January 10, 1942
On Saturday, January 10, the Brooklyn Museum opens another exhibition in the series which its Industrial Division stages for the publicizing of the collections which are of value to designers in special industrial fields. This particular exhibition, entitled "Footwear International," presents a sampling of the Museum's vast resources in the field of foot coverings. It is a especially fitting that the Museum should present this exhibition in view of the importance of Brooklyn as a center of shoe manufacture.
Approximately 125 single examples are included in the exhibition, which stresses the basic types of footwear which are of value to industry. The items, which are of world-wide distribution, are divided into six divisions, based on forms: shoes as such; sandals; slippers; platform types; protective types; eccentric footwear, as the Chinese shoe for bound feet. In addition to the diversity of forms, the exhibits demonstrate the wide diversity of materials, including wood, lacquer, rich fabrics, fish skin, bast fibres, silver and leather. In coloring the specimens run the entire gamut of the rainbow. The exhibits, which are all hand made, include examples of skills in many divergent crafts, such as embroidery and inlay work.
The items range from Egyptian sandals of about 1000 B.C. to shoes of the 20th Century.
In addition to being a sample of the Museum's resources for designers in the shoe industry, the exhibition is staged as a practical problem in installation, with the cooperation of the students in the Pratt Institute Display Class under the direction of Mr. James Patterson. Besides designing the general layout of the exhibition, the students have designed and produced two mural posters: the first, in the Entrance Hall, announces the exhibition which is held in the Balcony Gallery, 2nd floor; the second, in the Gallery, stresses the international aspect of the exhibition in general.
The exhibition will remain on view through Sunday, March 1.
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1942 - 1946. 01-03/1942, 007. View Original
