Very late Weekend Stuff. It was good stuff too.
Hard to find double VKG daybed, AP, Sori Yanagi elephant stools and Isamu Noguchi lamp.
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Weekend / Stuff
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Wigwam Motel / Route 66
Wigwam Motel on former Route 66 in San Bernardino. This is one of three surviving examples of a concept created by Frank A. Redford. These type of roadside attractions were an obvious insensitive exploitation and whitewashing of Native American heritage. Even the name illustrates this sort of cultural homogenization. A wigwam is actually more of a dome shape compared to the co-opted teepee form used by Redford.
There are conflicting stories regarding where Redford's inspiration for the design came from. This 1946 article in the San Bernardino Sun said he lived on a reservation as a boy. Although If he really did grow up on a Sioux Indian reservation you would think he may have known the difference between a wigwam and teepee.
A few other sources state he was inspired by a teepee restaurant in long Beach. Some say an ice cream stand but perhaps it was Teepee BBQ that was on 2nd Street and Covina Avenue?
Source: Monovisions
This location would be the last "Wigwam Village"built. Frank lived in a larger on the property until his death in 1957. Hailing from Kentucky, he started his venture in Horse Cave, Kentucky in 1933. It was a lunchroom and gas station that he later added motel rooms to. Here is a full list:
#1: Horse Cave, Kentucky - 1933
#2: Cave City, Kentucky - 1937
#3: New Orleans, Louisiana - 1940
#4: Orlando, Florida (Built by Jerry Kinsley) - 1948
#5: Bessemer, Alabama - 1940
#6: Holbrook, Arizona (Built by Charles E. Lewis) - 1950
#7: San Bernardino, California - 1949
Only a few were actually built by Frank. The rest were licensed out and he received royalties because Redford actually received a patent for his "wigwam" building technique. This was his second patent. The first was a 1936 Design Patent that looks identical to the BBQ restaurant in Long Beach.
The property was restored in 2005 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2012.
Wigwam Motel Since 1949.
Hopefully we've learned a lot since then.
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Weekend / Stuff
Happy New Year
Wood vase by Roger Sloan
Jack Boyd buckle
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Weekend / Stuff
Slim pickings but at least it was two of my favorites...
Jean Balmer
Jack Boyd
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Books / Books
JACK ROGERS HOPKINS: California Design Maverick
Curated by Katie Nartonis and Jeffrey Head, “Jack Rogers Hopkins: California Design Maverick" highlights the life and work of the late San Diego based maker.
The book is filled with never before seen period photos, drawings and ephemera from the Hopkins family.
Dave Hampton wrote a section that covers Hopkins' history and place in San Diego.
OBJECTS: USA 2020 revisits the 1969 groundbreaking exhibition, Objects: USA.
The book looks at the history of the original exhibition curated by Lee Nordness.
It includes updated biographies on 50 artists from the original exhibition.
Contemporary artists, such as my very good friend Tanya Aguiñiga, are included in the new volume by R & Company. They will also have an exhibition at their New York Gallery.
Hood Century: 16 Modern Architecture Style Flashcards
The Object in Its Place - Ted Cohen & the Art of Exhibition Design
This book focuses on the creative life and lessons of the prominent 92-year old museum exhibition designer, Ted Cohen. Over his career, he created over 800 exhibitions for nearly 30 museums, as well as installations in hospitals and private collections. The book was designed by Signe S. Mayfield and published by Mingei International Museum, San Diego, in association with the Oakland Museum of California and Museum of Craft and Design, San Francisco, and in cooperation with Fine Arts Press.
They used a photo I took at the Mingei exhibition, In the Realm of Nature: Bob Stocksdale & Kay Sekimachi
Donald Judd Spaces is the first visual survey of the spaces which comprise Judd Foundation in New York and Texas. This publication includes newly commissioned and previously unpublished archival photographs alongside five essays by the artist.
Aalto through a Judd at Spring Street.
