The Autry Museum
August 10, 2012 through January 6, 2013
Curated by Bill Stern
This exhibition is "a landmark of cultural legacy with the potential to inspire."
-- Jeffrey Head, Modern Magazine, Fall, 2012.
Exhibition (detail): furniture by Dorothy Schindele (center), c. 1952. Exhibition design by Alan Konishi and Patrick Frederickson. Photo by Larry Underhill.
This unprecedented exhibition focuses on the work of 46 of the many exceptional women who, working state-wide from San Francisco to San Diego, helped make California a preeminent center of American commercial design and fine craft. Among them are: Esther Bruton, Edith Heath, Dorothy C. Thorpe, Gertrud Natzler, Beatrice Wood, Ray Eames, Marilyn Kay Austin, Jade Snow Wong, Gere Kavanaugh, Deborah Sussman, Judith Hendler and April Greiman.
The combination of California’s climate of innovation, freedom from restrictive traditions and a highly competitive business climate provided creative and business opportunities for women designers which most likely would not have been available to them elsewhere. In California they helped transform the stereotypically female vocation of decorative arts into the gender-neutral realm of design with its frequent ties to industrial production and commerce.
The utilitarian and decorative objects in this exhibition reflect developments in an array of technologies from hand-cut wood block prints to computer-aided graphics and in materials from wood, metal, clay, paper, cloth and enamel to fiberglass and acrylics and in all the major aesthetic movements of the 20th century, from Art Nouveau to Mid-century Modern and beyond.
The exhibition is dedicated to the Museum's late board member Alan Jaffe.
"California's Designing Women: From Turn-of-the-Century Pioneers to Mid-Century Modernists", an article by Museum of California Design executive director Bill Stern, was featured in the catalogue of Palm Springs Modernism 2012. Read it here.
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- Elizabeth Eaton Burton United States, 1869-1937 Worked in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles Table lamp Circa 1910 Copper and shell Private collection Photo: www.1910metal.com
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- Ray Eames United States, 1912–1988 Worked in Los Angeles Magazine cover Arts & Architecture August 1943 University of California, Los Angeles Special Collections Photo: Museum of California Design
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- Marilyn Kay Austin United States, born 1940 Worked in Los Angeles Floor vase Circa 1962 Earthenware Architectural Pottery Collection of Bill Stern Photo: Susan Einstein
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- May Hamilton United States, 1886-1971 Vieve Hamilton United States, 1887-1976 Worked in Pasadena and Culver City Cosmic Bowl Circa 1936 earthenware Private Collection Photo: Peter Brenner
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- Judith Hendler United States, born 1941 Works in Huntington Beach Lemon Drops Necklace Circa 1984 Acrylic Acri-Gems Inc. Collection of Judith Hendler Photo: Mario Almarez
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- Margit Fellegi United States, 1903–1975 Worked in Los Angeles Scandal Suit Bathing suit 1965 Nylon knit jersey Cole of California Los Angeles County Museum of Art Photo: © 2011 Museum Associates/LACMA
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Esther Bruton (1896–1992) Worked in San Francisco and Santa Fe, NM Rabbit Hunt Floor screen Gold and silver leaf on wood Circa 1929
Photo: Museum of California Design
Esther Bruton was an artist, muralist, and advertising illustrator. Born in California and educated in New York and Paris, she returned to California to work as a fashion illustrator for the I. Magnin department store in San Francisco. She painted this screen while in Taos, New Mexico, in 1929. It was shown in an exhibition of work by Esther Bruton and her two sisters, Helen and Margaret, at Bullock’s Wilshire Gallery in Los Angeles in 1930 and at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco in 1932. This is its first museum showing.
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- Dorothy Thorpe United States, 1901-1989 Worked in Los Angeles Magnolia Tray Circa 1939 Lucite Dorothy C. Thorpe, Inc. Collection: Margaret Bach Photo: Lorca Cohen
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- May Hamilton de Causse United States, 1886–1971 Worked in Pasadena and Culver City Two Women Plaque Circa 1934 earthenware Hamilton Studio Private collection Photo: Susan Einstein
SCENES FROM THE EXHIBITION
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| Exhibition wall, Autry National Center.
Photo: Steve Aldana |
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Esther Bruton (1896–1992) Worked in San Francisco and Santa Fe, NM Rabbit Hunt Floor screen Gold and silver leaf on wood Circa 1929Photo: Museum of California DesignEsther Bruton was an artist, muralist, and advertising illustrator. Born in California and educated in New York and Paris, she returned to California to work as a fashion illustrator for the I. Magnin department store in San Francisco. She painted this screen while in Taos, New Mexico, in 1929. It was shown in an exhibition of work by Esther Bruton and her two sisters, Helen and Margaret, at Bullock’s Wilshire Gallery in Los Angeles in 1930 and at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco in 1932. This is its first museum showing. |
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| Ray Eames (1912–1988) Worked in Los Angeles Splint sculpture Molded plywood, circa 1943Photo: Museum of California DesignRay Eames, a native of California, collaborated with her husband on the design of some of the most widely used and influential designs of the twentieth century, including their revolutionary fiberglass and molded plywood chairs. But Ray also produced significant works under her own name. In the early 1940s she turned several of the Navy splints she and her husband designed into abstract sculptures. |
Wilmer James (1917–1999) Worked in Los Angeles 2 cache pots, 1 vase, earthenware, circa 1950Photo: Museum of California DesignWilmer James, one of California’s first African-American designers of commercial ceramics, learned the technique of producing crackle glazes while working for Barbara Willis in North Hollywood. After the importation of inexpensive European and Japanese ceramics, -- which had stopped during World War II, -- rebounded in the late 1950s, many California ceramics manufacturers, including James, went out of business. She went on to become a printmaker, a commercial artist and a prominent arts educator. |
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| Ellamarie Woolley (1913-1976) Worked in San Diego Twice Over Wall plaque, enamel on copper, circa 1972Photo: Courtesy Museum of California DesignThis two-dimensional piece produces the optical illusion of 3-dimensionality with the help of subtle color differences that produce the impression of shadowing. |
Furniture by Muriel Coleman (1917–2003) Worked in OaklandThe room-divider/shelf unit was made of surplus rebar and local redwood. Photo: Steve Aldana |
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