Tablecloth And One Napkin, Have to Have

This object is not part of the Cooper Hewitt's permanent collection. It has been able to spend time at the museum on loan from Virginia Bayer.

The titles for these tablecloths were taken from American writer Gertrude Stein’s libretto for Four Saints in Three Acts with music composed by Virgil Thomson. Entirely cast with African-American performers, the opera was an artistic phenomenon. Mergentime very likely attended the premiere at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut in 1934—the same year that these tablecloths were designed. The napkins could be folded in multiple ways to show off the different permutations within one pattern. The tablecloths, sold at B. Altman & Co. and Gimbels, received an honorable mention at the 1934 Industrial Arts Exposition sponsored by National Alliance of Art and Industry held at Rockefeller Plaza.