Museum of California Design • Award Benefit and Silent Auction

Award Benefits


				2012 Benefit and Auction honoring California's Designing Women

				2011 Benefit and Auction honoring Peter Shire

				2010 Benefit and Auction honoring Charles and Ray Eames

				2009 Benefit and Auction honoring Rudi Gernreich

				2008 Benefit and Auction honoring Jerome and Evelyn Ackerman

				2007 Benefit and Auction honoring Heath Ceramics

				2006 Benefit and Auction honoring Architectural Pottery

				2005 Benefit and Auction honoring Charles Hollis Jones

“Prior to the sixties, clothes were clothes. Then when they started coming from the streets, I realized you could say things with clothes. Design was not enough.”

—Rudi Gernreich

   Rudi Gernreich
   Time Magazine
   December 1. 1967
   Photo: ©Time, Inc.

Some of us continue to imagine that clothing isn’t art and that those who design clothes aren’t artists. Yet decades ago, monokini creator, fashion-industry critic and Mattachine Society co-founder Rudi Gernreich proved all such blinkered thinkers utterly wrong. His art also showed without a doubt that creativity could thrive by taking on “politics” and social change.

— Jeff Weinstein, arts editor and cultural commentator

2009 Award Benefit and Auction
Sunday, November 22

This year the museum honored Rudi Gernreich (1922-1985) for his revolutionary contributions to American fashion and life-style, from the topless bathing suit to plastic clothing, from women’s casual wear to unisex clothing. The museum’s director, Bill Stern, presented the Henry Award for Outstanding Contributions to American Design to Peggy Moffitt, Gernreich's principal model, one of the first supermodels and author of “The Rudi Gernreich Book,” who accepted it on behalf of the late designer. The Benefit, which was held at the spacious Hollywood Hills view-home of Alan Harris and Marcella Ruble, included Gernreich collaborator Renee Firestone speaking about working with the designer at the beginning of his career, and the cultural commentator Jeff Weinstein (to read Weinstein’s remarks please *click here*) assessing Gernreich’s contributions to American design and social mores. In addition to Peggy Moffitt, Gernreich’s design community was also represented at the event by his first model, Jimmy Mitchell, Gary Youngman producer of “Basic Black”, the Gernreich fashion film directed by William Claxton, and the legendary hairstylist and businessman Vidal Sassoon. The live and silent auctions featured outstanding vintage items and contemporary works of art and design. Auction lots included Rudi Gernreich dresses, autographed books by Julius Shulman, photos and books autographed by Peggy Moffitt, a Lucite chair by Charles Hollis Jones and other desirable new and vintage objects.		Hollywood Hills home of Alan Harris and Marcella Ruble Event Photographer: Bill Dow
		< Peggy Moffitt, Bill Stern

	< Jimmy Mitchell, Renee Firestone, Peggy Moffitt
	Vidal Sassoon, Peggy Moffit>

Alan Harris, Marcella Ruble, Peggy Moffitt, Wendy Kaplan,
Gerard O’Brian, Joel Chen

View from the terrace

Andy Frank, Shirley Wilson, Punch Jameson, Jimmy Mitchell, Charles Phoenix, Jeff Weinstein

Renee Firestone, Margaret Chen, Peter Shire,
Jimmy Mitchell, Joel Chen

Vidal Sassoon, Michael Michaud,
Larry Robins, Courtney Burr III

Jimmy Mitchell, Peggy Moffitt, Renee Firestone,
Margaret Chen, Joel Chen

Robin Cottle, Ron Radziner

We thank Susanna and Evans Lam and David Bohnett and Tom Gregory whose sponsorships made this event possible.
We also thank Joel Chen , and our media partner Magazine.

We are especially grateful to our gracious hosts ALAN HARRIS and MARCELLA RUBLE.

The Museum of California Design is the only organization exclusively dedicated to exhibiting and documenting the full range of California’s rich commercial design history, which we accomplish through traveling exhibitions and public programs.

