The arrival of television sets in the American home during the 1940s brought about a fear that extensive viewing in a dark room of such a small TV screen would cause eye damage. Yet too much direct light would diminish the picture quality. Thus, television lamps were born. This pictorial guide sheds light on a collectible that was in its full glory between 1948 and 1958. Depicting people, birds, animals, vehicles, and others objects, television lamps are most often ceramic, some almost porcelain quality. Ceramic lamps as well as those made of plaster, chalk, glass, metal, and wood are showcased in this colorful book. Readers and collectors will admire the more than 350 full-color photographs and the exquisite forms and shapes displayed in these whimsical lighting devices that sometimes doubled as planters.

In the early '30s Howard Kron took a bus to Hollywood to pursue his acting dreams. Before the decades end he had traveled the nightclub circuit as a popular singer, and discovered the world of pottery design, the arena in which he would excel. Although a relative unknown today, his extensive body of work includes some of the most memorable icons of mid-century décor, including numerous TV lamps that are treasured by collectors for their distinctive style. Pedlar of Dreams examines Kron's early aspirations, disappointments and final triumph as a ceramics designer and engineer. As the creative force behind Texans Incorporated, a pottery located in the unlikely Texas town of Bangs, he imbued his creations with a unique blend of classic and modern sensibilities, taking mass-produced pottery to a new level.

Nearly 400 color photos explore the many forms of TV lamps. In the early days of television, people attempted to protect themselves from the new machines with creative lamps that provided back light that was believed to protect the eyes. These lamps took on fantastic forms and sometimes doubled as vases or planters.

Teleology brings together John Hartley's work on television. The book draws on current critical theory in cultural studies to develop a wide-ranging and thought-provoking view of television broadcasting in Britain, Australia and the USA. Neighbours, Hancock's Half Hour, Dallas, Monty Python, Miami Vice, Beverly Hillbillies and Bonanza are among the examples of TV art that are discussed in Hartley's exploration of cultural politics. He takes in TV truth and propaganda; populism in the news; mythologies of the audience; TV drama as a `photopoetic' genre in the tradition of Shakespeare; Kylie Minogue, Madonna and gardening shows.

This enlightening volume, which presents the best of the worst in light sources, will be a delight to its subject's many collectors and to all fans of popular design. 250 illustrations.

New York magazine was born in 1968 after a run as an insert of the New York Herald Tribune and quickly made a place for itself as the trusted resource for readers across the country. With award-winning writing and photography covering everything from politics and food to theater and fashion, the magazine's consistent mission has been to reflect back to its audience the energy and excitement of the city itself, while celebrating New York as both a place and an idea.

Laurence Stephen Lowry RBA RA is mostly thought about in terms of his people and their industrial setting but there is a great deal more to be read from the detail of his paintings. Throughout his artistic career, Lowry used street furniture to brilliant effect. He was a master of observation and composition. Lamp-posts, telegraph poles, flag poles, fences (and sometimes just vertical posts with no apparent use) form an important part of Lowry's busy industrial scenes. As his work developed, lamps became a subject in their own right and became the focus of some of his later quiet, solitary works. The evidence of Lowry's careful thought about lamps and lamp posts is evident in his response to young artists asking for career advice as well as it is in the painting: 'no need to go to London to become a famous painter. You won't find better lamp-posts there.' This book examines an important aspect of Lowry's art for the first time. It is written by Richard Mayson who was brought up in Lowry's home-village of Mottram-in-Longdendale. Mayson has a life-long passion for street lamps and street furniture. Taking some of Lowry's best-known works as a reference, this book highlights Lowry's use of lamps and street furniture in his handling of composition, perspective and colour. The expression of solitude, an aspect of Lowry's life and often conveyed in his later work, is also considered. He also compares the treatment of street furniture in Lowry's paintings with the reality of Salford and Manchester streets from 1916 to the 1970s illustrating how Lowry's work evolved. Previously unseen works in private collections will be reproduced in this book for the first time.

In TV Snapshots, Lynn Spigel explores snapshots of people posing in front of their television sets in the 1950s through the early 1970s. Like today’s selfies, TV snapshots were a popular photographic practice through which people visualized their lives in an increasingly mediated culture. Drawing on her collection of over 5,000 TV snapshots, Spigel shows that people did not just watch TV: women used the TV set as a backdrop for fashion and glamour poses; people dressed in drag in front of the screen; and in pinup poses, people even turned the TV setting into a space for erotic display. While the television industry promoted on-screen images of white nuclear families in suburban homes, the snapshots depict a broad range of people across racial, ethnic, and class backgrounds that do not always conform to the reigning middle-class nuclear family ideal. Showing how the television set became a central presence in the home that exceeded its mass entertainment function, Spigel highlights how TV snapshots complicate understandings of the significance of television in everyday life.