Maternity Leave, Inspiring Female Artists, and a Solar Eclipse

First of all, a little housekeeping.

By the time you read this, I may or may not have a baby.

As this is my first child, I am unsure exactly how everything will go and when I will feel ready to return. I’m keeping everything rather open-ended and flexible; from where I stand now, I feel like I’ll be itching to write something (anything) within a few weeks, but I understand that the reality could be quite different.

I investigated what other Substack newsletters have done for maternity leave—the only two I found both left their paid subscriptions on, but that feels rather uncomfortable to me, so I have paused them. Let me know your thoughts on this.

Some notes:

• I believe that paused paid subscribers will still have access to locked paid posts—if this is untrue and you want to read any, please email me. It might take me a few days to get back to you, but we will work something out.

• If you have not been a paid subscriber but would like to become one in order to read past locked paid newsletters, please email me. As above, it might take me a few days to respond but we will work something out.

From what I’ve read and heard from friends, during the first weeks/months there is little sleep and lots of time awake taking care of the child—and hence copious amounts of time spent consuming various media. In an effort not to spend those hours doom-scrolling, I’m hoping that I will soon be returning to you with book/audiobook, movie, and television recommendations for those periods when you are also cooped up at home.

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This weekend I made it out to see two exhibitions that have been on my list: Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky: Pioneering Architect. Visionary Activist at the Austrian Cultural Forum and Sonia Delaunay: Living Art at the Bard Graduate Center. Experiencing two shows of the work of two inspiring and influential women right before I have a baby was a wonderful experience; I highly recommend both exhibitions if you are in New York City.

The show on Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky is the first solo one devoted to her work in the United States. From the ACF website: “Widely acknowledged as one of Austria’s first female architects, she is credited as the inventor of the Frankfurt Kitchen, a women’s rights activist, and a hero in the resistance against the Nazi dictatorship… By closely tracing her life and work, the exhibition emphasizes her steadfast commitment to social issues and her lifelong involvement in political and cultural movements. In this context, Schütte-Lihotzky emerges as a trailblazing visionary, who never shied away from directly addressing major concerns such as war, economic crises, escalating social inequality, and the global suppression of women’s rights. Her distinctive fusion of architectural practice and political activism positions her at the forefront of confronting these pressing issues.”

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky in front of the Plattenbau (prefabricated building made of concrete slabs) at the exhibition staged by the Werkbund in Stuttgart, 1927.

Throughout her career, from the 1910s through 1980s, Schütte-Lihotzky continuously centered social issues in her design practice through the creation of affordable, small yet comfortable homes for the working class; perfectly formed small apartments for single working women; efficiently designed kitchens; carefully ventilated homes for tuberculosis recovery; optimally designed schools and childcare facilities, inspired by Maria Montessori; multifunctional children’s furniture; and more. The way she approached each project—always with the goal of improving a social problem through good design and meticulous planning—is endlessly inspiring.

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky’s design for “Core House (Kernhaus) Type 7, kitchen-living room, exhibited at the Settlement and Allotment Garden Exhibition, Rathauplatz, Vienna,” 1923.

Kindergarden, Kapaunplatz, Vienna, 1961.

Regarding her best-known design: “The Frankfurt Kitchen, as it was known—rational, unpretentious, and socially oriented—was conceived as one of the first steps toward building a better, more egalitarian world in the late 1920s… The Frankfurt Kitchen was designed like a laboratory or factory and based on contemporary theories about efficiency, hygiene, and workflow. In planning the design, Schütte-Lihotzky conducted detailed time-motion studies and interviews with housewives and women’s groups… After reading Christine Frederick’s book on household efficiency in 1921, Schütte- Lihotzky became convinced that ‘women’s struggle for economic independence and personal development meant that the rationalization of housework was an absolute necessity.’ Her primary goal in the design of the Frankfurt Kitchen was to reduce the burden of women’s labor in the home.” The Frankfurt Kitchen is the earliest work by a female architect in MoMA’s collection, where they have a full-scale kitchen; in the ACF exhibition, there are two scale models. My husband was particularly captivated with the models as the planned renovation of our kitchen has been much discussed for months; since he is the one who cooks and handles most of the burden of kitchen work, he found her space innovations incredibly useful to see.

