I have a suggestion for your 250 project, a 1981 IBM PC. What a consumer revolution that started. There is one in the collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, (https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object/nmah_1323259) but my grand-nephew, one of the many collectors and restorers of old PCs, has an original IBM PS/2 and a clone made by Kaypro.
The burgeoning personal computer industry found fertile ground in Texas. In Houston, Compaq Computer reverse-engineered the IBM PC and produced clones. Its appearance and subsequent decline were meteoric.
A young entrepreneur named Michael Dell made clones in his apartment when he was a student at UT in Austin. One of my friends at the time drove to Austin and bought one directly from Dell!
That is a WONDERFUL project. You must be brimming full of ideas...
Might I suggest a Gees Bend Quilt?
MFAH 2002.415. / 2002.414. There is nothing more American than work-worn denim blue jeans repurposed in a quilt. There was a Gees Bend exhibition: "The Quilts of Gee's Bend," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, September 8–November 10, 2002.
And there are some thoughtfully historic objects from the exhibition: "American Made: 250 Years of American Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, July 7, 2012–January 2, 2013. The Baltimore Album Quilt, currently on view, is supremely American.
What could be more American than the sport of baseball? The MFAH photography collection has a seminal moment in the sport - shot by an American photographer. Two iconic figures of the sport: Brooklyn Dodger Jackie Robinson stealing Home Base (safely), catching NY Yankee catcher Yogi Berra by surprise during the eighth Inning of the first game of the World Series at Yankee Stadium...
To honor the MFAH, how about the very first object to come into its permanent collection (and remain in the collection) "The Old Violinist" by Charles Curran. The model was his father.
So sorry for all the exuberance - you really got my juices flowing.
Here is a smidgen of historical context for the painting:
Houston Post (published as Houston Post-Dispatch) - Tuesday Morning February 22, 1927, page 11
CURRAN AND SNELL MUSEUM VISITORS:
Monday was a red letter day at the Museum of Fine Arts. Charles C. Curran, secretary of the National Academy of Design, and Henry Snell, president of the New York Watercolor Society, spent the day in Houston and much of that time at the Museum. They were returning to New York from San Antonio, where they had acted as judges in awarding the prizes for the national wildflower contest held there recently for painters. They visited Wayman Adams, national academician, at work in the Museum studio for visiting artists, and they had a chat with another friend, Albert Sterner, A. N. A., who is also in Houston engaged in portrait commissions. …
Charles Curran is the artist who painted “The Old Violinist”, which hangs in a place of prominence at the second landing of the stairway in the Museum. The picture, painted in 1911 by Mr. Curran, belongs to the George M. Dixon* bequest, which embraces the majority of the permanent accessions of the Museum. …
Mr. Curran modestly tried to dismiss reports of its popularity with the suggestion that it was the sentimental subject, but Wayman Adams and James Chillman Jr., director of the Museum, insisted upon the quality of the work. It is the picture of an old man with a violin. Many stories have been woven about him, and many questions asked as to his identity. Mr. Curran settled them all when he said that the old man was his father who had just come to make his home with him. As a boy, Mr. Curran Sr. had played the violin and one day in his son‘s studio he found a violin the artist had used in his painting, and so followed the picture which has caused so much speculation and has been the cause of so many fanciful stories.
Mr. Curran is a portrait painter in the winter in New York, where he makes his home and in the summer he gets out of doors and does landscapes. Both he and Mr. Snell were much impressed with the size and beauty of the Museum and with the fact that Houston Society of Friends of Art has 101 members.
The guests visited Miss Julia Ideson at the public library and were taken on a tour of that building.** Mr. Chillman entertained them at luncheon with several board members and arranged for a visit to Rice Institute.
-------------------
Notes:
* The Post reporter got it wrong. This painting was not part of the George M. Dickson bequest. It was purchased by the Houston Art League by subscription in 1914, five years before Mr. Dickson’s very generous bequest. The MFAH catalogue gives the painting’s date as ca. 1906.
** The elegant Julia Ideson Building (so named after Miss Ideson's death in 1945) opened in late 1926. It was designed by associates at same Boston architectural firm used by the Museum - Ralph Adams Cram (Boston) and associate architect William Ward Watkin, who worked locally and and oversaw its construction.
I have a suggestion for your 250 project, a 1981 IBM PC. What a consumer revolution that started. There is one in the collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, (https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object/nmah_1323259) but my grand-nephew, one of the many collectors and restorers of old PCs, has an original IBM PS/2 and a clone made by Kaypro.
