From Sample To Product
By Emily M. White

Sample book designed by Morris & Co., manufactured by Jeffrey & Company, London, England, 1887, is block printed on paper.

A museum exhibit takes a 360-degree look at the artistic process

Although collections of swatches, paint chips and color wheels help us coordinate artistic compositions, we tend to only look at the finished product as the work of art. But an exhibit at the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York suggests we change our perspective.

On view through April 6, 2008, the museum’s exhibit, “Multiple Choice: From Sample to Product,” displays collections of sample books and other artistic guides used in many areas of the decorative arts as a way to examine the historical and contemporary use of sampling formats as salesmen’s tools, marketing devices and archival records of designs and techniques.

Lucy Commoner, head of conservation and curator of the exhibit, says that the samples provide an annotated view into the technologies, tastes and color sensibilities of other eras.

“The exhibition not only explores the design history of specific industries and eras; the exhibition also communicates how these objects from the 14th through 20th centuries are tied together by their common function—to record, market, communicate and disseminate design ideas in a portable format,” says Commoner.

Printer’s sample book, Old Pacific Print Works, Lawrence, MA, U.S., 1882-1883, is a cardboard and paper book with printed cotton samples.

Some key elements of the exhibition are finished products that illustrate the connection between the sample book and its final use, including a 14th century textile similar to a design from an artist’s model book of the era; a 16th century needle lace border based on a textile pattern book of the same period; and a man’s 19th century embroidered waistcoat shown with a related salesman’s embroidered sample.
The artfully composed sample books served many purposes as quality control measures for printers and dyers in the textile industry, archives of all the patterns produced by a manufacturer in a given year and retail vehicles for salesmen. During the 18th and 19th centuries, sample books even guarded against espionage attacks by manufacturers in commercially competitive fields.

Commoner says she is personally intrigued by the rich beauty of these objects in which colors, patterns and designs are juxtaposed in ways that are infused with a sense of bounty and choice. For more information, visit www.cooperhewitt.org.