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   2008 AWARD BENEFIT AND AUCTION
   HONORING
   JEROME AND EVELYN ACKERMAN

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Photo Gallery

Ceramics: Slip-cast by
Jerome Ackerman for
Jenev Design Studio,
c. 1954
Photograph: Milton Lipton

Evelyn and Jerome Ackerman
Jenev Design Studio
Los Angeles, c. 1953
Photograph: Milton Lipton

Mosaic (detail) by Evelyn Ackerman, 1957
Office building, Santa Barbara.
Photograph: Laura Ackerman

The Museum of California Design’s 5th annual Award Benefit and Auction honored California designers Evelyn and Jerome Ackerman for their
exceptional contributions to American design. For more than 40 years the Ackermans created tapestries, ceramics, metal wares and mosaics
for their Los Angeles-based firms, Jenev Design Studio and ERA Industries.

The Benefit, which was held on Sunday, September 21, 2008, from 3 PM to 6 PM, was hosted by David Bohnett and Tom Gregory at their
soaring Mid-century Modern Holmby Hills home that was designed in 1954 for Gary Cooper by the celebrated Los Angeles architect A. Quincy
Jones. Bohnett founded the Internet-based media and e-commerce company GeoCities and is Chair of the David Bohnett Foundation. Gregory
is an actor, radio personality, and entertainment industry commentator.

Site of Museum of California Design 2008 Award Benefit: Home of David Bohnett and Tom Gregory Photographs: Left - Bill Dow Right - L. Schmitt
Designed by A.Quincy Jones in 1954 for Gary Cooper

All photographs below by Bill Dow

Museum of California Design director Bill Stern with the 2008
Henry Award for Excellence in Design

2008 Henry Award recipients Jerome and Evelyn Ackerman

Tom Gregory, event co-host Evelyn and Jerome Ackerman Information Panels

Museum of California Design director Bill Stern, Museum of California Design board member Joel Chen, his daughter Fiona Chen, photographer Julius Shulman

Jerome and Evelyn Ackerman, Nora Jaffe, Museum of California Design board
member emeritus Alan Jaffe

Jerome Ackerman, Jill A. Wiltse, Evelyn Ackerman, H. Kirk Brown III. Wiltse and Brown are board members of the Museum of California Design
Information panels: Designed by Felis Design Company

Charles Hollis Jones, designer of the Henry Award

Evelyn and Jerome Ackerman, Museum of California Design sponsors James Elliot-Bishop and Patrick Barry

Architect Stephen Ehrlich, Evelyn and Jerome Ackerman, Nancy Griffin

Jo Lauria and Dale Gluckman, curators of the Jerome and Evelyn
Ackerman exhibiton at San Diego’s Mingei Museum

Peter Loughrey of LA Modern Auctions, auctioning an Evelyn Ackerman tapestry

Museum of California Design board member Dr. Andrew Frank, his wife,
Deborah Frank, Bill Stern

Photographer Leland Lee and Benefit volunteer Jeri Franchini

Bill Stern addressing attendees at the Award Benefit

The Ackermans’ work was represented in all of the landmark California Design Exhibitions that were held at the Pasadena Museum
of Art in the 1960s and 70s and at the Pacific Design Center in 1976. Their work is in the permanent collections of a number of museum collections among them the Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., the Oakland Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

The Benefit included an award ceremony; a live auction conducted by Peter Loughrey, founder and principal auctioneer of LA Modern Auctions, and a silent auction.

Speakers included:

Tom Gregory, event co-host, who is an actor, radio personality, and entertainment industry commentator. He has a video blog on the Huffington Post.

Dale Gluckman, co-curator of Evelyn and Jerome Ackerman: A Marriage of Art & Design, and the former Curator of Textiles at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, was the curator of the exhibition Rank and Style: Power Dressing in Imperial China.

Jo Lauria, co-curator of Evelyn and Jerome Ackerman: A Marriage of Art & Design and formerly a decorative arts curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, is chief curator of the exhibition Craft in America: Expanding Traditions.

