Goldstein Museum of Design facts for kids
McNeal Hall
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| Former name | Goldstein Gallery |
|---|---|
| Established | 1976 |
| Location | McNeal Hall 1985 Buford Avenue Falcon Heights, Minnesota, United States |
| Type | Design museum |
| Owner | University of Minnesota College of Design |
| Public transit access | Buses 121 Campus Connector or 87 to Buford Avenue |
| Nearest car park | Buford Circle or the Gortner Avenue Ramp |
The Goldstein Museum of Design, also known as GMD, is a special museum located at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul. It's part of the university's College of Design. The GMD started in 1976. It is the only museum in the Upper Midwest that focuses on designed objects.
The museum has about 34,000 items in its collection. Around 21,000 of these items are costumes and fashion accessories. The GMD helps people learn by studying real objects. Its collection is used by students, teachers, designers, and the public. Most of the items were given to the museum by people, often from Minnesota. You can see about 20% of the collection online through digital photos.
Contents
Discovering the Museum's History
The GMD is named after two sisters, Harriet and Vetta Goldstein. They were teachers at the University of Minnesota in the Home Economics college, which is now the College of Design. Harriet was born in 1883 and Vetta in 1890. They were from a Polish Jewish family.
Harriet started teaching at the university in 1910, and Vetta joined in 1914. To show their students good and bad design, the sisters collected interesting items. They traveled a lot and found many objects on their trips. This included a trip around the world from 1925 to 1926. Harriet even wrote a travel journal about it.
The sisters also wrote a textbook called Art in Every Day Life. This book became very popular for teaching design. The last edition was printed in 1954, after they had retired. The book was even translated into Chinese! Both sisters left their teaching jobs in 1949. They spent the rest of their lives in Los Angeles.
The idea for the museum came from Natalja Hurley Klingel, one of the Goldstein sisters' former students. She suggested creating a special room or gallery to honor Harriet and Vetta. In 1974, this idea became part of the plans to expand McNeal Hall, where the Design Department is located.
The Goldstein Gallery officially opened on October 14, 1976. Harriet had passed away by then, but Vetta was there for the dedication. The museum was first called the Goldstein Gallery. Over time, its name changed to The Goldstein: a Museum of Design, and by 2000, it became the Goldstein Museum of Design.
Exploring Museum Exhibitions
The GMD usually hosts up to three exhibitions each year in McNeal Hall. They also have two to three exhibitions at the HGA Gallery in Rapson Hall, on the university's East Bank Campus. These exhibitions show different aspects of design.
Here are some past exhibitions from the 2000s:
- Interplay: Perspectives of the Design Legacy of Jack Lenor Larsen (2001)
- From Head to Toe: The Finishing Touch – fashion accessories 1800–1959 (2002)
- Bonnie Cashin: An Elegant Solution (2003)
- Mind over Matter, Body Under Design: Bodyworks by Key Sook Geum (2005)
- From Sportswear to Streetwear: American Innovation (2008)
- Good Design: Stories from Herman Miller (2009)
- Flights of Fancy: A History of Feathers in Fashion (2010)
- Beyond Peacocks and Paisleys: Handcrafted Textiles of India and its Neighbors (2011)
- Polarities: Black and White in Design (2011)
- Character in Costume: A Jack Edwards Retrospective (2012)
- Redefining, Redesigning Fashion: Designs for Sustainability (2013)
- Signed by Vera: Scarves by an Iconic Designer (2014)
- America’s Monsters, Superheroes and Villains: 60 years of Toys Referencing Monsters (2015)
- Design Cycles, A Bike Show (2015)
In 2016, the GMD celebrated its 40th birthday. They had a special exhibition with forty objects. This show highlighted the wide variety of items in their collection.
What's in the Collections?
The GMD has many different types of items. These collections help people learn about design through history.
Costume Collection
The main part of the GMD's collection is costumes. It has about 21,000 items, some dating back to 1790. This includes nearly 1,800 hats and 1,000 pairs of shoes and boots. There are also many other fashion accessories like purses, gloves, and fans.
Some of the costumes are haute couture, which means high fashion. These include designs by famous names like Christian Dior, Elsa Schiaparelli, Coco Chanel, and Yves Saint Laurent. The costume collection started when the Minneapolis-St. Paul Fashion Group donated many garments. A well-known fashion icon, Margot Seigel, also gave many important pieces.
Dayton's, a department store in Minneapolis, also donated items from their designer fashion section. The GMD also has a large collection of world costumes. This includes almost 600 items from the International Institute of Minnesota. Other special collections include over 1,800 scarves designed by Vera Neumann. There are also more than 50 evening gowns by Oscar de la Renta.
Textiles, Decorative Arts, and Graphic Design
The GMD has about 5,000 textile items. This includes a large collection of fabrics designed by Jack Lenor Larsen. His design archive was partly given to the University of Minnesota.
There are also about 2,500 decorative arts items. Many of these came from the Goldstein sisters' own collections. Notable items include art pottery from the 1920s, donated by Ruth Hanold Crane. There's also a collection of over fifty Chinese and Japanese curios. These include snuff bottles and jade figures, donated by Robert Soman.
The GMD collection also has about 660 graphic design items. This includes a complete set of Emigre design magazines from 1984 to 2005. More recently, the GMD has started collecting product designs. This includes tea kettles by Michael Graves and Aldo Rossi for Alessi. They also have a first-generation iPad and juicers by Philippe Starck.
Museum Directors
- Gertrude Esteros (1976–1980)
- Mary Stieglitz-Witte (1981–1982)
- Joanne B. Eicher (1983–1987)
- Marla C. Berns (1988–1991)
- Suzanne Beizermann (1991–1997)
- Lindsey Shen (1997–2005)
- Lin Nelson-Mayson (2005–2021)
- Jean McElvain (2021–2023)
- Aidan O'Connor (2023–present)
