Object Timeline

1982

  • Work on this object began.

2017

2024

  • You found it!

Poster, Innovative Furniture in America

This is a Poster. It is dated 1982 and we acquired it in 2017. Its medium is screenprint on glossy white paper. It is a part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design department.

The exhibition "Innovative Furniture in America" was held at the St. Louis Art Museum in 1982 and featured a selection of iconic furniture pieces produced by Herman Miller, Inc. Stephen Frykholm and Barbara Loveland, both of Herman Miller's graphic design and communications team, designed this poster to promote the exhibition.
The two figures, one blue and one cream colored, are simplified depictions of the seat and underside (repectively) of designer George Nelson's "Coconut Chair," first produced by Herman Miller in 1955. Frykholm and Loveland's unexpected vantage points of the chair—aerial and upside down—heighten the abstract and naturalistic qualities that made the chair so popular. It's name comes from the chair's unusual shape, reminiscent of a slice of a coconut's hard shell. The mint-green text along the long edges of the poster, printed in two different directions, indicates that the poster can be rotated 180 degrees for another view of the chair. In doing so Loveland and Frykholm emphasize the design of the chair and its inherent, formal qualities.

This object was donated by Linda Powell. It is credited Gift of Linda Powell.

Its dimensions are

100.2 × 63.5 cm (39 7/16 in. × 25 in.)

Cite this object as

Poster, Innovative Furniture in America; screenprint on glossy white paper; 100.2 × 63.5 cm (39 7/16 in. × 25 in.); Gift of Linda Powell; 2017-21-1

There are restrictions for re-using this image. For more information, visit the Smithsonian’s Terms of Use page.

For higher resolution or commercial use contact ArtResource.

If you would like to cite this object in a Wikipedia article please use the following template:

<ref name=CH>{{cite web |url=https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/1108779013/ |title=Poster, Innovative Furniture in America |author=Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |accessdate=25 April 2024 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution}}</ref>