Danish Modern explores the development of mid-century modernist design in Denmark from historical, analytical and theoretical perspectives. Mark Mussari explores the relationship between Danish design aesthetics and the theoretical and cultural impact of Modernism, particularly between 1930 and 1960. He considers how Danish designers responded to early Modernist currents: the Stockholm Exhibition of 1930, their rejection of Bauhaus aesthetic demands, their early fealty to wood and materials, and the tension between cabinetmaker craft and industrial production as it challenged and altered their aesthetic approach. Tracing the theoretical foundations for these developments, Mussari discusses the writings and works of such figures as Poul Henningsen, Arne Jacobsen, Hans Wegner, Nanna Ditzel, and Finn Juhl.

How was the modernist movement understood by the general public when it was first emerging? This question can be addressed by looking at how modernist literature and art were interpreted by journalists in daily newspapers, mainstream magazines like Punch and Vanity Fair, and literary magazines. In the earliest decades of the movement - before modernist artists were considered important, and before modernism's meaning was clearly understood - many of these interpretations took the form of parodies. Mock Modernism is an anthology of these amusing pieces, the overwhelming majority of which have not been in print since the first decades of the twentieth century. They include Max Beerbohm's send-up of Henry James; J.C. Squire's account of how a poet, writing deliberately incomprehensible poetry as a hoax, became the poet laureate of the British Bolshevist Revolution; and the Chicago Record-Herald's account of some art students' "trial" of Henri Matisse for "crimes against anatomy." An introduction and headnotes by Leonard Diepeveen highlight the usefulness of these pieces for comprehending media and public perceptions of a form of art that would later develop an almost unassailable power.