Big book: tiny treasures

Last Friday I invited some friends around for a Digital Arts Dinner. And one of them arrived with a library copy of Todd Oldham's book on Alexander Girard tucked under his arm, complete with slips of paper marking the pages he thought I'd be interested in.

Front cover of Todd Oldham and Kiera Coffee's book on Alexander Girard

 Now I'd certainly been vaguely aware of Girard's work, and this book had been on my radar of expensive things I might like to consider buying one day, but my only real knowledge of his work was from coverage in the now defunct Modernism magazine, where I'd got the impression it was all far too colourful and busy for my tastes.

Thanks to my friend's trust in my ability to look after other people's library books, I had the opportunity to spend a couple of evenings this week devouring the contents.

Realising that the Girards were great mates with my heroes, the Eameses (and that Alexander even worked on the fabulous Toccatta for toy trains with Charles and Ray, and had a collection of miniature houses.)

Admiring the many mid-century scale models included.

 Drooling over the eight miniature table settings he created for Georg Jensen.

 And the miniature dioramas he created.

Dammit! This book has now cemented its place on my list of books that are essential to the collection development policy...