails and it's possible to see and compare how architects created individual homes with the mid-century chracteristics of a horizontal look and large windows. There are nine or more circular houses, a style favoured by John Lautner, several architects broke away from the format and designed roofs that curved over a property or looked like wings. A couple of oddities are included, Finnish designer Matti Suuronen and his 1968 Futuro House looking remarkably like a science fiction space ship and Charles Deaton's 1965 Sculptured House near Denver, Colorado. (The caption says the design was vaguely based on a clam shell with a final coating of synthetic rubber mixed with crushed walnut shells and white pigment.)
This is a lavishly produced book with seven hundred large photos and printed on a good matt art paper. It could well became the standard reference for this important and influencial house style.
I can remember seeing the work of de Rivera decades ago when I was at design college and I loved the look of his thin steel tube sculpture and over the years I would come across a picture of one of his works in a book or a magazine article about modern art. It was only recently that I decided I really should find out about this abstract sculpture. Books about him are remarkable few and as he died in 1985 I think he's now become a sort of footnote in art history.
Luckily this book (in English) by the Spanish publishers Taller is probably the only book worth getting, published in 1979 with well over two hundred images. Most are photos of de Rivera's table sculptures with some in color and others of his large corporate and civic work plus an interesting selection of him working in his Long Island studio. The are two essays, the first an Introduction by Dore Ashton was sort of interesting but Joan Marter's forty-one page essay was first class and it made me appreciate his work even more.
The book's production is not up to today's standards of art books with quality printing on good art paper though I think it's typical of its time but as it's really all there is on this great sculpture it's worth searching out.