The burgeoning personal computer industry found fertile ground in Texas. In Houston, Compaq Computer reverse-engineered the IBM PC and produced clones. Its appearance and subsequent decline were meteoric.
A young entrepreneur named Michael Dell made clones in his apartment when he was a student at UT in Austin. One of my friends at the time drove to Austin and bought one directly from Dell!
Good suggestion, thanks. Will add the IBM PC to the shortlist of computer technology -- it's a weird, tricky category.
My career was all through the computer age. I'd be happy to help in the category's selections.
250! Looking forward to it.
That is a WONDERFUL project. You must be brimming full of ideas...
Might I suggest a Gees Bend Quilt?
MFAH 2002.415. / 2002.414. There is nothing more American than work-worn denim blue jeans repurposed in a quilt. There was a Gees Bend exhibition: "The Quilts of Gee's Bend," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, September 8–November 10, 2002.
And there are some thoughtfully historic objects from the exhibition: "American Made: 250 Years of American Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, July 7, 2012–January 2, 2013. The Baltimore Album Quilt, currently on view, is supremely American.
What could be more American than the sport of baseball? The MFAH photography collection has a seminal moment in the sport - shot by an American photographer. Two iconic figures of the sport: Brooklyn Dodger Jackie Robinson stealing Home Base (safely), catching NY Yankee catcher Yogi Berra by surprise during the eighth Inning of the first game of the World Series at Yankee Stadium...
To honor the MFAH, how about the very first object to come into its permanent collection (and remain in the collection) "The Old Violinist" by Charles Curran. The model was his father.
So sorry for all the exuberance - you really got my juices flowing.
Thank you for the wonderful ideas! I love that Charles Curran painting— it was on the short list for the MFAH 100 project.
Here is a smidgen of historical context for the painting:
Houston Post (published as Houston Post-Dispatch) - Tuesday Morning February 22, 1927, page 11
CURRAN AND SNELL MUSEUM VISITORS:
Monday was a red letter day at the Museum of Fine Arts. Charles C. Curran, secretary of the National Academy of Design, and Henry Snell, president of the New York Watercolor Society, spent the day in Houston and much of that time at the Museum. They were returning to New York from San Antonio, where they had acted as judges in awarding the prizes for the national wildflower contest held there recently for painters. They visited Wayman Adams, national academician, at work in the Museum studio for visiting artists, and they had a chat with another friend, Albert Sterner, A. N. A., who is also in Houston engaged in portrait commissions. …
Charles Curran is the artist who painted “The Old Violinist”, which hangs in a place of prominence at the second landing of the stairway in the Museum. The picture, painted in 1911 by Mr. Curran, belongs to the George M. Dixon* bequest, which embraces the majority of the permanent accessions of the Museum. …
Mr. Curran modestly tried to dismiss reports of its popularity with the suggestion that it was the sentimental subject, but Wayman Adams and James Chillman Jr., director of the Museum, insisted upon the quality of the work. It is the picture of an old man with a violin. Many stories have been woven about him, and many questions asked as to his identity. Mr. Curran settled them all when he said that the old man was his father who had just come to make his home with him. As a boy, Mr. Curran Sr. had played the violin and one day in his son‘s studio he found a violin the artist had used in his painting, and so followed the picture which has caused so much speculation and has been the cause of so many fanciful stories.
Mr. Curran is a portrait painter in the winter in New York, where he makes his home and in the summer he gets out of doors and does landscapes. Both he and Mr. Snell were much impressed with the size and beauty of the Museum and with the fact that Houston Society of Friends of Art has 101 members.
The guests visited Miss Julia Ideson at the public library and were taken on a tour of that building.** Mr. Chillman entertained them at luncheon with several board members and arranged for a visit to Rice Institute.
-------------------
Notes:
* The Post reporter got it wrong. This painting was not part of the George M. Dickson bequest. It was purchased by the Houston Art League by subscription in 1914, five years before Mr. Dickson’s very generous bequest. The MFAH catalogue gives the painting’s date as ca. 1906.
** The elegant Julia Ideson Building (so named after Miss Ideson's death in 1945) opened in late 1926. It was designed by associates at same Boston architectural firm used by the Museum - Ralph Adams Cram (Boston) and associate architect William Ward Watkin, who worked locally and and oversaw its construction.