Bill Stern, the Executive Director of the Museum of California Design, has curated a number of exhibitions, among them California Pottery: From Missions to Modernism and Mid-Century Mandarin: The Clay Canvasses of Tyrus Wong.

The MUSEUM OF CALIFORNIA DESIGN thanks the following sponsors for making this event possible:

David Bohnett and Tom Gregory
Bon Vivant, Palm Springs
Michael Stern, Inc., New York
LA Modern Auctions
Evans and Susanna Lam

www.gratefulpalate.com

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2007 AWARD BENEFIT AND AUCTION
HONORING
HEATH CERAMICS

Sunday, September 16, 2007

The Museum of California Design’s 2007 Henry Award for design excellence was presented to Catherine Bailey and Robin Petravic of Heath Ceramics, makers of outstanding dinnerware and tiles. The new owners of this honored company - founded by the California ceramist Edith Heath in 1947 — have revitalized a business that has been making major contributions to California design for more than half a century.

The Award Benefit was held at the extraordinary home of renowned architect Steven Ehrlich on Sunday, September 16, 2007.

Speakers included:
Steven Ehrlich, architect
Wendy Kaplan, Curator of Decorative Arts, LACMA
Amos Klausner, author, “Heath Ceramics: The Complexity of Simplicity”
Bill Stern, Executive Director, Museum of California Design

The 2007 Henry Award was presented by:
Christopher Hawthorne, Architecture Critic, Los Angeles Times

A live auction was conducted by Peter Loughrey, founder and director of L.A. Modern Auctions (LAMA).

Photo Gallery

Museum of California Design executive director Bill Stern welcoming guests to the museum’s 2007 Award Benefit.

          L to R: Cathy Bailey and Robin Petrovic, owners of Heath Ceramics,
          recipient of the museum’s 2007 Henry Award and award presenter,
          Christopher Hawthorne, architecture critic of the Los Angeles Times.

Wendy Kaplan, Curator of Decorative Arts and Design and head of the Decorative Arts and
Design Department at LACMA speaking to guests at the Award Benefit.

      L to R: Ceramic artist/sculptor/furniture designer Peter Shire; Museum of
         California Design board member emerita Sheila Tepper; Museum of
         California Design CFO Michael Michaud.

     Center: Christopher Hawthorne (in dark blue jacket) speaking with Robin Petrovic, co-owner of
       Heath Ceramics, recipient of the Museum of California Design’s 2007 Henry Award for
       exceptional contributions to California design.

L to R: Emi Yanai; Takashi Yanai, associate principal of Steven Ehrlich Architects; Brooke Hodge, curator of
Architecture and Design at MOCA; Patricia Rhee.

Peter Loughrey of LA Modern Auctions acknowledging a bid from Museum of California Design board member
emeritus Alan Jaffe during the Award Benefit live auction.

L to R: Steven Ehrlich and Nancy Griffin, hosts of the museum’s 2007 Award Benefit.

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     2006 AWARD BENEFIT AND SILENT AUCTION
      HONORING
      ARCHITECTURAL POTTERY:
      A company whose designs reshaped modern living in America

Sunday, September 24, 2006

The Museum of California Design's 2006 California Design Award honored Architectural Pottery. This company’s extraordinary contributions to American design are visible whenever you go to a commercial building, a bank, a gasoline station -- and many mid-century modern homes -- and see a large, unadorned white cylindrical planter. Architectural Pottery introduced these and other quintessentially modern shapes to the American built landscape when it was established in 1950. They were in production until 1985.

The impact of Architectural Pottery was felt from the company’s inception: Designs from its first catalog were selected for the New York Museum of Modern Art’s 1951 Good Design Exhibition. Architects, landscape architects and interior designers were the company’s principal customers. For example, Welton Becket Associates, architects of the Beverly Hilton Hotel, specified 200 Architectural Pottery pieces for the building and grounds when the hotel opened in 1957.

