Southern California Architectural History

The Auto Club of Southern California was founded in 1900 by a group of automobile enthusiasts with a mission of providing member services such as organizing social activities, sponsoring car races and lobbying to spend public money to improve roads. The house organ, Touring Topics, began publishing in February of 1909. (see premiere issue below from the Auto Club web site). The Club began installing sign posts to aid motorists and creating maps to guide tourists to the area’s beaches, mountains and desert resorts.

Premiere issue of Touring Topics, February, 1909 (from the Auto Club web site)

By 1920, Touring Topics had become the West Coast’s most popular periodical for motorists and a major force in local and regional issues impacting the driving public. Southern California’s dramatic growth in the 1920s and the editorship of Phil Townsend Hanna beginning in 1926 took the magazine in a new direction.

Hanna was born on August 24, 1896 in Los Angeles. He attended University of Southern California and worked for the  Los Angeles Tribune from 1915-16, was night city editor, then night editor for the Los Angeles Times from 1917-1919, manager of the Los Angeles Bureau of the Associated Press from 1919-20, editor of Western Highway Builder for six years beginning in 1920, and art editor in 1922 and editor in 1926 of Touring Topics (Westways after 1934).

Hanna was a regular at the salons, exhibits, and discussions centered around Jake Zeitlin’s bookstore and gallery in downtown Los Angeles (see below). He was also a prominent member of the  Zamorano Club, producers of the now legendary California rare book list, The Zamorano 80.

 

Jake Zeitlin’s Bookstore, Lloyd Wright, Architect (from LA’s Early Moderns and Dept. of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA).

Once Hanna became editor he started commissioning works from among his literary and artistic friends from the Zeitlin circle including Paul Landacre (see below), Edward Weston, Henrietta Shore, Will Connell, Grace Marion Brown and many others. During his 30 year tenure as a successful arbiter of West Coast taste, the magazine became culturally important in it’s own right and was deemed a reliable venue for art, photography, literature, food and wine while still effectively promoting automotive tourism.

“Bundle-Stiff’s Dream,” by Jake Zeitlin, Paul Landacre illustration. Touring Topics, February 1929, p. 11. (From my collection).

LA’S Early Moderns by Victoria Dailey, Natalie Shivers and Michael Dawson, Balcony Press, 2003 (from my collection).

 

Victoria Dailey’s essay, “Art, Naturally Modern” from the above highly recommended LA’S Early Moderns covers this period of LA’s rich avant-garde past very effectively. She provides an excellent comparison of Touring Topics and California Arts & Architecture and both publication’s importance in bringing modernism in all its forms to a broader audience in 1930s Los Angeles.

 

Touring Topics, July, 1929, “On Sentinel Dome, Yosemite” by Evylena Nunn Miller. (from my collection).

Hanna commissioned painters such as Evylena Nunn Miller (see above), Conrad Buff (see below), Carl Oscar Borg, Grace Marion Brown, Alson Clark, Millard Sheets, Henrietta Shore (see below), Alvin Lustig and Maynard Dixon (see later below) to produce Western landscapes for the cover in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Shore, a close friend and confidant of Edward Weston who advised her to travel to Mexico for inspiration and attracted her to move to Carmel in 1930 shortly after his move there, had her first group of lithographs exhibited at Zeitlin’s Bookshop in September 1928.

 

Touring Topics, June 1932, “Grand Canyon” by Conrad Buff. From The Art and Life of Conrad Buff by Will South, George Stern Fine Arts, 2000, p. 56.

Left, Conrad Buff and Maynard Dixon in southern Utah and right, Conrad Buff portrait of Maynard Dixon, ca. 1939. From The Art and Life of Conrad Buff by Will South, George Stern Fine Arts, 2000, p. 58.

Photographer unknown (Edward Weston?), Henrietta Shore painting a Cypress Root, Carmel, n.d. Published in Touring Topics, December, 1929, p. 9. (From Henrietta Shore: A Retrospective Exhibition: 1900-1963, Monterey Peninsula Museum of Modern Art, 1986, p. 30).

 

Henrietta Shore, California Cacti, Touring Topics, December 1929. (From L.A.’s Early Moderns, p. 57.

Maynard Dixon was called upon to do all twelve covers of Touring Topics in 1930 with a theme of transportation in the American West. Hanna more than likely decided on hiring Dixon after viewing his exhibition at Zeitlin’s bookshop gallery in January of 1929. Dixon’s series for Touring Topics spanned centuries in a single year, starting with January’s Indian Burden-Bearers to December’s The Airplane. See the June cover with Pony Express below. Hanna’s sponsorship was crucial to Dixon during a slow period in his sales. The covers commission enabled Dixon and his wife, photographer Dorothea Lange, to relocate to Taos, where he produced some of his now famous images of American Indians. For more on the Hanna-Dixon commissions see From Packhorse to Packard by John Ott.

Touring Topics, July, 1930, “Overland Stage” by Maynard Dixon. (from my collection).

Touring Topics, June, 1930, “Pony Express” by Maynard Dixon. (from my collection).

In the same June, 1930 issue of Touring Topics Hanna included an 8-page Rotogravure Section featuring “The Photography of Edward Weston” by Merle Armitage (see below), both of whom were also involved in the Zeitlin salon circle of artists, writers and architects. Dailey characterizes Armitage as “impressario, collector, manager, publisher, writer, epicure and booster.” (LA’S Early Moderns, p.54).  Zeitlin’s second exhibition in his bookshop gallery was of Weston’s work. Armitage was also a fan and promoter of Henrietta Shore’s work which was also featured in the Rotogravure Section during 1930. Armitage also produced the first monograph of Shore’s work in 1933. (See below).

 

Henrietta Shoreby Merle Armitage, E. Weyhe, New York, 1933. (From Designed Books by Merle Armitage, E. Weyhe, New York, 1938, p. 116).

 

 

Will Connell portrait of Merle Armitage and Jake Zeitlin, ca. 1930. (From L.A.’s Early Moderns, p. 45).

The Photography of Edward Weston by Merle Armitage, , June, 1930 issue of Touring Topics. (from my collection) .

 

 

The Daybooks of Edward Weston, II Californiaedited by Nabcy Newhall, Aperture, 1973. (from my collection).

