Recap: Modernist Interiors at the Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art

On Thursday, June 28, 2018, we hosted Modernist Interiors at the Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art as part of our Modernism Series in partnership with Denver Modernism Week and Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art and sponsored by Adrian Kinney, Denver’s Mid-Century Modern Expert. The tour was guided by Renée Albiston, Marketing & Outreach Manager with Kirkland Museum, from 3:30 to 4:30 PM.

About the site: Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art is open in a new golden building designed by Jim Olson in Denver’s Golden Triangle Creative District. Kirkland Museum has three principal collections: an internationally important collection of decorative art from about 1875 to about 1990, with examples of every major design period from Arts & Crafts to Postmodern, a retrospective of Colorado painter Vance Kirkland (1904–1981) and the work of other Colorado and regional artists, all shown together in salon style. Kirkland Museum’s evolving collections contain over 30,000 works by more than 1,500 artists and designers.

About the tour: Attendees were guided on a general museum tour of Colorado and regional art history, fine art from the estate of Vance Kirkland and nearly 150 years of international decorative art. Did you know that many designers were trained as architects? Some architects designed furnishings for their buildings in order to create one unified look. In German this is called Gesamtkunstwerk, a total work of art. In total, Kirkland Museum has the design work of 129 architects in its collection. Currently more than 650 objects by 100 architects are on view. The architects come from 25 different countries and span all of the design periods represented in the museum, from Arts & Crafts to Modern and Postmodern.

Photo courtesy of Wes Mygar and description courtesy of Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art.