new york

This is a large, thin book with vivid black and white photos throughout. As a young Washington Post reporter covering jazz during the 1930s through 1940s, the author William Gottlieb (1917-2006) took many pictures of Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and Dizzy Gillespie.  Before he died, he willed for all his photographs to be put in the public domain. This was carried out four years after his death. The Golden Age of Jazz consists of more than two hundred photos and captions, which are visual thrills for jazz fans.

A book that accompanied the 1946 exhibit "If You Want To Build A House" exhibit at The Museum of Modern Art. The book highlights mid-century modern architects such as Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe, Philip Johnson, and Richard Neutra as well as Prairie School architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The book describes the concepts of modern architecture from the prospective of a potential home builder.

The Cooper Hewitt Library recently acquired two catalogs of 1930 Meissner Glasraffinerie glass shades for electrical light fixtures. Meissen-Glas. Nachtrag-Katalog Nr. 65 has 8 pages of illustrations, mostly in color. They advertise hanging light fixtures and wall sconces and came in a variety of designs. Many show the influence of the Bauhaus and Art Deco styles that were fashionable during this era.