California Design, 1930–1965: “Living in a Modern Way,” Los Angeles County Museum of Art – on view until June 2012. The entire living room of the Eames House has been reconstructed for the exhibition. Photos © 2011 Museum Associates/LACMA.
This exhibition is the first major study of California midcentury modern design. With more than 300 objects—furniture, ceramics, metalwork, fashion and textiles, and industrial and graphic design—the exhibition examines the state’s role in shaping the material culture of the entire country. Organized into four thematic areas, the exhibition aims to elucidate the 1951 quote from émigré Greta Magnusson Grossman that is incorporated into the exhibition’s title: California design “is not a superimposed style, but an answer to present conditions…It has developed out of our own preferences for living in a modern way.”
