TMC
03-10-2017, 09:32 PM
https://wearethemutants.com/2017/03/06/pork-chops-and-apple-sauce-appraising-the-brady-bunchs-art-collection/
The world of The Brady Bunch can be defined by a conspicuous style. After all, the setting is an architect father’s passion project, accoutered with what Carol Brady once described as Danish Modern furniture. The family’s fashion arc went from Ozzie and Harriet in season one to post-sixties extremes in season three. Yet the Brady’s choice of household artwork seems oddly uninspired. Apart from a few exceptions, Brady wall art is practically invisible, begging to be upstaged by Mike’s designs, which include both the house and the family that lives there. What follows is an examination of that which is meant to be ignored.
I’ve detailed the Brady family art collection and elaborated on the trends and styles that it represents. It began as a lark, but it became a personal opus that surpassed the simple room-by-room inventory I envisioned. In some cases specific artists, pieces, and manufacturers have been unearthed, filling a gaping informational void on the internet. My work is sure to be a treat for anyone who loves art, or The Brady Bunch, or tedious overanalysis.
To point out the generic nature of the Brady’s artistic taste isn’t to say they weren’t on trend. After World War II, art was industrialized like never before in order to meet the demand for something to cover the walls of tens of thousands of new American homes. Companies like Turner Wall Accessory produced and reproduced hundreds of prints with the home decor market in mind. During this era, original art was often replicated by an assembly line of contract artists working under shared pseudonyms. The subjects were intentionally innocuous in contrast to the art world at large, where bold personalities emerged to break every conceivable convention. Like most Americans, the Brady’s humble art collection largely consists of commercially produced prints. This makes the family seem real and relatable to the viewer—until you remember that they have a live-in housemaid.
The production designers didn’t construct the Brady aesthetic from scratch. According to the The Brady Bunch Blog (http://verybradyblog.blogspot.com/), the sets are full of props and artwork that previously appeared in other Paramount-produced television shows. There’s little chance of finding intentional parallels between the characters and their surroundings, but that needn’t stop us from applying our own meaning. It’s also worth noting that much of the art is repeatedly repositioned throughout the course of the show. It is unclear whether this is the result of less-than-vigilant set dressers or a class five haunting.
The world of The Brady Bunch can be defined by a conspicuous style. After all, the setting is an architect father’s passion project, accoutered with what Carol Brady once described as Danish Modern furniture. The family’s fashion arc went from Ozzie and Harriet in season one to post-sixties extremes in season three. Yet the Brady’s choice of household artwork seems oddly uninspired. Apart from a few exceptions, Brady wall art is practically invisible, begging to be upstaged by Mike’s designs, which include both the house and the family that lives there. What follows is an examination of that which is meant to be ignored.
I’ve detailed the Brady family art collection and elaborated on the trends and styles that it represents. It began as a lark, but it became a personal opus that surpassed the simple room-by-room inventory I envisioned. In some cases specific artists, pieces, and manufacturers have been unearthed, filling a gaping informational void on the internet. My work is sure to be a treat for anyone who loves art, or The Brady Bunch, or tedious overanalysis.
To point out the generic nature of the Brady’s artistic taste isn’t to say they weren’t on trend. After World War II, art was industrialized like never before in order to meet the demand for something to cover the walls of tens of thousands of new American homes. Companies like Turner Wall Accessory produced and reproduced hundreds of prints with the home decor market in mind. During this era, original art was often replicated by an assembly line of contract artists working under shared pseudonyms. The subjects were intentionally innocuous in contrast to the art world at large, where bold personalities emerged to break every conceivable convention. Like most Americans, the Brady’s humble art collection largely consists of commercially produced prints. This makes the family seem real and relatable to the viewer—until you remember that they have a live-in housemaid.
The production designers didn’t construct the Brady aesthetic from scratch. According to the The Brady Bunch Blog (http://verybradyblog.blogspot.com/), the sets are full of props and artwork that previously appeared in other Paramount-produced television shows. There’s little chance of finding intentional parallels between the characters and their surroundings, but that needn’t stop us from applying our own meaning. It’s also worth noting that much of the art is repeatedly repositioned throughout the course of the show. It is unclear whether this is the result of less-than-vigilant set dressers or a class five haunting.