It comes with a Judd box ; )
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Weekend /Stuff
La Gardo Tackett, Kay Bojeson big guy, Isamu Noguchi
Tom McMillin
Dora De Larios
For books
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Weekend / Stuff
Malcolm Leland for Architectural Pottery, La Gardo Tackett, Design Line, Dansk, Timo Sarpaneva.
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Weekend / Stuff
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Domes / InnerConn Technology
I found myself at the Domes of Casa Grande again. This is an update to my 2015 visit when my friend Kristen wrote a guest post about the domes.
Just as an overview, InnerConn Technology, a circuit board manufacturer from Mountain View, California planned to move their manufacturing facilities 10 miles south of Casa Grande, Arizona. The company created a subsidiary called Dome Industrial & Homebuilders Inc. They planned to build the dome project in three phases, the first was the office, then then manufacturing plant and housing would come next. Unfortunately, they never moved beyond a short-lived office phase. The domes have sit vacant since 1982.
The domes during construction in 1982.
Source: Arizona Daily Star
Source: Casa Grande Dispatch
Source: Casa Grande Dispatch
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Weekend / Stuff
Robert Maxwell, David Stewart and some Scandi-smalls.
La Gardo Tackett for Architectural Pottery
Alexander Girard fabric
Pottery Shack yard stick.
Pottery Shack was located on Coast Highway in South Laguna. It was established in 1936 with a truckload of Bauer factory seconds. In addition to production California dinnerware like Metlox, Vernon, Red Wing and Harker; they held pottery and glass blowing demonstrations. The work from the demonstrations was then sold in the shop.
If you've done much ceramic shopping in California, you have no doubt turned a few pots over to find "Pottery Shack" and a last name inscribed into the bottom. Some of them are decent and some not so much. Singleton is a name often seen, who turns out to be Rita. Lyman is another, but Taylor is the only one I could find a little information on.
Here's Jack Taylor at his Pottery Shack wheel in 1963. He moved to Laguna Beach in 1945. Trained as a painter, he had never thrown a pot before moving to Laguna. He went on to form the Laguna Beach Crafts Guild in the 1970s.
Eiler Larsen, "The Greeter" was also a fixture at the Pottery Shack. The "Danish Vagabond" was posted up out on the street and welcomed visitors as they drove by. In addition to receiving free rent from generous residents of Laguna, he also did some gardening for Pottery Shack.
In 1972 Pier 1 Imports purchased the operating assets of Pottery Shack from the Childs family, who founded the company. Pier 1 used the Pottery Shack model and created Pottery Plus, which had 5 stores in Texas and Oklahoma. The model failed and they gave up on it in 1980. During that time Pottery Shack was still running independently. Pier 1 sold the business in 2004. In 2006, after two years of caring renovation, It was then redeveloped into multiple shops and renamed to The Old Pottery Place.
A statue of Eiler that Pottery Shack commissioned in the 1950's is still there. Although at some point in the 2000's they altered his face to make it less scary to children. Read more about him here.
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Weekend / Stuff
Jack Boyd X 2 and George Nelson ("Numbers", 1959 designed by George Nelson Office Associate Don Ervin)
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Greta Von Nessen / Anywhere Lamp
Greta von Nessen (December 6, 1898 – 1975) The Swedish designer was a graduate of the School for Industrial Arts in Stockholm. She met her german-born husband Walter when he was in Stockholm working for Greta’s father, a prominent architect. Greta and Walter moved to the US in 1925 and they established Nessen Studio in 1927.
In 1936 Walter designed the now prolific swing arm lamp. For some reason MoMA dates the lamp at 1927 but all the sources I've found say 1936.
Photo: MoMA
Or did he? Walter gets all the credit but perhaps he shouldn't.
Source: Baltimore Sun, 1952
This also seems to suggest that Greta should be given some credit for the "famous Von Nessen swing arm".
During WWII Greta worked as a multilingual operator with The United States Office of War Information (OWI). Walter died in 1943. She reopened Nessen Studio in 1945 and continued designing lamps. She said the only tradition she believed in is that of sound design and uncompromising quality.