The 2006 Henry Awards recognized the contributions to California design by the founders of Architectural Pottery, Max Lawrence, his late wife Rita, and the late John Follis: the company's designers Raul Coronel, David Cressey and John Follis: its executives Carl Bailey, Bill Hertel and Jerry Porter; graphic artist Jayme Odgers; and Barry Rosengrant, former president of Architectural Fiberglass. The award for the late John Follis, who designed the company’s award-winning logo, was accepted by his son, Grant Follis.

Julius Shulman, whose photographs document Architectural Pottery's importance in American design history, received an honorary award. The most recent exhibition of Mr.Shulman’s photographs, Julius Shulman, Modernity and the Metropolis, was presented at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, October 11, 2005 to January 22, 2006.

Frances Anderton, host of 89.9 KCRW radio’s DnA: Design and Architecture, presented the awards. Anderton is the Los Angeles Editor for Dwell magazine and a contributor to the New York Times.

The Museum of California Design’s director, Bill Stern, was the master of ceremonies.

Photo Gallery

Max and Rita Lawrence, c.1959.
Photograph by Bob Lopez
Courtesy of Max Lawrence

Architectural Pottery Catalog 64, 1964
Photograph: Uncredited.
Collection: Museum of California Design

LaGardo Tackett and Rita Lawrence with Tackett designs, c. 1954.
Photograph by Bob Lopez.
Courtesy of Max Lawrence

All photographs below by Bill Dow.

Left to right: Karl Bailey, former executive at Architectural Pottery and Architectural Fiberglass; Jayme Odgers,
graphic artist; Barry Rosengrant, former president of Architectural Fiberglass; Bill Hertel, manager of
Architectural Pottery retail store; Max Lawrence co-founder, Architectural Pottery; Jackie Hager; Damon
Lawrence, son of Max and Rita Lawrence

Bill Stern, Museum of California Design executive director, addressing guests.

               Architectural Pottery co-founder, Max Lawrence,
               with the Museum of California Design ‘s Henry
               Award. To his right Lawrence’s son Damon.


Henry Award presenter Frances Andeton of Public Radio KCRW and the New York Times addressing guests at the Museum of California Design’s 2006 Award Benefit.	Left to right: Ceramist, sculptor and designer for Architectural Pottery David Cressey; Architectural Pottery co-founder, Max Lawrence; Barry Rosengrant, former president of Architectural Fiberglass.

Architectural Fiberglass designer, Douglas Deeds; Architectural Pottery co-founder, Max
Lawrence; designers Evelyn and Jerome Ackerman. Architectural Fiberglass sofa designed by Douglas Deeds, c. 1970.

Ceramic artist, sculptor, furniture designer Peter Shire; designer Jere Kavanaugh.

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2005 AWARD BENEFIT AND AUCTION
HONORING
CHARLES HOLLIS JONES

Sunday, June 5, 2005

The Museum of California Design’s 2005 Summer Benefit was held at one of California’s architectural treasures,
Lloyd Wright’s extraordinary Sowden House in Los Angeles’ Los Feliz neighborhood. This landmark 1926 Mayan Revival home was refurbished by its former owner Xorin Balbes, whose generosity made it possible for the museum's fundraiser to take place there.

Before an admiring crowd museum director Bill Stern presented the museum’s Distinguished Designer Award to Mr. Jones, who is renowned for his innovative Lucite® furniture and accessories. Jones’ work was exhibited in several of the California Design exhibitions held at the Pasadena Museum of Modern Art (now the Norton Simon Museum) in the 1970s, the Palm Springs Desert Museum in 2003 and numerous galleries across the country. In 2004 he received the Pacific Design Center’s "Star of Design Award." His 1968 Wisteria Chair will be exhibited in the museum's next exhibition, "100 Years of the California Chair."

We thank our sponsors, volunteers, donors, guests and other participants for making this event a great success.

Photo Gallery


Author/designer Michael Payne, Museum of California Design director Bill Stern

Honoree Charles Hollis Jones, artist and graphic designer Felis Stella, photographer Leland Lee	Museum of California Design Advisory Council member Patricia Stich, Museum of California Design board member Judy Gregg Rosenman	Museum of California Design board members Judy Gregg Rosenman, Alan Jaffe, Dr. Andrew Frank