Object Timeline

  • We acquired this object.

1916

  • Work on this object began.

2021

2024

  • You found it!

Print, Housetops

This is a Print. It was designed by E. McKnight Kauffer.

This object is not part of the Cooper Hewitt's permanent collection. It was able to spend time at the museum on loan from Victoria & Albert Museum as part of Underground Modernist: E. McKnight Kauffer.

It is dated 1916. Its medium is linocut. It is a part of the department.

Kauffer began his first experiments with vorticism in printmaking. In Housetops and Flight, he turned his subjects into geometric forms, using the balance between black and white to flatten the picture plane and convey a sense of motion. In preparation for Flight, Kauffer described carefully and obsessively observing birds in the sky. But he was also looking to 19th-century Japanese prints, and likely drew inspiration from the print reproduced below.

It is credited Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Its dimensions are

H x W: 10.4 × 12.8 cm (4 1/8 × 5 1/16 in.) Frame H x W x D: 41.9 × 57.1 × 4 cm (16 1/2 × 22 1/2 × 1 9/16 in.)

This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition Underground Modernist: E. McKnight Kauffer.

There are restrictions for re-using this image. For more information, visit the Smithsonian’s Terms of Use page.

If you would like to cite this object in a Wikipedia article please use the following template:

<ref name=CH>{{cite web |url=https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/2318805175/ |title=Print, Housetops |author=Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |accessdate=19 April 2024 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution}}</ref>