"The Gilson Collection: Midcentury Design at Cal Poly Pomona"
Opening Reception
Date: December 06, 2014Time: 4:00pm to 7:00pm
Location: Don B. Huntley Gallery
Event Info
Date/Time:
Opening Reception: Saturday, December 6, 2014 - 4-7pm
Curators' Talk: Saturday, December 6, 2014 - 4:45pm
Book Signing Event: Saturday, January 17, 4-7pm
Exhibition: Saturday, December 6, 2014 - Thursday, February 19, 2015
Location:
Don B. Huntley Gallery
Book Signing Event in conjunction with new openings at the Kellogg Art Gallery
Co-authors: Therese Mahoney, PhD and Maren Henderson, PhD
Designer: Babette Mayor, MFA
Gallery Exhibition | "The Gilson Collection"
About the Exhibition
As a professional industrial designer, Channing Gilson recognized the significance of the historical design record. At a young age, he resolved to start collecting obsolete mass-‐produced everyday items. For the next 40 years, he sought out well-‐designed objects, especially those with radically new styling made possible by the application of emerging technologies and materials to consumer products in the post-‐World War II era. Thanks to his foresight, many significant midcentury design objects have been preserved in this collection. Representative pieces by well-‐known industrial designers such as Henry Dreyfuss and Raymond Loewy, as well as those by lesser-‐known individuals who made important contributions to the field, are all part of the general collection. The entire collection provides a unique window into the industrial design process in the mid-‐20th century. It presents a sample of midcentury U.S. design, which was shaped by new technologies, new manufacturing processes and refinements, a new aesthetic, new merchandising techniques, and the rising middle-‐class demand for mass-‐produced consumer goods. In addition, the archives of two notable local American industrial designers Jean Otis Reinecke, and Channing Gilson himself, are included.