Add in the fact that she was jailed by the Nazis due to her resistance activities—narrowly escaping execution—and then was liberated by the Americans in 1945, before establishing the Austrian Peace Council and becoming the first president of the Democratic Women’s Federation, and one can see that Schütte-Lihotzky not only designed by her principles but truly lived them.

And on to Sonia Delaunay: Living Art…

Less socially minded yet no less creatively engaged, Sonia Delaunay’s work is always a delight to behold—and the exhibition at BGC is a polychromatic exploration of her visionary world, featuring almost two hundred objects. From paintings to sketches, garments to mosaics, textile colour charts to films, there is so much to see and take in.  

Sonia Delaunay and Jacques Damase, 27 tableaux vivants, 1969. Accordian art book featuring Delaunay’s costume and fashion designs from 1921 and 1929.

Interior of Le Petit Casino, Madrid, decorated by Sonia Delaunay, 1919.

Costume design for Gaby, to be worn during a performance at Le Petit Casino, Madrid, 1919.

Detail of “Broderie de feuillages,” wool embroidery on canvas, 1909.

This dress!!! Dress of hand-painted chiffon made for Annette Coutrot, 1930.

Vest of wool embroidery on drap de laine, made for Madame Paul Guillaume, 1924.

The facade of Sonia Delaunay’s store in Paris, 1925.

Hommage a Tzara, handwoven and knotted wool rug, ca. 1967 (originally designed 1920s/30s).

Design drawing for the dining room of the Delaunays’ apartment on the boulevard Malesherbes, Paris, ca. 1924.

While I’ve seen other exhibitions on Delaunay that focus on her fine art or her textiles, this one is the first I’ve visited that centers on her work as an entrepreneur. As the BGC writes in its press release: “The exhibition illuminates Delaunay’s ingenious strategies of promotion and branding, her embrace of new media, and how she broke down traditional barriers between the fine and decorative arts. Casting new light on the artist’s career and cross-disciplinary approach to production that have never been investigated, Sonia Delaunay: Living Art demonstrates how the artist applied her unique language of color and light to a kaleidoscopic universe of objects and interiors.” The business and brand ephemera were of particular interest to me—to visually see her process and how she crafted the visual identity of her brands through logotype and color choices.

Stationary for the Delaunay workshop, 1913.

Advertising card for Sonia Delaunay’s studio, early 1930s.

Simultané playing cards, 1964.

Carte de coloris for tissu simultané no. 182 and carte de coloris for tissu simultané no. 162.

Tissu Simultané no. 186, length of printed silk, ca. 1926.

Dress and capelet made for Annette Coutrot, printed silk, 1929-30.

Handbag, screenprinted cotton, ca. 1930.

Textile design, after 1929.

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky: Pioneering Architect. Visionary Activist is on view until May 5, 2024.

Sonia Delaunay: Living Art is on view until July 7, 2024.

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If you are in the United States then you might possibly be viewing the solar eclipse today. During the 2017 eclipse, I was lucky enough to experience totality on my land in North Carolina and it was one of the most magical and disorienting occurrences of my life. Annie Dillard writes far more eloquently about a total eclipse than I ever could, so I am very glad that Pioneer Works was able to reprint her essay about a 1979 “Total Eclipse.”

Dillard captures the way the light changes, how incredibly unsettling and alien it feels: “I turned back to the sun. It was going. The sun was going, and the world was wrong. The grasses were wrong; they were platinum. Their every detail of stem, head, and blade shone lightless and artificially distinct as an art photographer’s platinum print. This color has never been seen on Earth. The hues were metallic; their finish was matte. The hillside was a 19th-century tinted photograph from which the tints had faded. All the people you see in the photograph, distinct and detailed as their faces look, are now dead. The sky was navy blue. My hands were silver. All the distant hills’ grasses were finespun metal that the wind laid down. I was watching a faded color print of a movie filmed in the Middle Ages; I was standing in it, by some mistake. I was standing in a movie of hillside grasses filmed in the Middle Ages. I missed my own century, the people I knew, and the real light of day.” There is nothing like it—if you have the opportunity to drive last minute to totality, do it.

This was the universe about which we have read so much and never before felt: the universe as a clockwork of loose spheres flung at stupefying, unauthorized speeds.

See you soon!