Rachel Gotlieb – författare

Challenging the stereotypes of Scandinavian design, these essays explore design in Denmark, Norway and Sweden and assess the different roles that Finland and the wider Nordic region had in forming an image of Scandinavian design throughout the world. By examining the legacy of Nordic design and its global impact, editors Astrid Skjerven and Rachel Gotlieb shed light on the development of national and regional design identities and their historical associations. Authors investigate the transnational circulation of ideas throughout the later 20th century and consider the influences on design practices, production and consumerism. They look at how different countries negotiated and promoted Nordic branding and ideology, and offer new perspectives on design in relation to sustainability, changing economies and indigenous traditions. A range of leading international scholars evaluate the popularity of Nordic style in Soviet material culture, the influence on jewellery design in post-war Britain, the impact of national design conferences, exhibitions, and education in Europe, the USA, Canada and Japan. Drawing from a wealth of archival material and interviews with designers, makers and other stakeholders, this book reveals a lesser-known history of cross-cultural collaborations, exhibition production and tensions between mainstream and indigenous design in Scandinavia. Transnational Discourses in Nordic Design also provides an insight into some of the authors’ own design practices and reveals the challenges facing Nordic designers today.

This book broadens the discussion of pottery and china in the Victorian era by situating them in the national, imperial, design reform, and domestic debates between 1840 and 1890. Largely ignored in recent scholarship, Ceramics in the Victorian Era: Meanings and Metaphors in Painting and Literature argues that the signification of a pot, a jug, or a tableware pattern can be more fully discerned in written and painted representations.Across five case studies, the book explores a rhetoric and set of conventions that developed within the representation of ceramics, emerging in the late-18th century, and continuing in the Victorian period. Each case study begins with a textual passage exemplifying the outlined theme and closes with an object analysis to demonstrate how the fusing of text, image, and object are critical to attaining the period eye in order to better understand the metaphorical meanings of ceramics.Essential reading not only for ceramics scholars, but also those of material culture, the book mines the rich and diverse archive of Victorian painting and literature, from the avant-garde to the sentimental, from the well-known to the more obscure, to shed light on the at once complex and simple implications of ceramics’ agencies at this time.

This book broadens the discussion of pottery and china in the Victorian era by situating them in the national, imperial, design reform, and domestic debates between 1840 and 1890. Largely ignored in recent scholarship, Ceramics in the Victorian Era: Meanings and Metaphors in Painting and Literature argues that the signification of a pot, a jug, or a tableware pattern can be more fully discerned in written and painted representations.Across five case studies, the book explores a rhetoric and set of conventions that developed within the representation of ceramics, emerging in the late-18th century, and continuing in the Victorian period. Each case study begins with a textual passage exemplifying the outlined theme and closes with an object analysis to demonstrate how the fusing of text, image, and object are critical to attaining the period eye in order to better understand the metaphorical meanings of ceramics.Essential reading not only for ceramics scholars, but also those of material culture, the book mines the rich and diverse archive of Victorian painting and literature, from the avant-garde to the sentimental, from the well-known to the more obscure, to shed light on the at once complex and simple implications of ceramics’ agencies at this time.

The Portland Vase, the ancient Roman glass cameo amphora held in the British Museum, has been replicated and reinterpreted countless times, becoming a global brand that has resonated with makers, collectors, and consumers for centuries. Featuring more than 65 artworks, this book examines the role of brands in our culture and asks why Western Classical traditions dominate the artistic canon, and how that canon might be reconsidered and disrupted. Josiah Wedgwood, Viola Frey, Clare Twomey and Robert Lugo, among others engaged with the cameo-glass masterpiece. Their creative conceptual choices respond to complex histories of transfiguration and representation to create a new set of visual and cultural dialogues.