Armitage, like L.A. Times art critic Arthur Millier, became a huge Weston fan immediately upon exposure to his work. See Weston’s California Daybook above for much on the Armitage-Millier-Weston-Shore relationships. Armitage was the driving force behind Edward Weston’s first monograph (see below) published in 1932 which has become one of the most important American photography books of the 20th century. Armitage designed the book and the printing was done by Lynton Kistler. Weston’s close friend Ramiel McGehee edited the literary contributions by Charles Sheeler, Lincoln Steffens, Arthur Millier, and Jean Charlot. The quality of the full page reproductions of Weston’s work was unprecedented for the time. Armitage was also responsible for finding Weston work with the Public Works of Art Project, Southern California Region of which he was the director during 1934. (See my California Arts & Architecture: A Steppingstone to Fame: Harwell Hamilton Harris and John Entenza: Two Case Studies for more on Armitage’s modernizing influence on California Arts & Architecture).

Edward Weston by Merle Armitage, E. Weyhe, New York, 1932. (From Designed Books by Merle Armitage, E. Weyhe, New York, 1938, p. 97).

Schindler, Pauline, “Carmel Hours,” Touring Topics, November 1931. Photos by Edward Weston.

Mildred Lewis Wilson painting, Touring Topics, July 1933. (From my collection).

Alvin Lustig cover design, Touring Topics, May 1933. From Born Modern: The Life and Design of Alvin Lustig by Steven Heller and Elaine Lustig Cohen, Chronicle Books, 2010, p. 23.

An 18-year old Alvin Lustig sent an unsolicited cover design to Hanna in early 1933 (see above) which was to become his first published illustration, no less the cover of a prestigious regional publication. Hanna presciently recognized Lustig’s burgeoning talent as he also allowed the graphic design prodigy to “talk his way into” a job as the magazine’s art director. With only a high school education and no practical experience, he was given a title that would look good on any veteran designer’s resume. (Heller, p. 22 and California Arts & Architecture: A Steppingstone to Fame: Harwell Hamilton Harris and John Entenza: Two Case Studies).

Hanna changed the name of the magazine from Touring Topics to Westways in 1934, the same year he hired UCLA librarian Lawrence Clark Powell to start writing regular book reviews. (see Westways masthead below). In February 1935, the magazine ran an essay by a young M.F.K. Fisher, the first published work of a woman who would go on to become one of the country’s most influential food writers.

Lamont, Barbara, “California’s Castles in the Air”, Westways, 1934. Courtesy Los Angeles Public Library.

Barbara Lamont, author of the above article, “California’s Castles in the Air” featuring a Richard Neutra rendering of a proposed penthouse in the Hollywood Hills was a frequent contributor to Touring Topics and Westways on architecture and housing during the 1930s. (See my related Neutra’s “Skyline Apartments” Penthouse, Westways, 1934).

 

Robert Sterner cover design. Westways, February 1934. (From my collection).

The February 1934 issue above features an article by Pauline Schindler, “Oceano Dunes and Their Mystics,” which describes the Dune’s colorful inhabitants and a new publication. Dune Forum, which she co-edited with Ellen Janson for publisher Gavin Arthur, grandson of former president Chester A. Arthur. (See my Pauline Gibling Schindler: Vagabond Agent for Modernism, 1927-1936 for a more detailed discussion.)

Schindler, Pauline, “Oceano Dunes and Their Mystics”, Westways, February 1934, pp. 12-13, 36. (From my collection).

Photographer unknown, Westways, January 1937. (From my collection).

The January 1937 number of Westways happened to include an early photograph by fledgling architectural photographer Julius Shulman. The Dunes photo (below left) features his soon-to-be wife Emma beautifully composed within the curve of the meandering ridgeline and described in the caption as”…a gentle work of genius held in restraint.”

Julius Shulman, Dunes, Westways, January 1937, p. 26. (From my collection). 

Raymond Winters cover design, Westways, November 1935. (From my collection).

Paul Landacre, ca. 1934. Courtesy Willam Powell Clark Memorial Library. (From L.A.’s Early Moderns, p. 88).

 

Paul Landacre was an intimate of the Jake Zeitlin circle which included Carey McWilliams, photographers Edward Weston and Will Connell, architect Lloyd Wright, and writer-librarian Lawrence Clark Powell and Touring Topics editor Phil Townsend Hanna. Landacre had one of his first public showings in 1930 at Zeitlin’s bookshop, which at the time was one of the earliest venues in Los Angeles exhibiting modernist works. (See earlier).

Paul Landacre, Glendale Blvd. Bridge, Westways, September 2009. (First appeared on the cover of the May 1936 issue).

Landacre’s work first appeared in Touring Topics in August 1928; the series of woodblock prints accompanied the article “We Had a Lovely Ride!,” written by his wife, Margaret McCreery. In February 1929, a Landacre print illustrated a Zeitlin poem titled “Bundle-Stiff’s Dream.” More Touring Topics illustrations followed. Landacre’s first Westways cover, a wood engraving of the Glendale Boulevard Bridge (see above), ran in the May 1936 number. (Morgan P. Yates, “The Artistry of Printmaking,” Westways, September 2009). Landacre’s biggest splash to date came in 1939, when Hanna commissioned him to produce six wood engravings of birds for consecutive Westways covers from July through December. (See below ad).

Paul Landacre woodblock print. Westways, December 1939. (From my collection).

Paul Landacre cover designs in ad, Westways, December 1939, p. 18). (From my collection).

From an early age, Landacre had developed a love of nature, particularly birds. He spent many hours observing the birds attracted to the custom birdbaths and feeders he installed in the large yard surrounding the house he and Margaret occupied just east of Silver Lake. He even charted the activities of individual birds as they returned to the yard over several seasons. These close observations and the heartfelt affinity for his feathered friends must have made the Westways bird covers an especially pleasing project. Landacre created a stylized black petrel bird symbol, which appeared in the margins on many of his prints.

Photographer unknown), Westways, August, 1937. (From my collection).

 

From 1934 to 1939, Hanna hired another personality from the Zeitlin crowd, Carey McWilliams, a young lawyer and journalist, to write the new Tides West column. (see masthead below). For a nice piece on this see Tides West: The Coming of Age of Carey McWilliams by historian Kevin Starr at the following link.

 

“Tides West” masthead, Westways, November, 1937. George Peterson photo. (from my collection).

 

Of course, McWilliams would go on to pen Southern California Country: An Island in the Land after cutting his literary teeth under Hanna’s editorship at Westways. McWilliams’ opus is one of the most cited books on Southern California written to date and is still a wonderful read. I finally got around to reading it a couple months ago and certainly recommend it to anyone with an interest in our rich and colorful history. The first edition in collectible dust jacket is very hard to find. McWilliams acknowledges the mentorship he received from both Hanna and Zeitlin in the foreword.

