I was a child during the sixties, and I believe this type of art was pretty common. Looks pretty hokey to us, though.

I noticed it to. I'm waiting for the big eyed characters to start showing up!

I notice that arrangement often, and every time I think how well it fits on a 60s wall. It said 'modern decor' instead of Early American maple colonial from the burbs. 60'schild (the real one, right?) we had friends who were collecting those moppets as an art investment. Being polite when they showed off their 'gallery' was right up there with saying we wanted to see the Super 8 movies from their vacation.

Hi Sizzie! This is the FIRST 60's child, love your comments!! The only thing that tops those moppet paintings, are the black velvet ones! I think I used to paint those in paint by numbers kits!!

I just googled 'big eyed moppets' and found some very interesting hits. I hate to think the art I laughed at might be valuable!

Hi Sizzie! I'll have to check that out...
Hey, I just wondered...are giraffes a fertility symbol?

Hi rippmo! Thank you!

The "big eyed moppets" were by an artist named Keane (not sure of the spelling). I remember them well. They were everywhere.

I thought the giraffes were African prints. Nice looking, imo. Definitely more cosmopolitan than what you might expect. Didn't Pete's mother give away a jade elephant (a small figure or sculpture) after Pete's father died? Someone in the family must be into that sort of thing.

Actually the trio of art in Pete's apartment that you are talking about is a great example of Danish Modern art which was very hip, and still is highly collectable today. Pete's apartment is probably one of the best examples outside of the office decor of this very cool and trendy style. It brings together a lot of warm walnut and low clean lines in furniture that is now making a big comeback.
If you look closely to the latest in truly modrern furniture, you will see some of these same lines repeated today. I love the very cool geometric room dividers you see in his apartment as well.
The traditionalist never seem to like this look, but if you are a collector of mid-century Danish modern it is the height of cool. Even though I prefer the more abstract paintings as seen in the SC offices, most collectors would pay top dollar for great vintage modern pieces seen in a lot of the MM scenes.
This is not to be confused with the look you see in the Draper's home, which is very traditional.
I guess it is just a look you like or you don't. If you are a minimalist that likes clean lines, then check out e-bay and see how much Danish Modern is still being sold today. You too may be hooked before you know it!

I was also realizing the the "tri ptic" on Pete's wall and then Peggy had a two paneled piece of a person on her wall. Either a conquistidor or a harliquin?
These remind me of these crafts that house wives got into; much like the needle point of the '60-'70's. Pete's art was two views of a black siamese cat with the elongated neck in mirror images, the center one was straight forward.
Walter Keane is the big doe=eyed sad children artist. They were the base of taste in the art world. Like buying a Leroy Neiman, now. (sorry, leroy, I love your ink sketches)
The proportion of the pieces are very verticle. They are made of glued string, as black lines, filled with ground color glass.
My mom made one, and she is the last creative person I know.

.....hi Thirteen,

if you check out the posts near the top about the duality in this episode, how each of the characters is reflected in a mirror.....

i just now wondered if one reason they keep showing the right and left giraffes, with the melded one in the middle, is the same theme as all the mirrored reflections.

could be a corker!

.... the bra model was "the Harlequin..." so i wonder if they carried that over... you have good eyes....

also greytone suggested looking at the recent blog video of Matthew Weiner talking about all that duality...(it's the headshot of a madeover Peggy).

as to the giraffes - apparently i need glasses.

Hey Dry Manhattan, Those aren't giraffes? This whole season I thought they were. They looked very familiar to me, like I remember them somehow. I grew up with Danish Modern , my father still has some around his house. I now have an English traditional type house, but I still very much appreciate that low slung clean line look. Very uncluttered. I mentioned it several weeks back that I thought Pete's furniture was DM. We had a square corner table that two low slung couches fit underneath. Round coffee table in the middle. We recovered the couches for years, and my dad, horrors of horrors, sawed off the legs of the corner table and made it into the coffee table. Wonder how much money he hacked away!

.....boop said they were siamese cats, and I believed it because i usually watch on a smaller TV in my office.... which is right?

.....rippmo - i had two in my bedroom as a kid - how funny is that!!

i thought it was very "blind faith" or "cream" at the time!!

....okay, i just now saw it again, and those really do look like giraffes in this case....

i'm going with giraffes.

No, I think they are cats too, at least that is what I thought I saw at first. That is why the giraffe idea confused me at first.
Had not thought about the duality being in the art work too.
ldraper- Yikes on chopping off the legs to good Danish Modern! Depending on what area you live a good piece like that can be anywhere from $400-800. Grab your parents old Danish Modern now because it is getting harder to find in good condition.
I love it all. My living room even has a totally swank Curtis Mathis Danish Modern stereo console in walnut. It sounds awesome! Even the ashtrays were cool art then!

Well, they look like giraffes to me, but they could certainly be siamese cats with elongated necks. Both siamese cats and jungle animals were popular themes for household art at that time.

Great call Dry, on the mirror imagine element. This whole season is certainly about trying to keep parts of yourself separate and compartmentalized, and having those parts keep slipping out of their compartments to merge back into that singular "you" as those two, er, creatures in the pictures are merging in the center one.

These posts make it clear just how great the set dressers are on this show. The post about DM is right on also. My mother had some DM pieces back then and today 48 years later, they still hold their own. Mid-century/fifties-sixties interiors were very cool. Chic and kitsch reigned supreme and no one feared color. I love it still to this day - of course since it reminds me of my childhood. But DM is not the most comfortable stuff to SIT on, however spare and lovely. Nothing like the Ekorness stressless loungers I've come to love today. Anyway back to MM - the corrugated sliding/magnetic doors like in the Harlequin Skank's mother's apartment were straight out of suburbia in the early 60s as are the elaborately scrolled, moorish plastic 'room dividers' of the era. Wild stuff - portents of the 'generation gap' yet to come. Some gaps in the colloquialisms, however. No one said, "this is not about me, it's about -----" as Betty does at various points in the dialog. "It's about" is a phrase born of EST seminars which didn't burst upon the scene until the early 70s. Conversation was much more direct back then with fewer idioms. I miss that.

I had a friend who furnished her house with Danish Modern in the 60s. It was quite a contrast from everyone (and it did seem like everyone!) else's preference of "Early American". The main piece of her collection I remember was a bright orange recliner that didn't look like a recliner and was open underneath. Very cool. She had a console stereo...probably the maple Zenith of the time, though, and not DM.