California Design, 1930-1965

In 1951, designer Greta Magnusson Grossman observed that California design was"not a superimposed style, but an answer to present conditions.... It has developed out of ourown preferences for living in a modern way." California design influenced the material cultureof the entire country, in everything from architecture to fashion. This generously illustrated book,which accompanies a major exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, is the firstcomprehensive examination of California's mid-century modern design. It begins by tracing theorigins of a distinctively California modernism in the 1930s by such European emigres as RichardNeutra, Rudolph Schindler, and Kem Weber; it finds other specific design influences and innovationsin solid-color commercial ceramics, inspirations from Mexico and Asia, new schools for designtraining, new concepts about leisure, and the conversion of wartime technologies to peacetime use(exemplified by Charles and Ray Eames's plywood and fiberglass furniture). The heart of CaliforniaDesign is the modern California home, famously characterized by open plans conducive to outdoorliving. The layouts of modernist homes by Pierre Koenig, Craig Ellwood, and Raphael Soriano, forexample, were intended to blur the distinction between indoors and out. Homes were furnished withproducts from Heath Ceramics, Van Keppel-Green, and Architectural Pottery as well as other,previously unheralded companies and designers. Many objects were designed to be multifunctional:pool and patio furniture that was equally suitable indoors, lighting that was both task and ambient,bookshelves that served as room dividers, and bathing suits that would turn into ensemblesappropriate for indoor entertainment. California Design includes 350 images, most in color, offurniture, ceramics, metalwork, architecture, graphic and industrial design, film, textiles, andfashion, and ten incisive essays that trace the rise of the California design aesthetic.

Wendy Kaplan is Department Head and Curator of Decorative Arts and Design at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.