It's that time of year again. My SIL has a giveaway during the annual Deep Ellum Arts Festival held each spring, and this one is fantastic. He's giving away this Gus*Modern Delano chair and lightbox table! This is a $1200 value, based on MSRP.
To enter the drawing, simply like Mid2Mod on Facebook using this link, or, if you've already liked us, leave a comment on our Facebook page telling us you've already done so and want to enter.
For an extra chance to win...as well as a chance to win the giveaway on my blog...all you have to do is be a Google follower of this blog and leave a comment on this post saying you're a follower and want to be entered.
It's easy to be a site member. In the Google Followers box to the right of this post, click on Join this site. Once you have set up a Google account, click Follow publicly, and you're done.
Here's what you can win from me:
Vintage candleholders created in Italy for Rosenthal Netter
The winner of the Delano chair and lightbox table will be announced at the end of this weekend's festival.
The deadline for my contest is midnight Central Daylight Time (North America) on Friday, April 12, so join and/or comment by then. I will announce the winner on Saturday, April 13.
In 1941, 21-year-old recent Sarah Lawrence graduate Elizabeth Rockwell decided to bring modernism to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She opened Outlines, a gallery that remained open until 1947, when lack of support finally forced her to close its doors. Over the course of six years, however, Outlines featured the work of the likes of Alexander Calder, John Cage, Maya Deren, Merce Cunningham, Paul Klee, Diego Rivera, Pablo Picasso, Amadeo Modigliani, Henri Matisse, Wassily Kandinsky, Georges Seurat and Marc Chagall, to name only a few.
Pieces were borrowed from museums and private collections, and exhibits changed every four weeks. The gallery also boasted a circulating library of art books, literature and experimental recordings and hosted lectures and film viewings. The gallery itself was decorated with modern plywood furniture designed by local architect Crombie Taylor.
At the time, abstract art was considered bizarre at best and even subversive and un-American by some, so this was a monumental achievement by a young woman that newspapers in her day called "a girl." Elizabeth Rockwell Raphael died in 1998 and has been called "one of the most ground-breaking women in the modern art scene." In 1971 she founded the Society for Contemporary Craft.
In 2009, Raphael's granddaughter Cayce Mell happened upon several documents bearing her late grandmother's name, along with an address in downtown Pittsburgh, as well as a list of famous artists. Until then, she had no idea what her grandmother had been doing when she was in her early twenties. What she discovered was a missing link in art history.
Mell and her husband Jason Tracy have spent the last four years compiling a documentary film about Elizabeth Rockwell Raphael and Outlines. A few weeks ago, we were contacted by Tracy, who sent us a link to the trailer for their film. I think you'll enjoy it as much as I did and will look forward to seeing the film in its entirety.