Source: Daily News, 1950
Source: Miami News, 1949
Here is Greta mixing it up with Marcel Breuer, Kurt Versen and Yasha Heifetz.
Source: The Gazette, 1949
Her designs were selected for MoMA Good Design Exhibitions, including the "Anywhere Lamp" in 1951.
Source: MoMA
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Weekend / Stuff
George Nelson vanity stool, early Jens Quistgaard bowl, David Cressey, Greta von Nessen Anywhere Lamp and a big crackle glaze bowl (more on that later).
It's a baby Cressey. This Pro Artisan flamed glazed pot is a John Follis form.
More clay
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Goldberg / Glen Lukens
This weekend I bought a crackle glaze ceramic bowl. With a 20" diameter, the scale is impressive. The first thing I thought of was Glen Lukens. The glaze and shallow bowl form seem so related.
The clay looks right.
Upon turning it over, I see it's signed Goldberg. It's a great signature too.
The obvious next step is to look for a Goldberg who studied under Lukens.
A lot of well-known ceramicists were taught by Lukens. This includes Doyle Lane, Beatrice Wood, Myrton Purkiss and F. Carlton Ball. Someone considerably more famous than all of them, but not as a ceramist, also took his ceramics class. That was a 19 year old Frank Gehry.
More about the Luken's Soriano house, which I visited a couple years ago, is here.
So I obviously knew about the link between Gehry and Lukens, but what I didn't know is...
"Frank Goldberg" changed his name to "Frank Gehry" in 1954, the same year he graduated from the USC School of Architecture. He changed it due to the antisemitism he experienced during his childhood. His name at birth was actually Ephraim Owen Goldberg. He was given the Hebrew name "Ephraim" by his grandfather, but only used it at his bar mitzvah.
And here's a young Frank.
Source: USC School of Architecture
In 2010 the Frank Lloyd gallery mounted a ceramics exhibition called Frank Gehry Selects. This is the Lukens Gehry selected for the exhibition. The group ceramics show also included work by John Mason, Ken Price, Peter Voulkos, Billy Al Bengston, Elsa Rady, Peter Shire, Glen Lukens, George Ohr, and Frank Gehry himself. Frank Llyod has really had some amazing exhibitions.
From the Frank Lloyd website: When Frank Gehry took a ceramics class in college, it marked a turning point. His ceramics teacher at the University of Southern California, Glen Lukens, clearly recognized Gehry’s interest in architecture. Since Lukens was building a house designed by architect Raphael Soriano, he invited the young Gehry to visit the site one day. That’s when Gehry got excited about architecture: “I do know a lightbulb went off when I saw Soriano,” he recalled.Since that time, Gehry has maintained his interest in ceramics, too. He made ceramic works during his student days at USC, and he has collected work by Glen Lukens, Ken Price and George Ohr. He has been friends with Peter Voulkos, John Mason, Billy Al Bengston and Elsa Rady for decades. He was the architect for the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum in Biloxi, Mississippi, as well, and that museum will hold a collection of pottery by George Ohr.
More about the exhibition here.
Here is a Gehry piece from the exhibition, with the obvious Lukens influence. I wonder if it was signed Goldberg?
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Weekend / Stuff
Stools by Henry P. Glass
David Stewart creamer and two more Japanese books from a set that focuses on design details.
Here is my whole set.
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Weekend / Stuff
Maxwell Yellen stool and various smalls
Vivika and Otto Heino
Sori Yanagi
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Weekend / Stuff
Kipp Stewart and Stewart MacDougall for Glenn of California, Apple by Ingeborg Lundin for Orrefors, Arthur Umanoff stool and an Earthgender planter
La Gardo Tackett
Smalls
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Weekend / Stuff
Danish Pepper Mills, Hans Agne Jakobsson lamp, Gambone, Peter Shire bowls from 1984, bowl by Christian Luc
Table by Archie Kaplan for New Dimensions Furniture and a lamp
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California Designed 1955 / Long Beach Museum of Art
CA Designed 1955 at the Long Beach Museum of Art
Museums are opening back up and I was happy an exhibition I missed last year was still up at the LBMA.
