Museum of California Design
The Museum of California Design is dedicated to exhibiting and documenting California’s extraordinary commercial design history: from cups to cars, from sideboards to surfboards, made of every conceivable material. We are the only museum dedicated exclusively to this purpose and, being a museum without walls, we achieve our goals through traveling exhibitions and public programming that further the understanding of how design affects the way we live.
Design is the art of the everyday, i.e. the form and function of commercial objects made for home, commerce, communications, and industry. Our exhibitions and educational programs demonstrate how California's innovative spirit has reflected, and often led, America's cultural and economic development, how it has shaped the way we have lived and how its influence continues to affect us. We devote particular attention to how design is created and to those who create it.
We are a museum without walls, but we mount innovative exhibitions in other venues including "California Pottery: From Missions to Modernism" at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, "California's Designing Women 1896-1986" at the Autry Museum and "Plastics from Paradise: California Modernizes the American Lifestyle" at the Palm Springs Convention Center.
In addition to our exhibitions and public programs we honor individuals and manufacturers with our Henry Award for outstanding contributions to design in California. The Museum also houses an archive of catalogs, photographs, books, working drawings and audio recordings that illustrate the creation, production and distribution processes that are essential aspects of developing the well-designed products we value in our daily lives.
Other California museums have the word “design” in their names but, unlike the Museum of California Design, their emphasis is either on art or architecture. We alone have the sole mission of honoring design created in California.
We hope that you will help us to continue to fulfill these goals.
Entrance to California's Designing Women 1896-1986, a Museum of California Design Exhibition at the Autry Museum, Los Angeles, August 10, 2012-January 6, 2013. Photo by Steve Aldana.
Partial view of California's Designing Women 1896-1986, a Museum of California Design Exhibition at the Autry Museum, Los Angeles, August 10, 2012-January 6, 2013. Photo by Steve Aldana.
Who We AreEXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Among Stern’s many publications are the books California Pottery: From Missions to Modernism and California’s Designing Women 1896-1986 and the essays “Edith Heath: Artist of the Everyday,” in Heath Ceramics: The Complexity of Simplicity, and “War and Peace: Unexpected Dividends” in the catalog of LACMA’s California Design 1930-1965: Living in a Modern Way. He has lectured on California's contribution to American commercial design at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the University of Southern California, the Japanese American National Museum, the Orange County Museum of Art, the Symposium of the American Ceramics Circle, the Getty Center, and elsewhere. CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER ADVISORY COUNCIL
Web site logo by Laura Lovett LETTERHEAD DESIGN FOUNDING MEMBERS EMERITI |
Our Benefactors$50,000 + $5,000-$24,999 $1,000–$4,999 $500-$999 $100–$499 DONORS TO THE PERMANENT COLLECTION DONORS OF GOODS AND SERVICES |
Exhibition Lenders and DonorsWe appreciate the generosity of those individuals and museums that have lent or donated objects to our exhibitions: COLLECTING CALIFORNIA DESIGN, at Palm Springs Convention Center, February 15-18, 2019 Gregg Fleishman PLASTICS FROM PARADISE: CALIFORNIA MODERNIZES THE AMERICAN LIFESTYLE, at Palm Springs Convention Center, February 17-20, 2017 The Atomic Bazaar FRANK GEHRY: 40 YEARS OF PRODUCT DESIGN 1972 TO 2012, at JF Chen @ 1135, October 25, 2015 – November 7, 2015 JF Chen CALIFORNIA’S DESIGNING WOMEN 1896-1986, Autry National Center, Los Angeles, August 10 2012 - January 6, 2013 Jerome and Evelyn Ackerman A SURVEY OF EAMES DESIGN FROM A SPLINT TO A CHAISE, Entenza House, Pacific Palisades, October 3, 2010 Joel Chen, JF Chen JEROME AND EVELYN ACKERMAN: DESIGNS FOR MODERN LIVING, Palm Springs Convention Center, February 13-15, 2009 Jerome and Evelyn Ackerman THE CLASSIC MODERNISM OF ARCHITECTURAL POTTERY, Palm Springs Convention Center February 16 – 18, 2007 Dean Crane MID-CENTURY MANDARIN: THE CLAY CANVASES OF TYRUS YU WONG, Craft and Folk Art Museum, July 14 - October 31, 2004 Irene Poon Andersen CALIFORNIA POTTERY: FROM MISSIONS TO MODERNISM, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, July 20 – October 14, 2001 Jerome and Evelyn Ackerman |