Decorative Arts and Design
A single object can crystallize a designer’s vision and express the spirit of the times. Design is an intrinsic part of the human experience and reflects values, ideals, and the realities of daily life. Ranging from ornate tea services to utilitarian wastebaskets, what we own, collect, and covet reflects how we identify ourselves and how we want to be perceived.
The High’s Decorative Arts and Design collection explores the merging of function and aesthetics through form, material, process, place, and intent. It features the renowned Virginia Carroll Crawford Collection—the most comprehensive survey of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American decorative arts in the southeastern United States, with important works by Alexander Roux, Herter Brothers, Tiffany & Co., and Frank Lloyd Wright. Other notable gifts include the Frances and Emory Cocke Collection of English Ceramics from 1640 to 1840.
The collection’s international contemporary design holdings recently have expanded with the addition of significant works by Joris Laarman Lab, Jaime Hayon, Ron Arad, and nendo. With more than 2,300 objects dating from 1640 to the present, the collection explores the intersections between art, craft, and design; handcraft and technology; and innovation and making.
Do you love Decorative Arts and Design?
Support the High by becoming a Friend of the Decorative Arts and Design Collection.
Design Commissions,
Design Commissions
Design Icons,
Design Icons
English Ceramics (Seventeenth–Nineteenth Centuries),
English Ceramics (Seventeenth–Nineteenth Centuries)
Innovative Designs and New Technologies,
Innovative Designs and New Technologies
Key Innovators,
Key Innovators
Nineteenth-Century American Decorative Arts,
Nineteenth-Century American Decorative Arts
Twenty-First-Century Design,
Twenty-First-Century Design
Southern Craft Traditions,
Southern Craft Traditions
Studio Craft,
Studio Craft
Joris Laarman,