Established | 1986, incorporated as an FIU department in 1997 |
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Location | 1001 Washington Avenue Miami Beach, Florida, United States |
Coordinates | 25°46′51″N 80°07′57″W / 25.78084°N 80.13257°W |
Type | Art museum |
Director | Casey Steadman |
Website | wolfsonian.org |
The Wolfsonian–Florida International University or The Wolfsonian-FIU, located in the heart of the Art Deco District of Miami Beach, Florida, is a museum, library and research center that uses its collection to illustrate the persuasive power of art and design. For fifteen years, The Wolfsonian has been a division within Florida International University.
The Wolfsonian's two collections comprise approximately 180,000 pieces from the period 1885 to 1945 — the height of the Industrial Revolution until the end of the Second World War — in a variety of media, including: furniture; industrial-design objects; works in glass; ceramics; metal; rare books; periodicals; ephemera; works on paper; paintings; textiles; and medals.[citation needed] The museum is an affiliate within the Smithsonian Affiliations program, sharing affiliation with the Frost Art Museum.[1]
The countries most strongly represented are Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United States. There are also significant holdings from a number of other countries, including Austria, Czechoslovakia, France, Hungary, Japan, and the former Soviet Union. Among the collection's strengths are: the British Arts & Crafts movement; Dutch and Italian variants of the Art Nouveau style; American industrial design; objects and publications from world's fairs; propaganda from the First and Second World Wars and the Spanish Civil War; New Deal graphic and decorative arts; avant-garde book design; and publications and design drawings relating to architecture.