As economies across Europe and USA continued to recover after World War II, and the restrictions and hardships of the post-war era receded, consumers enjoyed a period of unalloyed prosperity and new opportunities to spend on their homes and furnishings. While modernist ideals, developed earlier in the century, remained ever present, the period c.1960 to 2020 is characterised by challenges to their hegemony and to the concepts of universal and timeless solutions. Pop, Anti-Design, High Tech, Post Modernism, Bricolage and Narrative are among the myriad of approaches employed by designers across media during these exciting years. This course explores these diverse developments in furniture, lighting, ceramics, glass, textiles, and the interior, focusing on the key movements, individuals, objects, and ideas within avant-garde design from 1960 to the present.
Consultant Lecturer, MA in Fine and Decorative Art and Design
Darby's research and teaching focuses on 19th, 20th and 21st century decorative arts, design and craft, with particular emphasis on furniture. She developed and was Program Director of the MA in Contemporary Design at Sotheby's Institute in London from 2008 to 2016 and now teaches on the MA in Fine and Decorative Art and Design, for various semester courses and public programs, and also runs the MA elective Contemporary Design and its Markets. Lis is Visiting Researcher and PhD supervisor at Central St. Martins (University of the Arts London) and lectures regularly at the Victoria and Albert Museum. She has contributed to various publications and journals on both sculpture and the decorative arts; her book Re-Issue, Re-Imagine, Re-Make: Appropriation in Contemporary Furniture Design was published by Lund Humphries in 2020.
Read MoreFaculty & Subject Leader: History of Design, Decorative Art and Design, London
Elisabeth Bogdan has been a lecturer in decorative art and design history at the Institute since 2003. She has taught in the visual arts and on art world education since 1992 at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, previously at Southampton Solent University, Oxford Brookes University and the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff. Her specialist teaching includes eighteenth to twentieth century European and American design, decorative art and architectural history.
Read MoreDay 1: Innovation and Iconoclasm: Furniture of the 1960s and 1970s
Day 2: In the Studio: Glass and Ceramics of the 1960s and 1970s
Day 3: ‘Less is a Bore’ Postmodern Design of the 1980s
Day 4: Themes in Contemporary Furniture 1990-2020
Day 5: Themes in Contemporary Applied Design 1990-2020
This live online course is delivered with live-streamed lectures featuring group discussion and Q&A. All live sessions are also recorded and available on the course platform typically within 24-48 hours for participants unable to attend the posted times. The course will include a final project with personalized feedback from the course instructor. All participants will have access to the recordings for an additional 30 days after the final course lecture.
Review the online course Terms and Conditions.
For successfully completing this course, you receive a verified Certificate of Completion from Sotheby’s Institute of Art as well as 3.7 IACET Continuing Education Units. *
Our digital certificates allow you to share new skills with various social media platforms, including LinkedIn. Successful completion is defined by each instructor in the course syllabus and consists, at the least, of regular, thoughtful participation in online activities and timely submission of assigned papers or projects.
*As an IACET Accredited Provider, Sotheby’s Institute of Art offers IACET CEUs for its learning events that comply with the ANSI/IACET Continuing Education and Training Standard.