Tag Archives: Fair Park

Virtual Visits: Dallas Museum of Art

Vintage 1940s Dallas postcard.

Vintage Dallas, Texas postcard, circa 1940. From gettyimages.com.

 

Back in 2014 on our Freakin’ ‘Tiquen trip in Texas, we made sure to visit the Dallas Museum of Art. First we started our day at Fair Park, to see the largest collection of intact 1930’s World’s Fair buildings. Being July in Texas it was hot. With the temperature hitting 103 degrees Fahrenheit (39.4 Celsius), the Dallas Museum of Art provided a perfect spot to cool off. And to our surprise there were many great Art Deco objects on display.

 

The exterior of the Dallas Museum of Art.

The Dallas Museum of Art. Image from facebook.com/DallasMuseumofArt

 

The origins of the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) date back to the beginning of the 20th Century. In 1903 the Dallas Art Association began exhibiting works of art at The Dallas Public Library. Their collection grew rapidly during the next few decades and in 1932 was renamed the Dallas Museum of Fine Art. Needing a much larger space, the museum moved to a building at Fair Park during the Centennial Exposition in 1936. The 1963 merger of the Dallas Museum of Fine Art with Dallas Museum of Contemporary Art greatly increased the size of the collection. It was soon realized that the combined collections needed a larger home. Fund raising commenced in 1979 and the new building opened to the public in January, 1984.

 

Today the museum houses more than 24,000 works of art from around the world dating from the ancient to the contemporary. This includes more than 8,000 pieces of design and decorative arts.  Reuben Haley, Norman Bel Geddes and Walter Dorwin Teague are some of the interwar period designers whose works are in the DMA collection.

 

At present the DMA is open to the public, but for many, traveling is still not a viable option. Luckily the museum does provide online access to its collection. The navigation of the site is a little tricky, so here are a few keywords to help you find some great Art Deco pieces.

 

The homepage of the Dallas Museum of Art. The virtual visit begins here.

Here is the Dallas Museum of Art homepage. This is where the virtual visit begins.

 

To start your visit, go to the DMA home page. From the banner menu choose “Art”, this will open a drop down menu. In the drop down menu click on “Collection’.

 

The start of the DMA virtual visit.

This is the start of your DMA virtual visit.

 

Clicking on “Collection” will bring you to this window.

 

By click on the "Search the Collection" box your "visit" to the Dallas Museum of Artbegins.

Your “visit” begins by clicking on the “Search the Collection” box at the bottom of the screen.

After clicking on “SEARCH THE COLLECTION” you will be brought to the page where a search term can be entered.

 

The DMA "Type your search" window.

The “Type your search” window.

 

On my first virtual visit I used the term “Art Deco”.

 

Type in "Art Deco".

Type in “Art Deco”.

 

Hit enter after typing in “Art Deco”.

 

The results from using the term "Art Deco" on the Dallas Museum of Art website.

The results from using the term “Art Deco”.

 

It surprised me that using the term “Art Deco” only brought up 33 results. To be sure some nice collection items came up. But some of the results weren’t items but windows saying “TIME & PLACES French Art Deco”. Choosing this will give you a great and succinct description of French Art Deco.

 

French Art Deco description.

DMA description of French Art Deco.

 

Choosing a photograph of an item and clicking on it will bring you to the a very detailed page describing the piece with multiple photos. Here is the page about a very wonderful Daum Frères glass vase from the late 1920s.

 

Daum Frères vase in the DMA collection.

Item details of a Daum Frères vase in the DMA collection.

 

Scrolling down brings you to a general description of the Daum Frères company and the vase.

 

General description of the Daum Frères company.

General description of the Daum Frères company on the page for the vase.

 

To find more Art Deco items a better search term to use is “modernism”.

 

Using the search term "modernism" at the Dallas Museum of Art's website.

Using the search term “Modernism”.

 

“Modernism” brings up 777 results. And any item in the Dallas Museum of Art’s collection that is tagged with the term will come up, including paintings, ceramics, glassware, etc. These pieces are not exclusive to the interwar period but it is easy to scroll down the page to find some iconic Art Deco objects.

 

Modernism search results.

Search results using the word “modernism”.

 

Here is a  1925 Square Modern Fulper Pottery teapot designed by Reuben Haley who is probably best known for creating Ruba Rombic a few years later.

 

Square Modern in the Dallas Museum of Art collection.

Reuben Haley’s Square Modern teapot for Fulper Pottery, 1925.

 

The Dallas Museum of Art is also home to some great modern paintings. Here is Razor by Gerald Murphy from 1924. Depicting objects for the 1920s man, a box of matches, fountain pen and safety razor, this painting is a prototype of the pop art movement of the 1940s.

 

Razor, 1924 by Gerald Murphy.

Razor, 1924 by Gerald Murphy.

 

Another way to search is by artist / designer. Having visited the museum back in 2013, I know they have pieces by Walter Dorwin Teague. Here is the result by searching with Teague’s name.

 

Searching the Dallas Museum of Art's website for Walter Dorwin Teague returns 27 results.

Search results for Walter Dorwin Teague.