 

Southern California Country: An Island in the Land by Carey McWilliams, Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1946. (from my collection).

Endpapers from Southern California Country: An Island in the Land by Carey McWilliams, Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1946. (from my collection).

 

Even though Hanna paid increasing attention to the arts and literature, he continued to promote automotive tourism with photo essays of the Southwest and Mexico. Writers and prominent photographers, including Will Connell, Ansel Adams, and Edward Weston documented their journeys for Westways. Together they created a historical photographic record of California. Hanna commissioned Weston, for example, to do a 21-part series, Seeing California with Edward Weston which was published in 1937 and 1938 (see below). Hanna paid Weston $50.00 per month for 8-10 photos while he was also on a $2,000 Guggenheim fellowship. The fee made possible the purchase of a new Ford V-8 sedan for the trip. Reenactment footage of Edward and Charis Wilson on their Guggenheim travels can be seen in the film on Edward and Charis’s relationship, Eloquent Nude: The Love and Legacy of Edward Weston and Charis Wilson.

 

Edward Weston photographs, Westways, November, 1937 issue. (from my collection).

 

Seeing California with Edward Weston, a collection of the 21 Westways articles from the Guggenheim travels, was published in 1939 by the Automobile Club of Southern California. (see below). (See my related “The Sands of Time: The Oceano Dunes and the Westons“).

Seeing California with Edward Weston, Automobile Club of Southern California, 1939.

In the late 1930s Hanna hired Jack Courtney to write a monthly housing column, In and About the House. Below we see the first published appearance of the C. H. Edwards House designed by Gregory Ain, another one of LA’S Early Moderns, who also worked on a house for Galka Scheyer while in the employ of Richard Neutra, both of whom were also in the Zetlin crowd. Scheyer commissioned Ain to design the second story addition to her house after he left the Neutra office and started out on his own.

 

Westways, November, 1937 (from my collection).

Farewells to Phil Townsend Hanna, by Members of the Sunset Club, the Wine and Food Society, and the Zamorano Club of Los Angeles, 1957. (From my collection).

Touring Topics and Westways, under Phil Townsend Hanna from 1926 until his death in 1957, mirrored the culture and lifestyle of Southern California. Not only was Hanna an important tastemaker of sorts and author and publisher in his own right, he played a major role in keeping artists and writers fed during the Great Depression with his commissions for cover and article art work. Hanna was revered by his friends in the Automobile Club of Southern California, Sunset Club, Wine and Food Society, California Club, California Historical Society, Huntington Library, Southwest Museum, Claremont Colleges and the Zamorano Club of Los Angeles evidenced by the above publication for his June 4, 1957 memorial service in the Church of the Recessional at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale. The booklet, printed in a limited edition of 500 copies at the Press of Anderson, Ritchie & Simon included tributes by Marcus Esketh Crahan, J. E. Fishburn, Jr., Lawrence Clark Powell, and Pierson M. Hall.

Past issues of Touring Topics and Westways have not only achieved collectible status but have become an important source of regional history for scholars and authors. An exhibition featuring the magazine’s cover art Scenic View Ahead: The Westways Cover Art Program 1929-1981 is currently on display at the Pasadena Museum of California Art through February 27, 2011. (See below).

Matthew W. Roth, “The Westways Cover Art Program, 1928-1981,” Westways, November/December 2010, pp. cover, 52-55.

Special Centennial Issue, Westways, January/February 2009.

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(Click on images to enlarge)

Exhibition poster (see above and below) scanned from “Jerrold E. Lomax, FAIA: The First 80 Years” a MODAA exhibition catalog published by Studio Pali Fekete Architects. (Zoltan Pali was a former Lomax employee). Originally published in the May 1976 issue of L.A. Architect. (from my collection)

The twelve architects featured in the exhibition were Roland Coate, Daniel Dworsky, Craig Ellwood, Frank Gehry, John Lautner, Jerrold Lomax, Anthony Lumsden, Leroy Miller, Cesar Pelli, James Pulliam, and Bernard Zimmerman. Not all are all household names in the field today but at the time were more than an adequate cross-section to provide a snapshot of what was happening on the L.A. architectural scene.

An all-day conference was held in the Pacific Design Center on May 22 in conjunction with the exhibition. Julius Shulman presented a slide lecture “Los Angeles – The Early Years” followed by morning and afternoon panel discussions featuring half of the participants. (See schedule below). The conference was reported on by Shelly Kappe in the July 1976 issue of L.A. Architect. She included some interesting quotes from British architectural critic Charles Jencks and noted Chicago architect Stanley Tigerman who were both in attendance.

L.A. Times staff writer John Dreyfuss provided an in-depth review of the exhibition in the May 23 issue titled “Work and Philosophy of 12 Architects.” He reported that each architect was provided a 75-foot-long, 5-foot-high rack on which 13 20-inch-square panels provided project photos and firm information. The exhibition also included two slide projectors flashing images of the architect’s projects and two videotape machines providing five-minute discourses on the design philosophy of each participant. Several models augmented the overall display. Dreyfuss also commented on the work and philosophy of each participant. The exhibition traveled to the Aspen Design Conference and Cal Poly Pomona and the 1977 national AIA convention in San Diego.

Dreyfuss followed up with an article on August 14, 1977 titled “The L.A. 12: Good Idea Which Has Gone Nowhere.” Dreyfuss lamented on the lost opportunity formation of this group provided such as: bringing recognition to Southern California architecture, bringing architects together to discuss their work, encouraging and inspiring young architects, generating articles in the professional journals and popular press, and organizing conferences within the AIA and with architects from other cities and countries. Dreyfuss cited as an example how much the 12 architects had learned from each other just by participating in the exhibition and related discussions.

Dreyfuss continued stating that “There is a lack of communication among Southern California architects, a gap that could be filled if the L.A. 12 continued to meet.” This was seconded by Cesar Pelli who left L.A. to become Dean of the Yale University School of Architecture who said “In the East, architects are in close contact with each other. They exchange ideas frequently, both informally and through organizations. This is the key thing. As your thoughts develop, they are being examined.”

