Stanley Stubenberg (1925-2001) was a graphic designer born in Honolulu, Hawaii. He designed scores of restaurant, bar and room service menus and table cards. Venues such as the Hilton Hawaiian Village Hotel’s Ale Ale Kai Restaurant, the Luau Hut and the Pupu Bar; the Tahitian Lanai and the Papeete Bar at the Waikikian Hotel and Beneath the Reef and the Torch Room at the Reef Hotel.
Menus, by their very nature, are ephemeral items; therefore, not a huge number have survived the past 50-plus years. The few that have can command prices up to £150. There are currently a couple for sale on eBay. There are however, modern prints available from Love Menu Art and Monterey Bay Photo Lab.
Our last vintage menus post proved popular – and most of the examples that we featured in it prior to listing in the web shop have now sold.
We thought we’d share some more of our collection over the coming weeks…
…starting with this collection of cruise ship menus dating from the late 1960s.
They were produced for the German company, Norddeutscher Lloyd Bremen.
We like the combination of stark pen & ink drawing with bold, partial colouring. They’re very distinctive – the artist’s signature looks like Geißler, but we can’t seem to find any mention of him anywhere on the internet. Can anyone out there shed some light?
This particular set would look fabulous with simple black frames against a large expanse of white wall. The vibrant colours would really leap out and draw you in to take a closer look.
Here’s a selection of various vintage homewares heading to an H is for Home store near you soon!
We’ll start with the gorgeous Worcester Ware fish place mats dating from the 1960s. This pattern is getting harder & harder to find – and from our point of view, harder & harder to let go. The design and colours are just gorgeous.
And talking of gorgeous design & colour, we’ve also got some vintage cruise menus that we’re going to put in the web shop. We dedicated a whole post to these last week so click on the link for more details.
This globe dates from the 1960s era and has a vintage industrial quality with the bronze coloured metal base. It also has a textured surface showing mountain relief. It was produced in the USA by Replogle Globes Inc. A lovely example!
Onto a couple of much older items now – 18th or 19th century old in the case of this antique copper jug. We love it – the colour, the patina, the gorgeous big handle!
And finally this very sweet little mirror which advertises Jeyes Fluid. It’s the perfect vintage touch for a laundry area or bathroom.
The book charts the history of menu design in America in the 19th & 20th centuries.
The menus featured inevitably incorporate the evolution & development of food.
But they also draw in American and social history, politics, immigration, civil rights, prohibition, social taboos & norms for various eras – some of which can be eye openers.
Fans of graphic design, illustration and typography will also be in heaven!
There’s a broad subject overview at the start of the book, followed by further insightful captions on each page.
They add details for specific venues or menus – artists/designers, who owned/frequented an establishment, its popularity, dates, details about the food – chefs, new introductions, where items may have been sourced etc.
In some cases, there are accompanying photographs of the actual restaurant locations, buildings, interiors and the diners themselves.
The menus are the real stars of this book, of course. There are nearly 400 pages crammed full of fabulous examples. Both the stunning covers and their menu contents will give hours of visual pleasure.
We’ve included lots of images for this post, but even this is only a small portion of those contained within the book.
Art Nouveau to Art Deco, Jazz age to Space age – it’s all in here!
The menus are sourced from hotels, restaurants, nightclubs, diners, steamships, cruise ships, trains & planes.
We know one thing though – after browsing this book for an hour we were starving!
Some of the menus had up to a hundred items from which to choose.
There are familiar dishes such as steaks & burgers (done in a myriad of different ways, of course).
Others have choices that were new to us – ‘stewed terrapin with hominy’, ‘fried smelts with figaro sauce’, ‘calf’s head en tortue’.
There are enjoyable aspects to take from all the menus – our favourites in terms of design & artwork are those dating from the 1930s and the 1950s. There’s a few in this book we’d love to add to our collection.
We love both the artwork and browsing the dishes on offer. They can be stored in a folder, but also look great framed – and as you can see from the wonderful examples in this book, the designs can be just stunning.
So we were sold even before opening a page, but if you are a newcomer to the subject, this book can be enjoyed as pure eye candy or will provide a fascinating insight into the history of a nation through its culinary culture.
Mouth-watering stuff – we can highly recommend it!
Menu Design in America, 1850-1985 is also available from Hive and Amazon.
[Many thanks to Taschen for the supply of this review copy]
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