Mid-Century House Paint Colors from House & Garden

The September 1948 cover of House & Garden has a pretty outstanding collection of mid-century colors for painting. 

The list of their mid-century paint colors includes: geranium red, sweet pink, stone gray, kingfisher blue, purple heather, sprout green, citron yellow, brick, avocado green, French blue, sandalwood  bright navy, quartz pink, charcoal purple, mustard, forest green, copper, madera, parchment, bracken green, flame and willow.

I'm a fan of the stone gray and kingfisher together, but perhaps I'm a little biased.

A Vintage Travel Poster Gift

My family came down to Austin for a holiday visit and along with all the presents that were wrapped up in pretty packages, my mom handed me a garbage bag and said, "We found these in grandpa's basement and I thought you'd want them." I didn't know whether to be excited or scared. Turns out excited was the correct response.

In the bag was a half dozen or so rolled up posters, mainly vintage travel posters. Sadly the years had not been kind to them. Most of the posters were ripped to the point that you couldn't save them and the paper had become so fragile that just unrolling them ripped them more.

But there was one poster that survived in almost perfect condition, and it was the best one in my opinion.

I did all the research I could, but I can't track down much information about this particular travel poster. It's obviously an American Airlines poster promoting their Los Angeles destination, but I can't find the artist who did the original water colors and I can't find a signature anywhere on the poster. 

The Smithsonian has this poster in their collection and they have it listed as an "orphaned work," which is a rather romantic way of saying, "We don't know who made it." Their rather bland description of this vintage travel poster is:

Multicolor print of a watercolor advertising service to Los Angeles. Reproduction of two images, separated by a white bar containing the text “LOS ANGELES” in a blue sans-serif font and the smaller blue text "American Airlines" with the AA logo. The top illustration portrays a Los Angeles city scene, while the bottom illustration shows a Los Angeles bay lined with boats and houses on the hillside.

There's also a San Francisco version of this poster, I'm assuming by the same artist, but again, it's listed as orphaned.

But now this orphaned work has a home. I'm going to get our new vintage Los Angeles poster framed and find a place to hang it in our travel-themed nursery.

Happy Mid-Century Holidays

Happy holidays from Mad for Mid-Century. If you're looking for a place for all those last minute holiday cards you're getting, follow the photo above and slide them between the prongs of your starburst clock.

Mid-Century Art of Ernst Haeckel

The octopus is my favorite animal. I think it's a odd and gorgeous creature. There's alway been one image of an octopus that I especially loved, but I was never able to find the source (bottom left).

But now I know it comes from Kunstformen der Natur or Art Forms of Nature by Ernst Haeckel.

Ernst Haeckel isn't exactly a mid-century artist, in fact much of his work isn't even from the same century as mid-century art — Art Forms of Nature was first published in 1899.

Besides me finally finding the image of the octopus I've been looking for, I found a book full of gorgeous illustrations of nature.

I mention the book and the images with here because I think they would look outstanding on the wall of any mid-century or mid-century modern home. I love when art plays against the look of a room. The elaborate illustrations and lines of Haeckel's work would play lovingly against the streamlined look and straight lines of mid-century modern furniture.

The best part of it is that the images in Art Forms of Nature are now public domain, so if you can find a high enough resolution image, you're free to print it and hang it on your wall.

You can see all the images from Kunstformen der Natur here and you can buy them in book form here.

Mid-Century Airports

I've talked about mid-century airport architecture before, but Flavorwire has a much more extensive look at a time when going to the airport mean you were probably a part of the jet set.

Although, the TWA Terminal at Idlewild Airport 

Source

Looks like something more out of 2001 than the mid-century.