“12 Los Angeles Architects” edited by N. Charles Slert and James R. Harter, Photographic Consultants: Julius Shulman and Marvin Rand, 1978, Cal Poly Pomona. (from my collection)

The publication of “12 Los Angeles Architects” (see above) in 1978 coincided with a year-long lecture series “Twelve Architects / Twelve Months” in the Knoll Showroom at the Pacific Design Center sponsored by the Architectural Student Forum of the Student Chapter/AIA of Cal Poly Pomona. My partner Beth Kudlicki fondly remembers this series as she was showroom manager for Knoll during this period. Each of the 12 architects featured in the “The Los Angeles 12″ exhibition lectured in the series. This was possibly a response to the previously-mentioned Dreyfuss article in an attempt to keep the idea of the “L.A. 12″ alive. The above book is extremely scarce and prized by collectors. It includes roughly 15 to 20 pages on each of the participant’s work including transcribed interviews following a brief bio.

In the book Slert divides the 12 architects into four groups: “the Expressionalists” including Roland Coate, Jr. Anthony J. Lumsden, and Cesar Pelli; “The Constructionists” including Craig Ellwood and Raymond Kappe; “The Rationalists” including Daniel L. Dworsky, Jerrold Lomax, Leroy Miller, James Pulliam and Bernard Zimmerman; and “The Experimentalists” including none other than Frank O. Gehry and John Lautner.

Nicholas Pyle’s insightful foreword analytically compares the similarities and differences of the L.A. 12 with the New York 5 (Meier, Hejduk, Eisenman, Graves and Gwathmey) and the Chicago 7 (Tigerman, Booth, Nagle, Weese,  Freed, Beeby and Cohen). He characterizes the New York 5 as “jockeying for a favorable position in the great cultural free-for-all while the Chicago 7 were trying to attain a separate identity from their city’s monolithic architectural establishment.”

Pyle continues, “The L.A. 12, however, are not trying to achieve either an established style or an anti-establishment coup. They are already designers of considerable influence and achievement, including in their number heads of schools of architecture and principles for design in large established firms. They might be said to exemplify the highest ideals of the architectural mainstream. Their crusade, such as it is, seems not to be on the behalf of themselves. Rather it is to illustrate their conviction that the profession of architecture can without overthrowing its traditional values successfully serve the interests of the marketplace.”

He closes with “The concern that the L.A. 12 express in this book is an appeal both to the decision-makers that are overseeing the increasing disarray of our world and to the designers and future designers who are beginning to feel adrift in it. The role of architects is still to provide the physical world with beauty and order.”

The L.A. 12 were a somewhat random selection of architects which gave us a snapshot of Southern California architectural design sensibilities in the mid-1970s. In future blog posts I intend to revisit a series of other historical California architectural exhibitions and the architectural discourse they might have generated in their day. Stay tuned.

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I recently viewed the Mercedes Matter Retrospective exhibition at Pepperdine’s Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum and luckily arrived just as Museum Director Michael Zakian was beginning a gallery talk on the show. The very enlightening lecture touched on the Matter’s California years which I found intriguing. This prompted me to purchase the exhibition catalog (see below) and to dig deeper into the Matters’ California period from late 1943 through late 1946. I also highly recommend the exhibition catalog to all fans of abstract and expressionist art, the avant-garde and the New York School.

The following blurb is from the Weisman Art Museum web site “Mercedes Matter (1913-2001) played an important role in the mid-century modern movement. Daughter of Philadelphia modernist Arthur B. Carles, she studied with Hans Hofmann in the 1930s and was a founding member of the American Abstract Artists group. During WWII she and her husband, photographer Herbert Matter, lived in Santa Monica and were close to famed designers Charles and Ray Eames. In the 1950s she became part of the Abstract Expressionist movement. Her friendships with painters such as Jackson Pollock and Philip Guston helped shape her own signature style, based on a bold, visceral response to objects in nature. This exhibition, the first major retrospective of Mercedes Matter’s art, was curated by Ellen Landau, professor of art history at Case Western Reserve University. It is accompanied by a book with essays by Landau, Weisman Museum director Michael Zakian, and two other art historians.”

The above Mercedes Matter exhibition catalog and related Pollock Matters exhibition catalog also edited by Ellen Landau bring out much little-known material pertaining to the relationship between Mercedes and fellow May Friend Bennett School alumna and Hans Hofmann art student Ray Eames nee Kaiser and their mutual friend Lee Krasner, also a student of Hofmann. Mercedes and Ray were also very active participants in the American Abstract Artists Association and both exhibitied work in the group’s inaugural exhibition in 1937. Lee later joined the group in 1939. The Archives of American Art Lee Krasner Oral History http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/oralhistories/transcripts/krasne66.htm quotes Krasner “If you came into Hofmann’s aura you were aware of a painter named Arthur Carles (Mercedes father).” Ray Kaiser Eames’ Oral History includes many reverential quotes on Hofmann and references Herbert Matter’s work with the Eamses and for Arts & Architecture. http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/oralhistories/transcripts/eames80.htm.

Mercedes and Lee Krasner first met in jail after being arrested for protesting Works Progress Administration cutbacks in late 1936. Mercedes, Lee and Ray mutually suffered from the public perception of what a “women’s place” was and with many others of their ilk are just now, with exhibitions like this, emerging from the shadow’s of their husband’s public images.

The Matters moved from New York to Los Angeles in late 1943 shortly after attending the September 29th opening of close friend Alexander Calder’s retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art. Mercedes, Herbert and little Alex first stayed with the Eamses in Westwood in one of Richard Neutra’s recently built Strathmore Apartments which they had only moved into in 1941 upon their arrival from Cranbrook. (see below).

The photo below illustrates the clandestine bent plywood furniture experimentation going on in the guest bedroom not long before the Matters’ temporary stay. Eliot Noyes discusses the Eameses smuggling materials into the apartment after dark to avoid the landlord’s wrath in his article Charle Eames in the September, 1946 issue of California Arts & Architecture. Neutra was half-owner of the units at the time and his sister-in-law and mother and father-in-law were living in, and managing the apartments.

Thus it is very interesting indeed to speculate whether they were conducting this obviously messy industrial design work under the collective noses, so to speak, of the Neutra extended family and possibly having to do some heavy cleaning to prepare for the Matters arrival. (See Richard Neutra and the Search for Modern Architecture by Thomas S. Hines, Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 172). Other early tenants mentioned in Hines’ book were film stars Delores Del Rio, Orson Welles and Luise Rainer and playwright husband Clifford Odets, photographer Eliot Elisofohn and John Entenza.

The Matters later moved into photographer Brett Weston’s house in nearby Rustic Canyon (see below) while he was away in the Armed Sevices. Dissatisfied with his wartime gig with the US government designing propaganda posters, Herbert was lured west by potential design work with the Eamses through Mercedes’ Hofmann Art School and American Abstract Art Association connections and friendship with Ray with whom she had stayed in touch. Being an alien he needed government approval to move, which was granted because of the Eamses’ Navy contract to produce their now famous molded plywood leg splints.

