A polystrene silk screen table top art.  This is a fantastic interactive piece of art by an influential American abstract artist; Henry C. Pearson.  This compelling circular study is comprised of three pieces; base, lid and clear fine plastic center.  By rotating the top the patterns merge and interact over each other.  The contract of the red and green colourways providing for a mesmerizing piece of interactive art.

Originally launched in the MoMA as part of the Holiday gift guide in 1968.  The original press release read:

"Also new this year are Henry Pearson's Moiratron, a polystrene box six inches in diameter with silk-screen designs that produce moire patterns when the top Is turned ($4.00)."

Henry C. Pearson (October 8, 1914 – December 3, 2006) was an American abstract and modernist painter. Pearson was born in Kinston, North Carolina, graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1938, and studied theatrical design at Yale University. He served in the U.S. Army Air Corps in the Second World War, designing maps for the Okinawa campaign, and then re-enlisted to serve in the US occupation of Japan, where he was influenced by Japanese art and theatre forms. Moving to New York in the early 1950s, he studied at the Art Students League of New York with Reginald Marsh and Will Barnet; he remained friends with Barnet for the remainder of his life. Pearson was loosely associated with the Op Art movement and the famous Responsive Eye exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1965. Other influences were Piet Mondrian and Kasimir Malevich. Pearson was known for abstract, multi-colored globes; 'stochastic' or chance-generated paintings; paintings modeled on Dogon (West African) sculpture; as well as paintings based on the map work he did in the army. In general, his mode was hard-edged abstraction, although not without traces of humor and whimsy. His works are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the North Carolina Museum of Art. He taught at The New School for General Studies and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts for many years. Pearson was also greatly interested in literature and illustrated several poems by the Irish Nobel Prize–winning poet Seamus Heaney. His correspondence with Heaney, and his comprehensive collection of Heaney books, manuscripts and memorabilia, is now housed at the University of North Carolina. Pearson died in 2006 after a long illness.

The piece comes in its original card box that does show some damage from moisture exposure.  There is also an accompanying letter from the Marilyn Pearl Gallery in New York.  This is a press release from an exhibition of Pearson's work in 1988.  It is likely that this piece was purchased from the exhibition.  The letter describes Pearson's career and the exhibition.  The letter will accompany the artwork.

This is a great piece of modern art, and an early example of artist's work being sold through the MoMA gift store in New York. The piece is signed on its edge for having being made for, and sold at the MoMA store, in 1968.