Good Design Award (Museum of Modern Art)
The Good Design exhibition series was an industrial design program organized by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, in cooperation with the Merchandise Mart in Chicago, held between 1950 and 1955. No awards were granted to designers whose work was put on view in these exhibitions, despite misinformation suggesting otherwise.
History
The exhibition series Good Design was spearheaded by Edgar Kaufmann, Jr.,Wendy Kaplan: California Design, 1930-1965 : Living In a Modern Way. MIT press, 2011, pg 295. who was then director of the Industrial Design Department of MOMA. Predecessors to this series were two other exhibition series on modernist design, including a series that began with Useful Objects Under $5 (later the maximum price climbed to $10 and eventually $100), the other a series of international design competitions.Michael Kimmelman: [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/06/arts/design/moma-good-design.html Celebrating ‘Good Design’ at MoMA: The Nut Dish and Other Populist Gems]. In: New York Times, 6 June 2019. An agreement to launch the Good Design exhibition series was struck between Rene d'Harnoncourt, director of MoMA, and Wallace O. Ollman, general manager of the Merchandise Mart.Arthur J. Pulos: The American Design Adventure, 1940-1975. MIT Press, 1988, [https://books.google.com/books?id=MAlz-7XgpjwC&pg=PA110 pg. 110]. Good Design had five editions:
- 1st Good Design exhibition, held from 21 November 1950 to 28 January 1951[https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1714 1st Good Design] on the Exhibition Archive of MoMA{{Cite web|url=https://www.eamesoffice.com/the-work/good-design/|title=Good Design|date=February 21, 2014|website=Eames Office}}{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JJGeC8kqrEUC&dq=good+design+Chicago+Merchandise+Mart&pg=PA275|title=Charles and Ray Eames: Designers of the Twentieth Century|first=Pat|last=Kirkham|date=June 4, 1998|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=9780262611398|via=Google Books}}
- 2nd Good Design exhibition, held from 27 November 1951 to 27 January 1952[https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1715 2nd Good Design] on the Exhibition Archive of MoMA{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MAlz-7XgpjwC&dq=good+design+Chicago+Merchandise+Mart&pg=PA112|title=The American Design Adventure, 1940-1975|first=Arthur J.|last=Pulos|date=June 4, 1988|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=9780262161060|via=Google Books}}
- 3rd Good Design exhibition, held from 23 September to 30 November 1952[https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1716 3rd Good Design] on the Exhibition Archive of MoMA
- 4th Good Design exhibition, held from 22 September to 29 November 1953[https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1717 4th Good Design] on the Exhibition Archive of MoMA
- 5th Good Design exhibition, held from 8 February to 20 March 1955[https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1718 Good Design, fifth anniversary] on the Exhibition Archive of MoMA
The Museum of Modern Art developed a circular Good Design tag, designed by Morton and Millie Goldsholl of Chicago, which manufacturers of products chosen for exhibition could use in advertising and sales. Critic Michael Kimmelman of the New York Times called this tag a "version of the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval", and compared it to efforts of similar institutions like V&A in the UK or Bauhaus in Germany in promoting modernist design.
MoMA has staged retrospective exhibitions called What Was Good DesignWhat Was Good Design? MoMA’s Message, 1944–56. Exhibition held at MoMA from 6 May 2009 to 10 January 2011. ([https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/957 Archive]) (2011) and The Value of Good DesignThe Value of Good Design, Exhibition held at MoMA from 10 February to 15 June 2019. ([https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/5032 Archive]) (2019).
The Japan Institute of Design Promotion also sponsors an annual Good Design Award which is unrelated to the American award.
Notable people
- Joel Robinson (c. 1923-?), graphic designer, exhibited at MoMA's 1951 Good Design show{{Cite web |last=Gardner |first=Andrew |date=June 5, 2019 |title="Lily-White": Joel Robinson and Black Identity in MoMA's Good Design Program |url=https://post.moma.org/lily-white-joel-robinson-and-black-identity-in-momas-good-design-program/ |access-date=2021-02-06 |work=post |publisher=MoMA |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |title=Ovals, Joel Robinson; Manufacturer: L. Anton Maix, Inc., New York ^ Minneapolis Institute of Art |url=http://collections.artsmia.org/art/139000/ovals-joel-robinson |access-date=2023-02-10 |website=collections.artsmia.org}}
- Florence Knoll, Good Design Award 1950, 1953
See also
References
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External links
- {{Official website|https://www.good-designawards.com/}}
- [https://www.good-designawards.com/news/2020/06/01/the-seventy-year-history-of-good-design%C2%AE/ The Seventy Year History of GOOD DESIGN]
Category:Industrial design awards