Brett Weston in front of his home-studio at 537 E. Rustic Rd., Santa Monica, ca. 1943. Photo by Ralph Miller. From A Restless Eye: A Biography of Photographer Brett Weston by John Charles Woods, Erica Weston Editions, 2011, p. 106.

The Matters stayed in Southern California until late 1946 when Herbert’s employment was no longer restricted. During this period, Herbert’s work for the Evans Products Company and Eames Office consisted of photographing design work and product and assisting with article, advertising and exhibition graphics. He also became affiliated with John Entenza’s Arts & Architecture Magazine in 1944 through his association with the Eamses.

The Eamses learned a lot from Herbert along with former Cranbrook associate Harry Bertoia, architects Gregory Ain and Griswold Raetze and others who also joined their team in 1942-3. Matter taught Charles how to skillfully use a 35 mm camera and mentored Ray in new ways of composing images for her graphic designs. With his photography and graphical design skills, Herbert documented the early furniture designs and war products of the Eameses. Beginning in 1944 he also created covers, photography and article layouts for Arts & Architecture and on a freelance basis for Conde Nast publications such as Vogue with assistance by Mercedes. (For a look at the Malibu Beach cottage Raetze designed for 1932 David Alfaro Siqueiros mural patron Dudley Murphy see “Glamourized Houses: Julius Shulman is a master at making them look dramatic,” Life, April 11, 1949, p. 146-8 and “House at Escondido Beach, Griswold Raetze, Architect,” Arts & Architecture, March 1947, pp. 26-27. For more on Murphy and Siqueiros see “Richard Neutra and the California Art Club: Pathways to the von Sternberg and Murphy Commissions“).

Herbert didn’t waste much time making a splash in the waters of the L.A. art scene as he had an exhibition of 47 of his photographs at the Los Angeles County Museum from April 16 through May 7, 1944. Work from the exhibition also appeared in the May, 1944 issue of Arts & Architecture. (See below).

Matter was also part of a group show with Evans Products colleagues Ray Eames and Harry Bertoia, fellow countryman Hans Burkhardt and other notable artists such as Man Ray, Knud Merrild, Annita Delano, Grace Clements, Circle Gallery founder Frederick I. Kann and others at the Circle Gallery on Sunset Blvd. in July through August 5th. (For much more on Delano see my Foundations of Los Angeles Modernism). The group coined themselves “The Open Circle, a formative group of abstract artists” and the gallery brochure for the show featured definitions of abstraction from Man Ray and Grace Clements. (See below). L.A. Times art critic Arthur Millier in his review of the show declared of Eames and Bertoia,

“Another original is Ray Eames. Her smaller picture (she simply labels them “Abstraction”) is a little masterpiece of formal design in brown, black and grays. And don’t overlook Harry Bertoia, the man who can make colored lines whizz around in all directions like the lines of melody in a good orchestral fugue.” (Millier, A., “Abstract Art Enthusiasts Exhibit Work,” Los Angeles Times, July 16, 1944, p. III1, 6).

Circle Gallery brochure for “The Open Circle” group show, July 1944. From the Annita Delano Papers, Archives of American Art.

The above images illustrate some similarity between Mercedes’ paintings and Herbert’s cover designs. Herbert’s “light pen” drawing from actual May 1944 cover above also appears to have been a natural evolution from the maquette illustrated above left.

In the June 25, 1944 issue of the L.A. Times, Millier reviewed the exhibition of paintings, drawings, water colors and prints in a joint exhibition of fellow Eames Office team member Harry Bertoia and Lyonel Feininger at the Nierendorf Galleries at 8650 Sunset Blvd. Millier opined “…Bertoia, whose work is new to the region, shows an extraordinary power to create richly expressive effects with the abstract means of line and color.” The cauldron of creative activity taking place in the office and the art being exhibited and published must have generated a great sense of joint pride among the design crew.

Mercedes hated the isolation from her New York friends resulting from the California sojourn and the Weisman exhibition catalog includes many excerpts from letters to her mother and Lee Krasner to that effect. Mercedes was also burdened with having to raise newborn Alex which virtually halted her career in its tracks.

The Eameses began contributing articles to, and collaborating with, editor John Entenza for his California Arts & Architecture very shortly after arriving in California in 1941. Charles’ first contribution was an article “Design Today” which appeared in the September, 1941 issue in which he discussed the role of the designer in the modern world with illustrations of work by students from his Cranbrook class. Eames’ winning designs (with Eero Saarinen) in the Museum of Modern Art’s “Organic Design” competition were reported on in the December, 1941 issue. Entenza soon realized the value of the Eames association by placing Charles on the masthead as an Editorial Associate and Ray as an Advisory Board member in 1942. (For more on how Entenza became involved with and acquired ownership of California Arts & Architecture in 1940 see my related post “California Arts & Architecture: A Steppingstone to Fame: Harwell Hamilton Harris and John Entenza: Two Case Studies”).

Ray Eames cover designs began appearing the next year and clearly show the influences of Hans Hofmann, Joan Miro, Hans Arp, Alexander Calder, and Herbert Matter. (See my related link Matters California Years for more on California Arts & Architecture and John Entenza). Ray’s art work first appeared on the cover of the April, 1942 issue from which time her designs appeared almost exclusively through most of 1944 when Entenza began to also feature Herbert Matter’s work. An article by Ray on her art and graphic design and philosophy appeared in the September, 1943 issue and was reproduced on pp. 26-27 of Arts & Architecture: The Entenza Years by Barbara Goldstein (see recommended reading below).

Above and below are examples of Hebert’s Arts & Architecture covers which appeared beginning in May, September, and December of 1944 and then almost exclusively during 1945-46. Beginning in 1944 he also contributed many now iconic interior layouts of designs by Charles and Ray Eames and others and prefabricated housing as well as to the overall look of the magazine during this incubation period of the Case Study House Program. Matter joined Charles Eames on the masthead as Editorial Associate in September, 1946, the same month his now iconic abstract cover of Eames furniture parts appeared. (See below bottom left).

The Matters also introduced to the pages of A&A the work of their inner circle of artist friends and colleagues from New York including Alexander Calder, Jackson Pollock, and Hans Hofmann. Herbert arranged for the Pollock interview in the February, 1944 issue and designed the cover of the January 1946 issue (top left above) featuring Calder’s Constellation. Mercedes contributed an article on her former lover and mentor Hans Hofmann in the March 1946 issue to accompany Ray Eamses’ cover design featuring a section of a Hofmann drawing. (See below).

