See more objects with the color gainsboro dimgrey or see all the colors for this object.
Object Timeline
|
1930 |
|
|
1939 |
|
|
1975 |
|
|
2011 |
|
|
2014 |
|
|
2025 |
|
Drawing, Design for Greeting Card, "Vanishing"
This is a Drawing. It was designed by Donald Deskey and drafted by Donald Deskey. It is dated 1930–1939 and we acquired it in 1975. Its medium is brush and gray and black gouache, graphite on white wove paper . It is a part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design department.
Deskey was one of the leading American industrial designers of the 20th century. His work was strongly influenced by the European Art deco movement, especially after visiting the Paris World Fair of 1925. It was upon returning to America after this event that he became a designer, seeking to bring home some of the innovations he had observed. He is best known for his modernist and streamlined approach to the interiors of Radio City Hall, commissioned in 1930 by John D. Rockefeller, and for his packaging designs which shaped the appearance of American everyday objects from the 1940’s onwards. This greeting card illustrates his purist approach to Art deco, reducing a leaf motif to abstraction. Stylized ovals, straight lines and triangles soberly imitate vegetation in shades of black, grey and white. The diagonals produced by the design cut off the edges of the image, suggesting a larger, broader scale.
This object was
donated by
Donald Deskey.
It is credited Gift of Donald Deskey.
- Drawing, Textile Design: Wavy Lines
- brush and blue, black, and white gouache, graphite on gray illustration board.
- Gift of Donald Deskey.
- 1975-11-29
- Archives, Donald Deskey Archive
- magazine and newspaper clippings, reviews, correspondence, renderings, floor....
- Gift of Donald Deskey.
- 1975-11-77
- Drawing, Design for Textile: Striped Triangles
- brush and brown and grey gouache, white crayon, graphite on beige wove paper .
- Gift of Donald Deskey.
- 1975-11-24
Our curators have highlighted 4 objects that are related to this one. Here are three of them, selected at random:
- Drawing, Design for Product Label, Higgins' Vegetable Glue
- brush and blue, white gouache, paper strips, graphite on paper.
- Gift of University of California, Los Angeles.
- 1973-15-71
- Sidewall, Assorted Leaves
- screen-printed on paper.
- Purchase.
- 1991-46-1
- Drawing, Design for Textile: "Party Ashtray"
- white, blue, and red-orange pastel on black wove paper .
- Gift of Donald Deskey.
- 1975-11-20
Its dimensions are
(folded): 24.4 x 16.5 cm (9 5/8 x 6 1/2 in.) Mat: 45.7 x 35.6 cm (18 x 14 in.) Other (full sheet): 24.4 x 33 cm (9 5/8 x 13 in.)
It is signed
Signed in graphite, lower right: BW [?]
Cite this object as
Drawing, Design for Greeting Card, "Vanishing"; Designed by Donald Deskey (American, 1894–1989); USA; brush and gray and black gouache, graphite on white wove paper ; (folded): 24.4 x 16.5 cm (9 5/8 x 6 1/2 in.) Mat: 45.7 x 35.6 cm (18 x 14 in.) Other (full sheet): 24.4 x 33 cm (9 5/8 x 13 in.); Gift of Donald Deskey; 1975-11-57
This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition Making Design.
