Loeb Design Science: Holly Alderman's Symmetry Portfolio
The collection comprises 412 structural and tensegrity 3D Models; 164 silkscreens from Holly Alderman’s Symmetry Portfolio; over 500 books from Dr. Loeb’s personal library; and Documents and ephemera relating to Loeb’s teaching.
In 1983 Arthur Loeb commissioned artist Holly Alderman, who had been his teaching assistant at Harvard from 1978 to 1981 to create a series of geometric silkscreens that illustrate plane symmetry groups outlined in his 1971 book, Color and Symmetry. Alderman’s prints hung in the Design Science Studio, where they were used as teaching tools for visualizing symmetry operations and systems. During lectures and demonstrations, students were asked to look at the prints, to read between the lines, and to identify interconnections, rotocenters, symmetry lines, reflections, translations, glide reflections, relationships, and repeating of elements.
One Symmetry Portfolio consists of 24 limited edition silkscreens that together display all possible networks of two-dimensional structure. There are 164 prints in Loeb’s teaching collection, representing monochromatic prints of strathmore rag paper, colorful interpretations on posterboard, artist’s proofs, and multiples. The portfolio was exhibited in the Design Science Studio in Harvard’s Carpenter Center in 1983; at the International Symmetry Congress at the Hungarian National Gallery in 1984; and at Harvard’s Currier House in 1990.
Holly Alderman’s Symmetry Portfolio can be viewed in Digital Commons @ RISD. To access physical material or to schedule a class visit, you can fill out the Loeb Collection Appointment Request Form or the Loeb Collection Instruction Request Form.
