Esoteric Survey

  The Private Collection of Gertrud & Otto Natzler at Rago and LAMA  This auction has some insane pots. It looks like the Natzlers were holding back some of the best examples.  Orange-red crater glaze I'm not usually a fan of these crystal formation glazes. They are a little flashy for me. However, paired with this dark blue, it works. Otto was was such a glaze master.  The house and studio where Gertud and Otto made all the pots is also for sale.   Gertrud died in 1971.  Otto later married photographer Gail Reynolds. Otto died in 2007 and Gail passed last year.  All contemporary real estate photos: Cameron Carothers This what the house looked like early on. After Gertrud passed, Otto and Gail expanded the house and gave it that Austrian chalet look. There were thousands of pieces of ceramics in the house. The real estate listing says "... it has been taken out by an art dealer, and they are now in storage." However, there are some Natzlers st...

Alpha + 2 (1984) by JB Blunk (1926–2002) Last weekend I made a delivery up to Thousand Oaks after a disappointing shopping trip to the Rose Bowl flea market. It was my first time in the city so I decided to visit Alpha + 2. The Thousand Oaks Grant R Brimhall Library (formerly Canejo) is home to the monumental three piece redwood sculpture by Blunk. The work was commissioned in the late 1970s as part of the original construction of the library. It was commissioned and funded by the the Thousand Oaks Art Commission.  The sculpture was selected based on a scale model that Blunk executed in clay. It was controversial at the time. There was a contingency who didn't think it was worth the $35,000 price tag when there was still a need to purchase more books. The City Council approved the funding 4 to 1. The sculpture was originally going to be placed in the children's section and was meant to be an "object of play."  Ultimately it would be placed in the foyer next to the mai...

UPDATE - Newsletter Happy New Year! More items are now available in the   shop . Sign up for the newsletter to get notified first when new inventory is listed.   Behind the Scenes at The Henry Ford I’ve been meaning to do a blog post beyond the one I did on   Mathematica   from my sort of recent trip to the Henry Ford Museum in Michigan. It's going to be a long one. While I work on that, here are some photos from their archive. My longtime friend Kristen Gallerneaux happens to be the Curator of Communication & Information Technology and she showed my around. In addition to some pretty wild things, like Thomas Edison’s last breath in a test tube, they have one of the best Herman Miller collections anywhere. This includes large collections from the estates of a number of designers, like Robert Propst. Above is a 1950s chair design by Propst that never went into production. The images below show some of the Herman Miller collection, with a Ray Komai chair thrown in...

  A little pile to close out the year. An iron and wicker catch all, Japanese bench and some smalls.  LaGardo Tackett