From “Eames Design: The Work of Charles and Ray Eames” by John and Marilyn Neuhart. (from my collection)

Herbert’s Arts & Architecture work continued with the above collages and ad work from the July 1944 issue dedicated to prefabricated housing. The issue was a major collaboration between Charles and Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen, Buckminster Fuller and Herbert and is a classic example of contemporary graphic design.

An article Modern Handmade Jewelry featuring work by Calder (and Bertoia) appeared in December, 1946. Herbert’s art work continued to appear on A&A’s covers during 1947 (January, February, April, October and November) and 1948 (May) and in Knoll ads in the 1950s while he continued to appear on the masthead as Editorial Associate. Herbert arranged for another Hans Hofmann appearance in 1949.

Herbert Matter. “Kazam!” Machine developed mainly by architect Gregory Ain to produce the molded plywood nose section below and other aircraft parts for Vultee Aircraft. (from Work from the Office of Charles and Ray Eames, July 9, 2000 auction catalog from my collection, see below)

Model of the  Eames Office at 901 Venice Blvd. constructed by John and Marilyn Neuhart in 1978. (from the Wright/21/Now Eames Auction, 08 April 2010, lot 732. http://www.wright20.com/auctions/view/JKMK/JKML/732/LA/none/JU0D/3

Eames Office staff with plywood glider nose section also seen hanging from the ceiling in the photo below. Left to right: Charles Eames, Marion Overby, Gregory Ain, Harry Bertois, Ray Eames, William Francis and Norman Bruns. (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. The Work of Charles and Ray Eames. Copyright, Eames Office. Scanned from Gregory Ain: The Modern House as Social Commentary by Anthony Denzer, Rizzoli, 2008. (See recommended reading list below).

Herbert Matter photographed all of the molded plywood aircraft parts seen above as well as the sculpture by Ray Eames. See the previous and following photos for examples of the work he was doing for the Eamses soon after he and Mercedes moved to California. His photos had an almost immediate impact on the east coast as they were incorporated into the important Design for Use exhibition at MOMA in 1944. The show ran concurrently with Built in USA: A Survey of Contemporary American Architecture which included much work by Richard Neutra and his progeny including Gregory Ain, Harwell Hamilton Harris and Raphael Soriano. (See recommended reading list below).

Panels designed by Charles Eames and Herbert Matter for the New Furniture Designed by Charles Eames exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, 1946. (top and middle images from Work from the Office of Charles and Ray Eames, July 9, 2000 auction catalog and bottom image from Charles and Ray Eames: Designers of the Twentieth Century, p. 274, see recommended reading list below and http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/eames/bio.html)

The above three photos illustrate the collaborative graphics and photography which clearly captured the eye of John Entenza as adaptations of the above appeared on the the cover of, and throughout the September 1946 issue of A&A.

Herbert Matter, Alex “Pundy” Matter on Eames Elephant at the Eames Office circa 1945. From Charles and Ray Eames: Designers of the Twentieth Century, MIT Press, 1995. (see below) Also referenced in the Guide to the Herbert Matter Papers at Stanford University http://www.oac.cdlib.org/view?docId=kt4p3021rd;query=alex%20matter;style=oac4;view=dsc;dsc.position=1#hitNum15

Alex “Pundy” Matter was a big fan of the Eames Office and their products as can be seen in the 1945 photo above. He also made his Arts & Architecture debut on the below cover of the April 1945 issue.

Herbert Mater Cover Design with photo of Alex “Pundy” Matter. Arts & Architecture, April 1945. (from my collection)

The Eamses and John Entenza on the future site of Case Study Houses 8 & 9 in Pacific Palisades. From Charles and Ray Eames: Designers of the Twentieth Century, MIT Press, 1995, p. 105. Photographer unknown. (Copyright Lucia Eames Demetrious dba Eames Office). (see below)

Mercedes Matter recalled a circa 1945-6 dinner discussion at their place in the Weston House in Rustic Canyon regarding the design of the Entenza house at the above site. (From p. 68 of Joseph Giovannini’s  The Office of Charles Eames and Ray Kaiser: The Material Trail in the below catalog for the exhibition The Work of Charles and Ray Eames: The Legacy of Invention.) She was referring to Charles’ inability to remember attribution of ideas. During dinner he asked Mercedes what she would do if she were designing a house. She said “I’d have a room, a studio without any windows, just a skylight, because I would want it to be, a room that I would be completely private in, turned inward, so I wouldn’t be distracted by looking at anything outside. And literally, three weeks later, he came over with a model of the house and said, ‘Here is a room without any windows, it’s a study, completely private, turned inward.’ He used my words, and innocently: he didn’t even remember. I was staggered. What Charles did was to organize the whole thing.”

New Furniture Designed by Charles Eames, Museum of Modern Art, 1946. Photo by the Office of Charles and Ray Eames. From the exhibition catalog Connections: The Work of Charles and Ray Eames by John and Marilyn Neuhart with text by Ralph Caplan. (see recommended reading list below)

Herbert Matter. Publicity photo for the the Museum of Modern Art’s 1946 New Furniture Designed by Charles Eames exhibition, with stabile by Matter family friend Alexander Calder. From The Work of Charles and Ray Eames: A Legacy of Invention, Abrams, 1997. (see below)

 

Herbert Matter circa 1946. (left from Work from the Office of Charles and Ray Eames, July 9, 2000 auction catalog below and right from the September, 1946 issue of Arts & Architecture, p.37)

The above four images indicate how the Eames Office crew was effectively collaborating on all cylinders to not only prepare for the very important 1946 MOMA New Furniture Designed by Charles Eames exhibition (top photo) but to prepare images and graphics for the equally important September, 1946 Arts & Architecture cover story Charles Eames by Museum of Modern Art Director of Industrial Design Eliot Noyes (see cover and centerfold below). The crew developed the device specifically for the MOMA show to demonstrate the strength and durability of the plywood chairs by letting them tumble around inside the rotating drum.  Herbert built upon that idea with the time lapse photo used to creatively illustrate the chair in the magazine. The Table of Contents touts the Charles Eames article “An article on the most significant development in the design and manufacture of furniture in America.”

