Jane Thompson's Calder Brooch

On Wednesday, I hosted a conversation with Jane Thompson‎ about her Zelig-like modernist career at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Jane covered her time at the Museum of Modern Art, where she was docent at Marcel Breuer’s House in the Museum Garden, her editorial choices at I.D. Magazine (RIP), her involvement with pioneering store Design Research, and her fight to save Faneuil Hall, which transformed it into one of the nation’s ongoing top 10 tourist attractions.

Many in the audience noticed Jane’s spiral brooch. She explained that while she worked at MoMA in the late 1940s, she admired Mary Barnes’s collection of jewelry by “Sandy” Calder. One day she asked him if he would make her something. He drew a spiral on a piece of paper and a few weeks later, this pin arrived in the mail with the note that she owed him $25. “A whole week’s pay!”

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