Winter approximately 1936: The Brooklyn Museum will open four exhibitions simultaneously on Saturday, December 12th, and there will be a reception and preview for members and guests of the Museum on the evening of Friday, December 11th. The Department of Industrial Art, Christine Krehbiel, Acting Curator, will occupy the special exhibition galleries on the first floor with a large exhibition of Rayon and Synthetic Yarns in Textiles, showing processes of manufacture as well as finished products. The Division of American Rooms, Elizabeth Haynes, Assistant Curator, will occupy the neighboring sub-balcony gallery with an exhibition of spinning and Weaving as a Home Industry. At the opening, students from Pratt Institute will give practical demonstrations in this gallery. The Dance Center, Grant Code, Acting Director, will present an exhibition of Photographs of Contemporary Dancers by Thomas Bouchard in the Balcony Gallery, Second Floor. In the adjacent Print Gallery, the Department of Prints and Drawings, Carl 0. Schniewind, Curator, will show Drawings and Prints by Andre’ Dunoyer de Segonzac from the collection of Frank Crowninshield. During the reception on Friday the 11th, Mr. Crowninshield will give an informal talk on the collection in the Print Study Room.
Exhibitors in the Rayon Show are American Bemberg Corporation, American Enka Corporation, Delaware Rayon Corporation, Rayon Department of E. I. DuPont de Nemours Company, Inc., Industrial Rayon Corporation, North American Rayon Corporation, Skernandoa Rayon Corporation, Tubise Chatillon Corporation and The Viscose Company.
In connection with this exhibition the Museum is publishing a Handbook of Rayon and Synthetic Yarns to which the following articles have been contributed by experts in the field: Introduction by M. D. C. Crawford, The Scope of Rayon by Stephen S. Marks, Texture of Rayon Fabrics by Alexis Sommaripa, The Fashion Significance of Rayon by Anne Mullany, Rayon Yarns in Knit Fabrics by E. D. Fowle, Decorative Rayon Fabrics by Virginia Pegram, Science Looks at Rayon’s Serviceability, by Charles L. Simon, Spun Rayon by Alexis Sommaripa, Statistics by Stanley B. Hunt, The History of Rayon by S. A. Salvage, and technical explanations of the various processes by which rayon is fabricated, Viscose, Acetate and Cuprammoniun, by H. W. Rose, H. De Witt Smith and Theodore Wood respectively.
The exhibitions will be available for press preview Tuesday December 8th.
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1931 - 1936. 10-12_1936, 146.
December 12, 1936: The new lamps installed in the ground before the Brooklyn Museum were lit on Friday evening for the first time for the reception and preview opening four exhibitions, The Rayon and Synthetic Yarns in Textiles, Spinning and Weaving - A Home Industry, Prints and Drawings by Segonzac from Mr. Frank Crowninshield’s collection and Photographs of Contemporary Dancers by Thomas Bouchard. The Entrance Hall was decorated with a tall Christmas tree lit with blue lights and hung with strands of rayon simulating Santa Claus snow. A massive table carried a huge crystal bowl of poinsettias,and streamers of rayon hung in folds from the ceiling of the spacious hail to the floor twenty feet below.
Among those present were:
Mr. and Mrs. Edward C. Blum
Mr. and Mrs. Philip N. Youtz
Miss Anna Billings Gallup
Mr. Herbert B. Tschudy
Mrs. Alexandrina H. Harris
Mr. Thomas Bouchard
Miss Sophia Deiza
Dr. and Mrs. Vinal
Miss Stella Epstein
Miss Anne Epstein
Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Chase
Mr. and Mrs. Sheldon Keck
Dr. and Mrs. Herbert J. Spinden
Mr. Carl 0. Schniewind
Miss Elizabeth Haynes
Miss Louise Chase
Miss Helen Wallace
Mr. Edward Krehbiel
Miss Martha Krehbiel
Mr. and Mrs. William Lloyd Garrison III
Mr. Harold E. Garbarino
Mr. David Robinson
Mr. A. Schwartz
Mr. Ernest Knaufft
Miss Mary Hubbard
Miss Mary Ferrese
Mr. Harvey Parker
Mr. and Mrs. Judas
Miss Virginia Enfield
Miss Virginia Montgomery
Miss Cynthia Root
Mrs. Howard Aidridge
Mrs. Michelle Murphy
Miss Elizabeth Cameron
Mr. Harold Dusseldorf
Mr. and Mrs. Herman de Wetter
Mr. and Mrs. Donald Shelley
Dr. and Mrs. Harold Smith
Mr. and Mrs. Milton Schumann
Mr. and Mrs. William Gardner
Miss Mary Dorwood
Miss Keith Wallace
Miss Olivia Fancy
Mr. Jerry O’Connor
Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Suarez
Miss Virginia Parker
Mr. H. N. Westover
Mr. Richmond Williams
Miss Mildred C. S one
Miss Helen McGrath
Miss Marian C. Lepper
Mrs. R. Edson Doolittle
Mrs. Burgess Osterhout
Miss Flora E. Zahn
Mr. Harry V. Allison
Mr. George K. Allison
Mr. Lew Durante
Miss Adele Owens
Miss Jeanne Winham
Mr. Albert Edward Windham
Mr. James Owens
Miss Adelaide Morris
Mr. Fred Gardner
Mr. Walter Grant
Mr. F. Newton Price
Miss Adele Robinson
Mr. David Robinson
Mr. W. S. Gilmore, Jr.
Mr. and Mrs. Jean Goriany
Mr. D. S. Brady
Mr. J. Hadley
Mr. Barash
Mr. and Mrs. Edward P. Helwig
Miss Hannah T. Rose
Mr. Frank Crowninshield
Miss Mary Ann Farley
Dr. Joseph Kennoy
Mr. and Mrs. M. D. C. Crawford
Mr. Fred Levinthal
Dr. L. J. Morton
Mrs. Grace Turner
Miss Dorothy Woods
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1931 - 1936. 10-12_1936, 145.
