California Design

On Saturday I visited the Auckland Art Gallery for its California Design exhibition, which was originally curated by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Subtitled 1930-1965: Living in a Modern Way, the exhibition provides a broad overview of design styles that dominated in the style-conscious and increasingly affluent world of mid-20th century California, where new ideas percolated into the national and international consciousness. Included in the exhibition is a range of highlights from key design genres, particularly classics like architecture (Neutra, Lloyd Wright, Laszlo and the influential Case Study Houses), furniture design (Eames!) and fashion. There was also a brief clip from the lovely and evocative Disney 1957 educational short, Our Friend the Atom, which set the scene for the gee-whiz Jetsons lifestyle that fuelled so much of the imaginative - if sometimes impractical - home design of the period.

Here's a few photographs from the exhibition, which closed on Sunday. Note that if this infringes any copyright I will remove the images on request - just leave a note in the comments below.

Lawson Time's 'Zephyr' clock, c.1938

Fujiye Fujikawa, 1942
(Designed whilst interned in Wyoming)

Released 1956

Mary Ann DeWeese, 1961

Cedric Gibbons' art direction Oscar for The Bridge of San Luis Rey, 1929
(Gibbons designed the Oscar statuette)

ESU (Eames Storage Unit), c.1949

See also:
Photography: Who Shot Rock & Roll, 1 January 2013
Art: New Zealand posters by young German artists, 30 June 2012
Art: Auckland's old new art gallery, 7 September 2011