The Form of Function: Art of the Machine

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Raymond Loewy

Alfonso Iannelli

R.G. Martelet

Alfonso Iannelli

February 11, 2000 – April 15, 2000

Machine design as a graphic art form has rarely been exhibited. Museums have acquired design drawings for industrial machinery and consumer products, but the private collector is only now discovering machine designs as the art of our time.

Alfonso Iannelli was one of Chicago’s most prolific industrial designers of the 1930s and 40s. His clients included Sunbeam, Eversharp, Goodyear and Oster for which he sketched countless refrigerators, shavers, mixers, and ball-point pens in his trademark streamlined style. Al Eckel was the chief product designer for Sears Roebuck during the 50s and 60s. Some of his most futuristic designs for percolators, hair dryers, clothes steamers, and toasters never made it past his drawing board but remain brilliant household icons for a lifestyle that never happened.

ArchiTech presents The Form of Function – Art of the Machine, an exhibition and sale of design drawings, prints and photographs of machines from steam irons to skyscrapers. From Nineteenth Century engravings of cotton gins to pencil studies of futuristic locomotives, all demonstrate our fascination with the devices that mark our modern age.

Chicago Tribune review of Art and the Machine show