Not at Home

About this book

This book explores the relationship of modernism and domesticity, a contested realm which, perpetually invoked in order to be denied, has remained a crucial though marginalized element of modernism. From the Victorian period, through Aestheticism and the Arts and Crafts Movement, in fin-de-siecle France and Sweden and within the twentieth-century avant-gardes of Paris, Vienna, London, Boston, Berlin and New York, up to the present time, domesticity and art, architecture and design are interwoven. Today, after more than one hundred years of dispute, the domestic is being re-evaluated and returned to a position of cultural prominence, impelling us to look back over the mainstream of modernism in an effort to trace its hidden domestic subcurrents. This book, with stimulating and highly original contributions by leading historians of art and design, represents the most coherent and considered investigation of domesticity in visual culture. Through these essays, the notion of home is freed from stereotypes of sentimental nostalgia and emerges as a vital arena of modern art - and of modern life.