Valentine's Day

Steaming across the oceans in high style came into fashion in the early 20th century. Glamorous ocean liner travel was as much a part of the experience as the traveler's destination until air travel dominated transportation. Ocean liners grew increasingly larger, faster, and more luxurious, and are one of the ultimate symbols of the Jazz Age and Art Deco periods. The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Library has many trade catalogs, pattern books, sheet music covers, and other materials documenting these time periods.

The muted colors and illustrative style of the Arts & Crafts movement period are featured in this color trade catalog from 1912-13. The company focused on making large wallpaper friezes, and was one of the first companies to develop a washable color wallpaper printed with oils that could be cleaned with a damp cloth or sponge. It was called San-kro-mura, the “sanitary” wall covering. The company produced wallpaper with panoramic views of mountains, deserts, forests, lakes, and scenic narratives of folklore and history.

This beautifully illustrated pattern book, part of a five volume study of mid-19th century French architecture by artist and chromolithographer Victor Petit, includes fifty color lithographs of designs for gardens. The colorful, full-page illustrations provide designs for the placement of paths, flowerbeds, waterways, and garden structures for properties ranging from one sixth of an acre to more than seven and a half acres.

Kiki Smith’s Dowry Book is an intimate, palm-sized collection of images, each representing an exhibition Smith had between 1982 and 1995, a time when she was particularly focused on issues of AIDS, gender, and race. The Hirshhorn Library’s copy is from a limited edition of 800 signed copies, issued in a plain, cardboard slipcase, and designed by Smith on a computer. The illustrated cloth boards reproduce Smith’s Dowry Cloth, 1990, made of women’s hair and sheep’s wool felted together.

In 19th century America, as the middle class grew, more people had time to garden for pleasure. That is when books on flower gardening became popular. Chrysanthemum Culture for America (1891) by James Morton was one of the earliest American publications on the history and care of chrysanthemums. At the time, the famous horticulturist Liberty Hyde Bailey considered it the best book “written by an American” on the flower.

An early twentieth century book in which an older gardener named Giles teaches three children, named Mark, Dorothy, and Ruth how to create their first garden. The book chronicles them caring for the garden in their first year. The reader begins in January and ends with the garden blanketed with snow in December. The children learn the importance of doing garden chores each month and if you “take care of your plants and treat them rightly, they are sure to reward you with beautiful flowers.” The delightful illustrations throughout the book are by Gertrude M.

"Music is my mistress, and she plays second fiddle to no one." Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington is an American jazz legend – a talented pianist, a composer of over 1,000 songs, and a bandleader who gained national attention through his orchestra’s appearances at the famed Cotton Club in Harlem. In this book, Ellington tells the stories of his life and career. He describes growing up in Washington, D.C. in the early 1900s, when he dreamed of playing baseball, not the piano. He shares photographs of his beloved parents and other family members and friends who influenced him.

This book is a tragic love story. One of Frederick Douglass’ friends from Germany, feminist Ottilie Assing (1819-1884), traveled to the United States, interviewed him, and translated his autobiography into German. Assing was a journalist by profession. They were about the same age. She fell in love with him, but he said he was wary of the racial divide in the United States. After the death of her sister, Assing returned to Europe to settle the family estate. During this trip, she learned through the newspaper that Frederick Douglass had married another woman seven months prior.

Irish author Thomas Keightley, who was active during the 19th century, is considered a pioneer in the field of modern folklore studies. In his groundbreaking work, "The Fairy Mythology," he concludes that similar myths developed in different locations spontaneously, in the vein of the Brothers Grimm's approach, in which they compared the myths of one region to similar tales in other, unrelated regions. This upended the widely held belief that there was a common source to similar myths.

Did you know that several types of plant bulbs, such as hyacinth, tulips, crocus, daffodils, amaryllis, snowdrops, and irises, can grow and bloom successfully in just water and provide a beautiful display in your home? The equipment invented to do that is the bulb vase. This book’s unusual subject (it is the only book on bulb vases in the Botany and Horticulture Library!) details the history of these vases from the 1700s through their prominence during the Victorian era and into present day.

Ernst & Engramelle's work on the butterflies of Europe was originally issued by subscription in 29 fascicles over 13 years. The Cullman Library holds the complete work: eight volumes of text (bound as three) with 342 meticulously and beautifully hand-colored plates in three separate volumes (Paris: Delaguette etc., 1779-1792).

This short publication by a little-known botanist gave Linnaeus the diagnostic tools and the anatomical terminology for his sexual system of classifying plants. After studying botany under Tournefort at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, Vaillant (1669-1722) established a herbarium there and showed such talent and dedication that over time he rose through the ranks to become the director.

Emile-Allain Séguy (1877-1951) was one of the foremost French designers at the beginning of the 20th century, creating examples of ornamentation to inspire artists and designers based on the natural world, including flowers, foliage, crystals, insects, and animals. Working in both the Art Deco and Art Nouveau styles, he published many design folios utilizing the pochoir technique, a printing process that employs a series of stencils to lay dense and vivid color. Samarkande is a portfolio of decoration and ornament reflecting Oriental influences.

Born in Chile, but settling in the United States in the mid-1960s, Juan Downey (1940-1993) explored many different art media. Although he became primarily known for his video art, he also created in other media, including painting, installations, and printmaking. Early in his career he studied in Chile, Spain, and then Paris, France where he focused on printmaking and painting. His early work already shows his interest in energy and concerns with navigating his Latin American heritage with his adopted home and ideals.

Charles Gibson (1867-1944) is one of the best known illustrators of the Gilded Age primarily due to his creation, the Gibson Girl. As an illustrator he became talented in depicting relationships between men and women and submitted illustrations to such magazines as Harper's Weekly, Life, and Harper's Monthly. In 1890 he introduced a modernized beautiful female character with upswept hair, fashionable clothes, and imbued with independence and glamor. The Gibson Girl attained nationwide celebrity and had songs and plays written about her.

The popularity of the French fashion plate was revitalized in the early part of the 20th century by artists like Paul Iribe (1883-1935), working with fashion designers such as Paul Poiret. These illustrations were hand colored using the pochoir process, whereby stencils and metal plates are used allowing for colors to be built up according to the artist's vision. The fashion plate, in use for some time, was in essence an advertising tool—a piece of artwork used to create desire for the latest styles aimed at an audience of the fashionable and moneyed.