Walter Dorwin Teague and Eastman Kodak Co.
No. 1A Gift Kodak Camera
1929-1930
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Physical Qualities
Camera body: Metal, leather
Case: Cedar, lacquer, chrome plated and enameled metal
Box: Cardboard
Manual: Paper, Camera: 1 3/4 x 8 1/4 x 3 7/8 in. (4.4 x 21 x 9.8 cm) Case: 8 3/4 x 4 3/8 x 2 5/8 in. (22.2 x 11.1 x 6.7 cm) Box: 9 1/4 x 4 3/4 x 2 3/4 in. (23.5 x 12.1 x 7 cm) Manual: 5 1/4 x 3 1/8 x 1/8 in. (13.3 x 7.9 x 0.3 cm) Manual: 5 3/8 x 2 7/8 x 1/8 in. (13.7 x 7.3 x 0.3 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of Percy North, Stevenson, Maryland, in Memory of William Randolph North, Jr.
Object Number
2008.282
By 1930, middle class Americans could buy a portable, personal camera for
snapshots or amateur photography. Kodak commissioned the industrial
designer Walter Dorwin Teague to transform the camera designs from a
technological device into a fashionable accessory. For the No. 1A Gift Camera
here, Teague represented the individual parts such as lens, cover, and case
in silver, black, brown, and red lines and shapes. The style is reminiscent of
the Bauhaus (1919–1933), an influential German school of art, architecture,
and design. This colorful, abstract image was repeated on the camera, box,
packaging, and paper materials in time for Christmas 1930, when it was
marketed as an ideal present.
- V. Anderson and B. Luberda, Scott 3 installation, July 2022
The Baltimore Museum of Art by gift, 2008; Percy North, Stevenson, Maryland
American Modernism Reinstallation
American Wing Rotations 2023
American Wing Rotations 2025