 

The Sparton "Bluebird" Model 566 radio designed by Walter Dorwin Teague.

The details of Teague’s 1935 Sparton Model 566 “Bluebird” radio.

 

These are only a few of the many great items in the DMA collection. So until you can  get there safely, take a virtual tour. Plus you will also get to “see” a lot of items that are not currently on view. Just one last piece of advice, I do find “visiting” on my laptop is easier to navigate that on my smart phone.

 

Anthony & Chris (The Freakin’, ‘Tiquen Guys)

 

Fair Park – Dallas, Texas

Esplanade and Exhibit Buildings

Esplanade of State and Exhibit Buildings

American World’s Fairs of the 1930’s bring to mind the great expositions of Chicago in 1933 / 1934, New York and San Francisco in 1939 / 1940. But there were other fairs that are often ignored today, such as the San Diego Fair of 1935 / 1936 and the fairs held in Cleveland and Dallas in 1936 / 1937. While little remains of the Chicago, Cleveland, San Francisco and New York Fairs, the Dallas Fairgrounds are surprisingly intact, or so it seems at first glance. What survives from the Texas Centennial Exposition is a combination of the original and wonderfully recreated and restored structures, fountains and sculptures.

 

Almost every summer Chris and I hit the road and drive to some part of the United States for antiquing in places we have never been. This past summer we went to Texas and one of the places that I was most interested in seeing was Fair Park. We first became aware of Fair Park and its significance to depression era World’s Fairs and few years ago, so we weren’t going to let the opportunity to visit the site slip by. When we arrived at Fair Park, I was impressed that so many of the 1936 fair buildings were still standing. I purchased the book Fair Park Deco by Jim Parsons and David Bush later that day, which is the definitive history of the Texas Centennial and the restoration of the Art Deco fair grounds.

 

Tejas Warrior

Tejas Warrior

The grounds were established in 1886 for the Dallas State Fair, on an 80 acre site in East Dallas. Over the years the site expanded to its current size of 277 acres. The site became known as Fair Park in 1904 and a series of buildings were constructed in the then current Beaux Art style. The idea of a centennial celebration had been in the works since the early years of the twentieth century. As the centennial approached the United States was just pulling out of the great depression, and the idea of a large fair was welcomed as a way to stimulate the Texas economy. Dallas won the bid to hold The Texas Centennial Exposition over Houston and San Antonio. Construction and re-modeling of the existing buildings were begun in the fall of 1935, which did not give the builders a lot of time before the opening of the fair in June the following year. Opening on June 6th the fair ran until November 29th. It reopened the following year as the Greater Texas and Pan-American Exposition.

 

After the fair closed the modifications and changes to the fair grounds and buildings began. One of the first losses were the statues Tenor and Contralto and the concrete speaker towers behind each as well as the 50 foot pylon that stood between them.. Located at the eastern end of the reflecting pond in the Esplanade of States, they were damaged after the exposition closed and were removed sometime around 1938. In 2009, sculpture David Newton re-created the statues using period photographs. The pylon was rebuilt at the same time.

The buildings on the south side of the Esplanade of State were the Hall of Varied Industries, Communication and Electricity, during the run of the fair. The original buildings were destroyed by a fire in 1942 and were replaced by the Automobile Building in 1948, which was in a completely different style than the destroyed structure. In 1986 the building was redesigned to look like the destroyed structure, which restored the Esplanade of State back to its 1936 appearance.

1986 Restored Hall of Varied Industries Building

1986 restored Hall of Varied Industries Building – with the statue of France, designed by Raoul Josset in front

The Pierre Bourdelle murals that were also destroyed when Hall of Varied Industries Building burned down were re-created in 1999 based on the artist’s original drawings and black and white photographs from 1936. The new murals were created the same way as the originals – glass slides of the drawings were projected onto the walls of the buildings and then painted in. The original glass slides were loaned by Bourdelle’s son for the restoration.

One of the earliest of Fair Park’s Beaux Arts buildings was the Coliseum, which was remodeled in 1935 into the streamline moderne Administration Building. On the front facade is mural depicting Texas flora and fauna, designed by Carlo Ciampaglia. Directly in front of the mural is the statue, Spirit of the Centennial, designed by Raoul Josset and sculpted by Jose Martin. The mural and statue were restored in 1998 by Stashka Star. The Administration Building became the Women’s Museum in 2000 and is now closed.

The center piece or theme center of the fair was the State of Texas Building. Designed by Donald Barthelme in 1935 it was and still is a monument to all the people of Texas, past and present. This enormous T shaped building is entered through the semicircular “Niche of Heroes” which is surmounted by the “Tejas Warrior” statue.

Niche of Heroes and the Tejas Warrior.

Niche of Heroes and the Tejas Warrior.

Chris and I had a great time walking around the fair grounds, even though the temperature reached 103. We want to go back and visit at night when the buildings are all lit up, it must be a fantastic sight. Not yet owning a time machine, it really was the closest that we have come to going to a 1930’s world’s fair. If you are fan of the great expositions of the 1930’s, and you have not already visited Fair Park, you should treat yourself and make it a deco destination.

 

Chris & Anthony (The Freakin’, Tiquen’ Guys)