A striking counter-narrative to conventional histories of design, Mid-Century Modernism and the American Body: Race, Gender, and the Politics of Power in Design unveils fresh perspectives on one of the most distinctive movements in American visual culture. Art History Professor Kristina Wilson will investigate how race and gender influenced—and were influenced by—the development and marketing of midcentury Modern decor in postwar America. This book talk is presented as part of the Preservation League’s Preservation Book Club. 

Kristina Wilson is Professor of Art History at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. She is the author, most recently, of Mid-Century Modernism and the American Body: Race, Gender, and the Politics of Power in Design (Princeton University Press 2021). She is also the author of two award-winning books. The Modern Eye: Stieglitz, MoMA, and the Art of the Exhibition (2009) won the Eldredge Prize for Outstanding Scholarship in American Art; Livable Modernism: Interior Decorating and Design During the Great Depression (2004) won the Charles Montgomery Book Award from the Decorative Arts Society. She co-curated the exhibition Cyanotypes: Photography’s Blue Period (Worcester Art Museum 2016), which won an Award for Excellence from the Association of Art Museum Curators. She has also written numerous articles for journals and exhibition catalogues on subjects relating to modern design, modern art, and museum history in twentieth-century America.

Thursday March 9, 4:00 – 5:00 pm ET
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