Automania

No product has affected American life and culture as profoundly as the automobile. Mass production, city planning, art and advertising, building design, fashion, leisure, and the environment, to name a few, have all been altered by the invention. Museum of Modern Art curator emerita Kinchin’s engaging text touches on these topics while offering a brief history of car design from the late 1890s to the advent of the fuel-efficient smart car. The book documents the efforts to produce vehicles for the “masses’’—from Henry Ford’s 1908 Model T to the 1938 German Volkswagen sedan to the 1957 Fiat 500 (which helped recharge Italy’s post–World War II economy)—as well as sleek modernist mid-century models that combined aerodynamic principles with seductive design (Citroën, Porsche, etc.). Each chapter ends with a brief history and stunning photos of two iconic cars. Throughout, there are related archival images, advertisements, drawings, and reproductions of paintings in MoMA’s collection.