Herbert Matter cover design, September, 1946 issue of Arts & Architecture. promotional postcard from Taschen for Arts & Architecture: The Complete Reprint 1945-1954, Taschen, 2008. (from my collection)

Herbert Matter photo collage of aircraft and furniture parts and leg splint from the centerfold of the September, 1946 issue of Arts & Architecture. (from my collection)

Anxious to get back, the Matters returned to New York in late 1946 leaving behind and taking with them quite a legacy of collaborative ideas and images for the Eamses and themselves to build upon for future articles, exhibition designs and product advertising layout. Mercedes quickly and elatedly caught up with her friends, resumed her career and became an important part of the Abstract Expressionist movement. The Matters’ relatively short time in Los Angeles provided a great example of east coast – west coast artistic and design cross-pollination in the creative crucibles of the Eames Office and John Entenza’s Arts & Architecture during this very fertile period in Southern California design.

Mercedes Matter, “Tabletop Still Life,” ca. 1985 (from the catalog).

Mercedes Matter, “Landscape, Truro (Provincetown)” 1937 (from the caatalog).

The rest of the Mercedes Matter story, both before and after the California years, is very interesting reading indeed spiced with the affairs with Hans Hofmann, Arshile Gorky, Fernand Leger, and Philip Guston and much on her father, noted artist Arthur B. Carles, her inner circle of Alexander Calder, Alberto Giacometti, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner and others and her founding in 1963 of the New York Studio School in Greenwich Village. The very well-researched catalog with a major essay by Ellen Landau, from which I gleaned much of the above information, and others by Sandra Kraskin, Phyllis Braff and Weisman Art Museum Director Michael Zakian also includes 126 full-page color plates and a chronology is well worth the investment.The research I conducted in writing this post triggers in my mind the need for an exhibition and/or articles that explore the interrelated lives of Mercedes Carles Matter, Ray Kaiser Eames and Lee Krasner and the profound influence Hans Hofmann had on them (and others) in the formative years of abstract art in the 1930s. One can’t help but think what this trio could have accomplished if they had not been bridled by the overpowering persona’s of their husbands.


Recommended Further Reading:To gain a sense of Mercedes Matter’s early influence from her father’s work:

Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 1983. (from my collection).

For more on the relationship between the Matters and the Pollocks (and Eamses) see:

Edited by Ellen G. Landau and Claude Cernuschi http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/artmuseum/exhibitions/archive/pollock-matters/index.html (from my collection)

For much more on the life of the Eamses, the Matter – Eames relationship and much more see:

Charles and Ray Eames: Designers of the Twentieth Century, MIT Press, 1995. (from my collection)

Below is a gem of an exhibition catalog from 1976 which includes many related images.

Connections: The Work of Charles and Ray Eames. Exhibition designed by John and Marilyn Neuhart and text by Ralph Caplan. Frederick S. Wight Art Gallery, UCLA. 1976. Cover Design by Eames Work Spaces. (from my collection)

The below very well researched and annotated auction catalog includes many lots of black and white photos by Herbert Matter from the collection of John and Marilyn Neuhart illustrating the work and design processes at the Eames Office during the 1940s with prices realized ranging between $1,000 and $4,000.

Work from the Office of Charles and Ray Eames, Auction July 9, 2000, by Peter Loughery, LA Modern Auctions. (from my collection)

For a detailed look into everything Eames see:

Eames Design: The Work of the Office of Charles and Ray Eames, John and Marilyn Neuhart, Abrams, 1989. (from my collection)

For a very insightful essay on the importance of Ray Eames to the Eames partnership, see Joseph Giovannini’s  The Office of Charles Eames and Ray Kaiser: The Material Trail in the below catalog for the exhibition The Work of Charles and Ray Eames: The Legacy of Inventionorganized by the Library of Congress and the Vitra Design Museum. The essay also includes in the end notes reminiscences by Harry Bertoia and Florence Knoll Bassett of both of the Matters having input in particular design decisions to get Charles on the right track towards producing segmental chairs.

The Work of Charles and Ray Eames: A Legacy of Invention, Abrams, 1997. (from my collection)

For a complete look at all of the Eames – Matters post-1944 contributions to Arts & architecturesee the essential:

Arts & Architecture: The Complete Reprint 1945-1954, Taschen, 2008. (from my collection)

For much on the Eames – Entenza relationship, features on both Ray and Charles and the Eames – Matters contributions to Arts & Architecture including the February, 1944 feature on Jackson Pollock see:

Arts & Architecture: The Entenza Years edited by Barbara Goldstein, MIT Press, 1990. (from my collection)

For excellent discourse on Herbert Matter’s and Ray Eames’ work for Arts & Architecture and an analysis of his important January, 1945 Case Study Program cover and her previously-mentioned January, 1944 cover see Lorraine Wild’s essay Formal, Cool, Dense: Graphic Design in Los Angeles at Midcentury in the catalog for the Oct. 7, 2007 – Jan. 6, 2008 exhibition at the Orange County Museum of Art:

Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury edited by Elizabeth Armstrong, Prestel, 2007 (from my collection)

See more on the Eameses’ furniture designs and Matter’s graphical displays and photos of same in the above in another excellent essay, The Migration of Modernism: From the Turn-of-the-Century Vienna to Midcentury Los Angeles by Michael Boyd.

For much on Ain’s time with Neutra and the Strathmore Apts. see below:

Richard Neutra and the Search for Modern Architecture by Thomas S. Hines, Oxford University Press, 1982. (from my collection)

For much on the Ain years spent at the Eames Office and earlier with Richard Neutra see:

Gregory Ain: The Modern Home as Social Commentary by Anthony Denzer, Rizzoli, 2008. (from my collection)

For architecture by Gregory Ain which was exhibited at MOMA concurrently with the Eames Office aircraft products included in the 1944 Design for Use exhibition discussed above see Built in USA, 1932-1944 below. This important exhibition was intended to illustrate how modern architecture had progressed since MOMA’s seminal 1932 Modern Architecture exhibition and also includes work by Ain mentor Richard Neutra and other Neutra proteges Harwell Hamilton Harris and Raphael Soriano.

Built in USA, 1932-1944, edited by Elizabeth Mock, Museum of Modern Art, 1944. (from my collection)

For more on the photography and graphic design of Herbert Matter see the below exhibition catalog featuring the January, 1945 cover of Arts & Architecture on the cover of the catalog. The Herbert Matter archive is housed at Stanford University. The exhibition was curated by Jeffrey Head who also provided the text for the catalog.

Herbert Matter Modernist Photography and Graphic Design, Stanford University Libraries, 2005. (from my collection)

Watch for the soon to be released “The Visual Language of Herbert Matter.” See trailer below.

Matter Teaser from Herbert Matter on Vimeo.