The title wall.
Here's the catalog for the original 1955 exhibition. It was a collaboration between the Long Beach Municipal Art Center (now LBMA) and the M.H. de Young Museum in San Francisco. The exhibitions ran simultaneously. Campbell and Wong designed the exhibition at the de Young.
The 1955 Long Beach exhibition was juried by John Entenza, editor of Arts and Architecture Magazine; Greta Grossman, designer; Richard Petterson, ceramist; Samuel Heavenrich. the Long Beach Municipal Art Center director of CALIFORNIA DESIGNED.
I did a little post on the original California Designed in 2012.
As you can see in the top photo, there is a Marshmallow Sofa right at the beginning of the exhibition. The exhibition is called California Designed 1955 and George Nelson was an east coaster and the manufacturer, Herman Miller, was and still is headquartered in Michigan. Products were to have been designed or manufactured in California and not appeared on the market prior to 1954. So how does this make sense?
I guess if they did it in 1955 then I have to cut them some slack today. Pretty sneaky to list Herman Miller as being in Venice, CA. Technically yes, but I doubt much Herman Miller, outside of Eames designs, were actually made in California and they certainly weren't designed there.
I'm not sure how this Gerrit Rietveld Zig Zag chair fits into the equation. The Dutch designer had a huge influence on Modernism but I'm not aware of any connection to California. It was also designed in the early 1930's so it doesn't work with the 1955 date either. Enough nitpicking, the exhibition is actually great. I also learned about some new California designers.
The Eames were well represented and that's a grouping of really nice Natzlers on the left.
The exhibition in 1955 had some nice ones as well.
The exhibition design is really nice. The objects not being under acrylic or glass covers really lets you appreciate the finishes.
There are a number of Rupert Deese pieces.
I've never seen a Deese bird before.
Peter Voulkos
It's nice to see Joel Edwards in the spotlight.
He was there in 1955.
Another Edwards vase. A pair of John Kapel candlesticks are in the background.
Funny thing about the Kapel candlesticks is they were in the 1956 California Designed and not 1955.
More about that later.
George Nelson desk and Evelyn Ackerman mosaics.
Here is the Ackerman in the 1956 California Designed catalog.
It was actually being shown in a different exhibition on women artists on the upper floor.
Glass plates by Zella Marggraf. This was new name to me although I probably should have known her since she had work in a number of the Pasadena Art Museum "California Design" exhibitions. The first Pasadena "California Design" exhibition started a few months earlier than "California Designed".
Florence Thomas was another new name for me.
She was shown right alongside Ellamarie and Jackson Woolley in 1955.
I would have liked to see a Malcolm Leland lantern in the present day exhibition.
1955 exhibition photo
Source: Long Beach Independence
I'm not sure how this Eero Saarinen set by Knoll set snuck in.
I assumed this was by Maria Kipp but it's by Helen Wunder. She was a San Francisco based weaver. Cal-Craft made the room dividers that were shown in the 1956 exhibition. Wunder became the vice president of Shades Inc, which produced similar work. This makes me wonder (punny I know) about all the lampshades Kipp gets credit for.
Speaking of Maria Kipp, here is a weaving by her above a Sam Maloof table.
Maloof had a whole page in the 1955 catalog.
Eames!
Eames!
Eames!
This exhibition was really well done, despite my nitpicking. I believe all the pieces came from the museum's own collection which may explain the inclusion of some pieces that in my opinion don't really fit into the CA Designed 1955 exhibition title.
The exhibition is on view until May 16th, so make an appointment soon.
This Claire Falkenstein and a few others are also part of the LBMA collection.
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Weekend / Stuff
Pacific Iron Products table, Soleri bell, Howard Miller clock, Isamu Noguchi, Japanese lamps and Italian ceramics.
Rick Dillingham and Doyle Lane
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