Highlights Archives
The "Cool Breezes" Museum Exhibit is Fan-tastic
Before air conditioners started cooling the country, Americans fanned themselves when they got hot. Fans could be plain or fancy, riotous or refined, meticulously crafted or mass-produced, but everyone had them and used them. "Cool Breezes: Handheld Fans in American Folk Art, Fashion, and Advertising," at the Wisconsin Historical Museum, introduces exhibition visitors to the world of handheld fans and the roles fans have played in the everyday lives of Americans.
"Cool Breezes" explores fans as common objects in American popular culture and presents a wide range of fan genres, from sturdy folding fans built for daily use, to fragile and elaborately decorated fans that served as fashion accessories and flirtation tools.
"Cool Breezes" also explores fans as part of a visually rich design tradition and as a guide to advertising and cultural developments in 20th-century America. A brief history of fans, beginning with Asian and European traditions, sets the context from which American fans evolved.
The exhibition "Cool Breezes: Handheld Fans in American Folk Art, Fashion, and Advertising" is organized by ExhibitsUSA. The purpose of ExhibitsUSA is to create access to an array or arts and humanities exhibitions, nurture the development and understanding of diverse art forms and cultures, and encourage the expanding depth and breadth of cultural life in local communities. ExhibitsUSA is a national division of Mid-America Arts Alliance, a private, non-profit organization founded in 1972.
This traveling exhibition of 80 fans is curated by Joyce Cheney, an independent scholar with a strong interest in textiles, folk art, and popular culture. "Cool Breezes continues her examination of seemingly ordinary objects to discover the living history they contain — both the creativity that went into their making and the human stories they tell.
The Wisconsin Historical Museum is supplementing the traveling show with more than 40 of its own handheld fans from the 19th and 20th centuries. The museum's collection includes fans of the Milwaukee elite, politically themed fans, souvenir fans from near and far, and wedding fans. Among the treasures of the museum's fans is a silk and mother-of-pearl Duvelleroy fan that once belonged to a member of the Pabst family, and a collection of Zona Gale Breese's souvenir fans. With fans ranging from breezy gifts to elegant and refined fashion accessories, and from political propaganda to cool advertising, this exhibit has something for everyone. Be sure to catch this show, as it will only be up through January 19th.
:: Posted November 18, 2004
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