Among the dozen useful masterpieces chosen by the US Postal Service for its 2011 series of stamps honoring American industrial design pioneers is the Normandie water pitcher (1935), a sleek chromium-plated vessel whose prow-like form echoes that of the then-new French ocean liner for which it was named. This stunning work, manufactured by the Revere Copper and Brass company, evokes the glamour of interwar transatlantic travel with a sculptural purity worthy of Brancusi, and is rightly included in numerous design history books and museum collections. Yet until now the general public has known next to nothing about its creator, Peter Muller-Munk.
That lapse is finally redressed by “Silver to Steel: The Modern Designs of Peter Muller-Munk,” an illuminating exhibition at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Art. It vindicates the personal crusade of the Miami-based design historian Jewel Stern, an intrepid researcher of this overlooked figure and the co-curator of the show.
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