The USPS has also just issued stamps with Hofmann’s “Golden Wall” from 1961 and Jackson Pollock’s “Convergence” from 1952. (see press release at  http://www.usps.com/communications/newsroom/2010/pr10_022.htm) and stamps below.

Doug Harvey, L.A. Weekly Review: http://www.laweekly.com/2010-02-05/art-books/matter-s-most/1

 

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America’s post World War II housing shortage was pretty much under control by the late 1950′s. This coupled with the rapid growth of the National Parks and the Interstate Highway system, meant that middle-class Americans were now in a collective mood to “See the USA in their Chevrolets” as sung by Dinah Shore and recently revived by the cast of Glee. Thus the housing shortage segued into a motel room shortage virtually overnight. Hotel industry companies such as Howard Johnson’s, TraveLodge and Los Angeles-based Imperial ’400′ Motels saw an opportunity to fill that void and went on a nation-wide building spree.

Imperial ’400′ took note of the award-winning and extremely popular tract housing designed by Southern California architects Palmer & Krisel and in 1959 commissioned them to design a prototype motel and the rights to build using their design on four other sites. P&K designed the first motel then obtained the building permit and oversaw construction of the $240,000 complex on Sunset Blvd. across the street from Hollywood High School. This prototype was the only motel to remain totally company-owned and was used to train new franchise partners in guest relations and motel management. Others in this inititial group were built on Olympic Blvd. in Los Angeles, San Diego (see below), and Phoenix.

The design concept proved so wildly successful that Imperial immediately launched it’s franchise campaign and began building motels with virtually the same design all across the United States. The firm adopted a logo of a thrifty Scotsman in a kilt and the slogan “Aye, royal accommodations at thrifty rates” and the trademark Palmer & Krisel butterfly-sun flap roof over the registration-manager’s quarters building which they used on all of their business stationary and ephemera such as the above and below matchbook covers.

From Matchbook Museum.

The above postcard is a Sacramento franchise located at 1319 30th St. incorporating an Armet & Davis designed Eppie’s Coffee Shop into the mix. Can you get any more Googie than this, Palmer & Krisel and Armet & Davis on the same site.

Las Vegas Franchise, 3625 Las Vegas Blvd., S. Las Vegas

Rendering of the Las Vegas Franchise, 3625 Las Vegas Blvd., S. Las Vegas

Las Vegas Franchise, 3625 Las Vegas Blvd., S. Las Vegas

The two images below are from the current exhibition “Las Vegas Studio: Images from the Archives of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown” on view at MOCA-PDC through June 20th. Other views of Krisel’s iconic butterfly roof logo used in all of Imperial 400′s signage and ephemera are on view in the exhibition. For more on this must see exhibition go to the following link. http://www.moca.org/museum/exhibitiondetail.php?id=427

 

Postcard of the sign of the Las Vegas Franchise, 3625 Las Vegas Blvd., S. Las Vegas. Photo by Scott Brown and Associates. (from my collection)

Same image as above on the cover of “Learning From Las Vegas: The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form” by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steve Izenour, Revised Edition, MIT Press, 1977. (from my collection)

I find it extremely interesting indeed that Krisel’s roof logo appears on the cover of Venturi and Scott Brown’s seminal, groundbreaking studies of the Las Vegas Strip undertaken by a 1968 research and design studio Venturi taught with Scott Brown at the Yale School of Architecture. The interrelationships of our rich architectural history never cease to amaze me.

The above are just a small selection of the Imperial ’400′ franchise locations around the US and Canada. Imperial projected to build 179 franchised motels across the U.S. by the end of 1964 according to a November 6, 1960 article in the L.A. Times. I estimate after an hour or two of web browsing that there could very easily have been that many built overall.Many are still existing under a different name and survive  relatively unchanged. Others, such as the original prototype on Sunset Blvd. have been altered beyond recognition.

Various former Imperial ’400′ locations around the country are starting to appear on the radar screens of mid-century modern and preservationist group web sites without the benefit of knowing that these great examples of modernist design were truly the work of the “Modernists for the Masses” Palmer & Krisel. It is my hope that this post will raise the awareness of the importance of these motels our families stayed in as they vacationed around the US in the mid-century and that many will receive historic monument designation and be restored and preserved to help keep this period of our architectural heritage alive-and-well.

Please feel free to share this post with any web site mentioning an Imperial ’400′ Motel location.

More Imperial 400 Motels

 

Imperial 400 Motel Slide Show

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The cover photo epitomizes the essence of the publication and just happens to be from a painting by the much under-appreciated architect Elmer Grey of his unbuilt personal “cottage” just above the Bel-Air Bay Club which he also designed at 16801 Pacific Coast Hwy. in Pacific Palisades. http://www.belairbayclub.com/ Three more renderings and a floor plan are included in the articles “The Hill-side House on the Mountain” and “An Architect’s House Set Into the Hillside.”

The painting appears to have been commissioned by Alphonzo Bell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphonzo_Bell, the developer of  Bel-Air and the Bel-Air Bay Club for a marketing book (see Bel-Air Bay Book referenced in lower right caption) for the club and his nearby exclusive housing development which the cover article states Grey will design many of the houses for. Grey’s paintings are held in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago and come up at auction from time to time. The original cover art work above can be viewed at the following link http://circacalifornia.com/elmer-grey-painting.html.

At a precocious 26 year’s of age, Grey’s work (10 illustrations) appeared in the “First Annual Architectural Exhibition” at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Art Gallery which opened in 1898. http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_921.html. The exhibition was sponsored by the Pittsburgh Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. (See exhibition poster below).

On the basis of the design of his personal residence in Fox Point on the shores of Lake Michigan, Grey was named a Fellow in the AIA the same year, a rare occurrence for someone that young. See David Gebhard’s excellent chapter on Grey in “Toward a Simpler Way of Life” edited by Robert Winter illustrated below. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmer_Grey for another brief introduction to Grey and his oeuvre. The included bibliography just scratches the surface of this architect’s prolific writings and body of built work.

This particular issue of California Southland contains many more interesting items including announcements on the openings of the El Mirador Hotel in Palm Springs designed by Walker & Eisen and the Biltmore Hotel in Santa Barbara designed by Reginald D. Johnson. (See below).

 

 

Additional articles on the new La Quinta Resort Hotel, new commercial developments in Santa Barbara, and architecture by Roland Coate, Curlett & Beelman, Palmer Sabin and Gable & Wyant are included. Issues of “California Southland” rarely become available on the open market and are highly prized by collectors. They provide a fascinating window into the lifestyles of wealthy Californians as the state was undergoing it’s initial large-scale development in the 1920s.

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