The ashtrays of yesteryear came in the shapes of jetliners, limousines and brides. The objects had a dark side, too, when emblazoned with ads for brothels and morticians. Their myriad variants are now sparking scholarly investigations, even as rates of cigarette use keep plummeting.
Interest in the antiques comes amid a wave of experimentation in new ashtray designs, with gyrating bowls and psychedelic sheens tailored to weed smokers as legal restrictions on marijuana loosen.
“Ashtray,” an exhaustive exhibition with about 100 examples, will open in February at the International Museum of Dinnerware Design in Kingston, N.Y. During a recent preview of the show, Margaret Carney, the founding director and curator, said she has discovered “a thousand different angles” to the subject that are likely to leave visitors “delighted, appalled and informed.”
She is documenting how containers for ashes and butts have evolved since the late 19th century, when mass-manufactured cigarettes became widely available and more people smoked indoors. Celebrated designers and scientists innovated with the vessels. Dr. Carney will display a white ceramic ashtray with Pablo Picasso’s sketch of a black hoopoe bird perched on a leafy twig, as well as the Danish Modernist Arne Jacobsen’s steel cylinder with a swiveling inner bowl. A Geiger counter at the museum will verify that some dazzlingly colorful glass and ceramic ashtrays were laced with uranium.
Among the exhibition’s shockers from the mid-20th century are lumpy, gray ashtrays with the sunken outlines of infants’ feet and with Similac baby formula advertisements pasted on the undersides. Dr. Carney plans to pair those with a mannequin of a pregnant woman smoking.
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The post Casting a Fresh Eye on Artifacts from Smoke-Filled Rooms appeared first on New York Times.
