Search results for ""author david brody""

One of the great pleasures of staying in a hotel is spending time in a spotless, neat, and organized space that you don't have to clean. That doesn't, however, mean the work disappears when we're not looking, someone else is doing it. With Housekeeping by Design, David Brody introduces us to those people the housekeepers whose labor keeps the rooms clean and the guests happy. Through unprecedented access to staff at several hotels, Brody shows us just how much work goes on behind the scenes and how much management goes out of its way to make sure that labor stays hidden. We see the incredible amount of hard physical work that is involved in cleaning and preparing a room, how spaces, furniture, and other objects are designed to facilitate a smooth flow of hidden labor, and, crucially, how that design could be improved for workers and management alike if front-line staff were involved in the design process. After reading this fascinating expose of the ways hotels work or don't for housekeepers one thing is certain: checking in will never be the same again.

Read more less

In 1899 an American could open a newspaper and find outrageous images, such as an American soldier being injected with leprosy by Filipino insurgents. These kinds of hyperbolic accounts, David Brody argues in this illuminating book, were just one element of the visual and material culture that played an integral role in debates about empire in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America. "Visualizing American Empire" explores the ways visual imagery and design shaped the political and cultural landscape. Drawing on a myriad of sources - including photographs, tattoos, the decorative arts, the popular press, maps, parades, and material from world's fairs and urban planners - Brody offers a distinctive perspective on American imperialism. Exploring the period leading up to the Spanish-American War, as well as beyond it, Brody argues that the way Americans visualized the Orient greatly influenced the fantasies of colonial domestication that would play out in the Philippines. Throughout, Brody insightfully examines visual culture's integral role in the machinery that runs the colonial engine. The result is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of the United States, art, design, or empire.

Read more less

This first comprehensive survey of the life and work of Luigi Lucioni (1900 1988) places him in the context of fellow Regionalist painters Grant Wood, Charles Sheeler, and Maxfield Parrish. Lucioni is known for meticulously rendered still lifes, landscapes, and arresting portraits drawn from his close-knit circle of queer New York artists and cultural figures, including Paul Cadmus, Jared French, George Platt Lynes, and Lincoln Kirstein. In the early 1930s, Lucioni discovered Vermont, whose landscapes reminded him of northern Italy. It was there that he met Electra Havemeyer Webb, who was to become his single most important patron. For more than 50 years, the New York City based artist spent every summer painting landscapes of trees, barns, and buildings in Vermont with sharply observed realism and a cool, precise style. Key scholars examine Lucioni s oeuvre, materials, techniques, and his role in American modernism.

Read more less