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"Hang-It-All" Coat Rack

Decorative Arts and Design

On View: Decorative Art, 4th Floor
Playfully evoking the molecular structures revealed by the electron microscope, the Hang-It-All was designed with children in mind. The colored balls, for hanging coats, hats, and scarves, seem to move around each other as one passes by. Although by no means a literal model of molecules or atoms, the Hang-It-All transforms the popular scientific imagery of the 1950s into a dynamic design.
MEDIUM Metal, wood, paints, varnish, adhesive
  • Place Manufactured: Jackson, Tennessee, United States
  • DATES Designed 1953; Manufactured 1953–1961
    DIMENSIONS 16 x 19 3/4 x 6 1/4 in. (40.6 x 50.2 x 15.9 cm)  (show scale)
    MARKINGS Unmarked
    ACCESSION NUMBER 2001.50
    CREDIT LINE H. Randolph Lever Fund
    CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION Coat rack; metal and wood; wall hung; horizontal, rectangular, white-painted metal wire support structure with fourteen projecting arms, each capped with a colored wood ball terminal. Four vertical bent metal arms attach to rectangular frame and bend forward at the top at oblique angle and at the bottom at acute angle. Upper ends are vertical and lower ends cant outward and to the right giving them a sense of momentum. Each end of the metal arms capped with a wood ball. Arms spaced at regular intervals asymmetrically placed on the frame. Two smaller metal arms with projecting V-shaped configurations and upturned ends with ball terminals are placed on second and fourth upright arms and attached at the juncture of the rectangular frame and the vertical arms. A third simpler V-form wire with ball caps projects from third upright arm, attached to the vertical support mid-way between the upper and lower horizontals of the support grid so that that series of small balls create a v-shaped horizontal rhythm against grid of large balls. Ball colors reading horizontally left to right: (top row, large balls) black, pink, gold, green; (second row, small balls) green, black, red, natural; (third row, small balls) pink, yellow; (bottom row, large balls) red, natural, black and pink. CONDITION: Good
    MUSEUM LOCATION This item is on view in Decorative Art, 4th Floor
    CAPTION Charles Eames (American, 1907–1978). "Hang-It-All" Coat Rack, Designed 1953; Manufactured 1953–1961. Metal, wood, paints, varnish, adhesive, 16 x 19 3/4 x 6 1/4 in. (40.6 x 50.2 x 15.9 cm). Brooklyn Museum, H. Randolph Lever Fund, 2001.50. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2001.50_transp4963.jpg)
    IMAGE overall, 2001.50_transp4963.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph
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    RIGHTS STATEMENT Creative Commons-BY
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