Metalwork in Early America

Metalwork in Early America catalogues the Winterthur Museum’s copper and brass collection. The book’s design combines the museum’s desire for an elegant, classical format with a modernist grid, reflecting the asymmetry of the photography.

The design process became a dialogue between our design firm and the project curator, as we struggled to define what the terms “beauty” and “value” mean when applied to metalwork. The curator suggested that the most valuable objects were those of exquisite and intricate craftsmanship, usually affordable only by the rich, while our preference was for those spare and tailored objects available to all classes. This dichotomy is explored in the range of objects—from the base to the grandiose—that we chose to highlight as full-bleed details in the book.