Wolfsonian-FIU

infobox Museum
name= Wolfsonian-Florida International University


location= 1001 Washington Avenue
Miami Beach, Florida, United States
established = 1986, incorporated as an FIU department in 1997
director= Cathy Leff
website= [http://www.wolfsonian.org/ www.wolfsonian.org]

The Wolfsonian-FIU is a Florida International University museum devoted to late-19th and early-20th century design. Located in the historic Art Deco district of Miami Beach, Florida, it also has a branch in Nervi, Italy.

The Wolfsonian was founded by Mitchell Wolfson, Jr. in 1986 to display and preserve his personal art collection. [ [http://www.wolfsonian.org/visitus/history/index.html Wolfsonian ] ] He donated the collection and its building to Florida International University in 1997. [ [http://www.wolfsonian.org/visitus/history/index.html Wolfsonian ] ] The museum's exhibits occupy 3 floors of a renovated 7-story warehouse (56,000 square feet), with its workshops, offices, and library occupying the remaining space.

The collections feature furniture and decorative arts, paintings and sculpture, books, prints, and posters that reflect social, political and technological changes between 1885 and 1945. Artifacts are primarily of North American and European origin.

Principal collections:

* American Industrial Design - posters, graphic designs, patent models, trade catalogs and samples, as well as objects such as cameras, clocks, radios, and phonographs. Designers include Donald Deskey, Walter Dorwin Teague, Kem Weber, and John Vassos.

* British Arts and Crafts Movement - works by C.R. Ashbee, Christopher Dresser, Ernest Gimson, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, William Morris, M.H. Baillie Scott, etc. Said to be the largest such collection outside the United Kingdom.

* Dutch and Italian Art Nouveau (Nieuwe Kunst and Stile Floreale) - objects, period rooms, and a large collection of Nieuwe Kunst bookbindings.

* German Design Reform - objects by the Darmstadt Art Colony, Vereinigte Werkstätten in Munich, and Deutscher Werkbund.

* New Deal America - designs produced by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Federal Art Project.

* Political Propaganda - prints, posters, drawings, books, and magazines. Propaganda from Russia/USSR, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Spain are well-represented. The British, Dutch, German, Italian, and American holdings may be the most comprehensive in the United States.

* Transportation and Travel - objects relating to ocean liners, airplanes, zeppelins, and trains.

* World's Fairs and Expositions - furnishings, sculpture, paintings, and ephemera from World's Fairs since 1851.

In early 2006, the Wolfsonian-FIU opened a branch institution in Nervi, on the Italian Riviera. The sister museum is housed in a renovated school overlooking the sea, and is administered by the City of Genoa and the Region of Liguria. It features mainly Italian fine and decorative arts, design, and architecture.

Wolfsonian-sponsored Conferences and Symposia

*Creator, Collector, Catalyst: The University Art Museum in the Twenty-First Century, December 2006
* [http://www.wolfsonian.org/education/litsymp/ The Wolfsonian Education Symposium]
*2008 IMLS WebWise Conference

External links

* [http://www.wolfsonian.fiu.edu/index.html The Wolfsonian-FIU Website]
* [http://wolfsonian.org/library/ The Wolfsonian-FIU Library Catalog]
* [http://www.wolfsonian.org/exhibitions/current/index.html Current Exhibitions at The Wolfsonian-FIU]
* [http://www.wolfsonian.org/visitus/calendar/index.html Calendar of Events]
* [http://www.fiu.edu/ Official FIU Website]

References

* [http://www.artandantiques.net/Articles/AA-News/2006/April/The-Wolfsonian-Goes-Italian.asp Art & Antiques magazine article]
* [http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-140656444.html Art in America article]