Dimensions:8 ft. 11 in. × 9 ft. 1 1/2 in. (271.8 × 278.1 cm)
Classification:Textiles-Rugs
Credit Line:Purchase, Theodore R. Gamble Jr. Gift, in honor of his mother, Mrs. Theodore Robert Gamble, 1983
Accession Number:1983.228.3
Marking: Signed (verso): GINZKEY
the artist, New York (until d. 1981; her estate, 1981–83; sold through Re Formation, Pine Island, N. Y., to MMA)
American Designers' Gallery Inc., New York. "1928 Exhibition of American Designers' Gallery, Inc.," November 9, 1928–March 1, 1929, no. 5 [shown in the nursery Karasz designed for the exhibition].
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "American Modern, 1925–1940: Design for a New Age," May 16, 2000–January 7, extended to February 4, 2001, unnumbered cat. (p. 70).
Newport Beach, Calif. Orange County Museum of Art. "American Modern, 1925–1940: Design for a New Age," May 25–August 19, 2001, unnumbered cat.
Flint. Flint Institute of Arts. "American Modern, 1925–1940: Design for a New Age," September 14–December 16, 2001, unnumbered cat.
Philadelphia. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. "American Modern, 1925–1940: Design for a New Age," January 11–April 7, 2002, unnumbered cat.
Charlotte. Mint Museum of Craft and Design. "American Modern, 1925–1940: Design for a New Age," May 3–July 28, 2002, unnumbered cat.
Tulsa. Philbrook Museum of Art. "American Modern, 1925–1940: Design for a New Age," August 23–November 17, 2002, unnumbered cat.
"Home Furnishings=Modern Art. Modern Interiors at All-American Exhibit." Women's Wear Daily (November 17, 1928), p. 15, ill. (installation view, Exh. New York 1928–29).
American Designers' Gallery. Exh. cat., American Designers' Gallery Inc. New York, [1928], unpagined, no. 5, states that the artist desired to "create a room that would mold the taste of a child" achieved "by the use of primary colours and elementary units of form," giving the child "an intimate sense of owning the room instead of being owned by it".
C. Adolph Glassgold. "The Decorative Arts." Arts 14 (December 1928), p. 341, ill. p. 340 (installation view, Exh. New York 1928–29).
Alida Vreeland. "Room Designed for Children Decorated in Red, Blue, Yellow." Pittsburgh Press (February 13, 1929), p. 24, includes a rendering of the nursery for which this rug was designed.
John Shapley. "Art Activities in New York." Parnassus 1 (March 15, 1929), pp. 4, 6, ill. (installation view, Exh. New York 1928–29).
Helen Appleton Read. "Twentieth-Century Decoration: The American Designers' Gallery, a Symposium of Modern American Decorative Art." Vogue (January 19, 1929), pp. 76, 106, ill. (installation view, Exh. New York 1928–29.
"Fitting Your Furniture to the New Homes of Steel." Allentown Morning Call (April 7, 1929), p. 28, ill. (installation view, Exh New York 1928–29).
Mary Fanton Roberts. "Beauty Combined with Convenience in Some Modernistic Room." Arts & Decoration 30 (February 1929), pp. 72, 112, ill. (installation view, Exh. New York 1928–29).
"At the American Designers' Gallery in New York." House Beautiful 65 (February 1929), p. 175, ill. (installation view, Exh. New York 1928–29).
C. Adolph Glassgold. "Some Modern Furniture Designers." House Beautiful 67 (February 1930), p. 214, ill. (installation view, Exh New York 1928–29).
"A Nursery That Grows With the Child: Designed and Arranged by Ilonka Karasz." House Beautiful 74 (December 1933), pp. 274–75, ill., describes the rug as suggestive of "the ground of a play yard".
R. Craig Miller. Modern Design in The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1890–1990. New York, 1990, pp. 186–87, ill. (color, overall and detail).
Janet Kardon, ed. Craft in the Machine Age 1920–1945: The History of Twentieth-Century American Craft. Exh. cat., American Craft Museum. New York, 1995, p. 289, ill. p. 196 (color).
J. Stewart Johnson. American Modern, 1925–1940: Design for a New Age. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2000, pp. 19, 70. 171, ill. (color).
Ashley Brown. "Ilonka Karasz: Rediscovering a Modernist Pioneer." Studies in the Decorative Arts 8 (Fall/Winter 2000–2001), pp. 80, 82–85, figs. 14 and 17.
Ashley Callahan. Enchanting Modern: Ilonka Karasz (1896–1981). Exh. cat., Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia. [Athens], 2003, p. 76.
Marilyn F. Friedman. "Defining Modernism at the American Designers' Gallery, New York." Studies in the Decorative Arts 14 (Spring–Summer 2007), pp. 83, 93, 114 n. 42.
Susan Day. Carpets of the Art Deco Era. (1st ed., 2002). New York, 2015, pp. 174–75, fig. 244 (color).
Ilonka Karasz (American (born Hungary) Budapest 1896–1981 New York, New York)
ca. 1934
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