“Tea Table Coffee Table” recently opened at the Milwaukee Art Museum in the Decorative Arts Gallery and will be on view through June 12, 2005.

This spectacular exhibit features exquisite tea tables, which were first made in America by British immigrants in the 1720s. A typical tea table features a tilt-top, central pedestal with three legs. In a quest for domestic sociability in a rough, new land, many early American homes “took tea” using their tea tables.

Two hundred years later, the coffee table – with its low, informal height and large surface area – was invented in the 1920s. It fit in well with the “footloose and fancy free” attitude of the Roaring Twenties. It was so integral in the social culture of mid-20th century America, it led to the creation of a new form of literature – the coffee table book!

“Tea Table Coffee Table” traces the parallel development of these two specialized furniture pieces. The exhibition also includes tea and coffee services from each period.

The exhibition was organized by the Milwaukee Art Museum and was curated by Glenn Adamson, curator of the Chipstone Foundation and MAM adjunct curator, and Sarah Fayen, Charles F. Hummel Fellow at the Chipstone Foundation.