Esoteric Survey

 Robert Darling Bookshelf Darrell Landrum Earthgender 1950s kit shelving unit often misattributed to a number of California designers and companies. Maybe it's Remred? A ton of different companies were pumping these out.

  A sofa designed by a Colorado architect Smalls, including Bill Lam and a Soleri bell Elephant bookends by Werkstätte Hagenauer Mosaic Original paste-up ad artwork by an illustrator. More on Curt Wagner later.

Picking up the two Frimkess pieces last weekend reminded me that I never did a post on  LACMA's exhibition on Magdalena. I saw it in September of 2024.  Magdalena Suarez Frimkess: The Finest Disregard was the first museum exhibition dedicated to Magdalena. Although she is mostly known for her ceramics, the Venezuelan-born, Los Angeles-based artist was trained in painting, printmaking, and sculpture in Venezuela, Chile, and New York. Spanning more than five decades, the exhibition features ceramics, paintings, and drawings, including works created with her husband, Michael Frimkess. Magdalena was born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1929. She was orphaned at seven years old when her mother passed from cancer. After being raised by nuns, she moved to Chile at 19. She moved to the US when she was 33 after she was offered a residency at the Clay Art Center in New York. That is where she met her future husband Michael. They moved to Los Angeles in 1964 and they opened there studio ...

Magdalena Suarez Frimkess Mickey and Minnie and a tile.   Table by Martin Perfit for Rene Brancusi Peter Shire, Don Shoemaker box and Earthgender

Eero Saarinen and Fabricius & Kastholm There was an estate sale at the Chapman house last week and I bought this piece. The first thing that came to mind is  Svetozar Radakovich.  According to Dave Hampton, Barbara Chapman took a class at Palomar College taught by  Svetozar Radakovich. This sculpture is most likely a product of that.