Candlestick c. 1937

This is a drawing of a candlestick by Philip Johnson. The drawing gives us the object in full, with a top-down and side profile view. Johnson was an American architect whose work shaped the modern urban landscape. He was also the founding director of the architecture department at the Museum of Modern Art. In this role, he was responsible for deciding what kind of architecture would be granted the institutional stamp of ‘art’. Johnson's work was received with a mixture of celebration and controversy, particularly concerning his association with the Third Reich. His biography demonstrates the complex relationship between the politics of imagery, social conditions, and the institutions of art. Studying his architectural drawing in relation to his other work and biography allows one to engage with debates around the moral status of architecture and the public role of art. To study Johnson is to study the nature of modernism.