Florence Lundborg
United States 1871–1949
Worked in San Francisco
Poster, The Lark November 1896,
Woodcut print
Publisher: William Doxey, San Francisco

May Hamilton (1887–1976) and Vieve Hamilton 1886–1971
Worked in Pasadena and Culver City
Head With Hair Earthenware, circa 1936
Manufactured by Vernon Kilns

Photo: Museum of California Design

Jane Bennison (1913–2001)
Worked in Los Angeles
Bowls and rectangular vases
Earthenware, circa 1936
Manufactured by Vernon Kilns

Photo: Museum of California Design

Center:
Ceramics made by Gertrud Natzler (1908–1971)
Worked in Vienna, Austria, and Los Angeles
(glazes by Otto Natzler)

Right:
Furniture by Dorothy Schindele (1915–2004)
Manufactured by Modern Colro, INc.

Photo: Museum of California Design

Center: Furniture by Greta Magnusson Grossman (1906–1999)

Photo: Bill Dow

Arline Fisch, born 1931
Works in San Diego

Halter, Sterling silver, 1968

Shoulder ornament, fine and sterling silver, 1986

Photo: Museum of California Design

Deborah Sussman, born 1931
Works in Los Angeles
Supergraphic, circa 1986

Recreation of the original installation in Joseph Magnin, San Jose, California.

Photo: Museum of California Design

Gere Kavanaugh at the opening of CALIFORNIA'S DESIGNING WOMEN1896-1986 at the Autry National Center.

Photo: Bill Dow

MYTH AND MANPOWER encourages the visitor to experience the power of graphic design to communicate ideas — from the selling of commercial products to the promotion of social issues.  The exhibition accomplishes this by juxtaposing labels created for promoting California citrus fruits -- and California itself -- with posters that the United Farm Workers of America created to mobilize for agricultural workers’ rights.

Each exhibit in MYTH AND MANPOWER presents one of the glamorous lithographed labels that adorned crates of California citrus fruits that used to be displayed in grocery stores throughout the United States next to one of the tough labor union posters distributed by the United Farm Workers of America.

Dolores
United Farm Workers of America
Designer: Barbara Carrasco, c. 1999
Printer: Self-Help Graphics
Medium: Silkscreen
Dimensions: 26 in. x 18 in.
Collection: Self-Help Graphics Archives
California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives, Dept of Special Collections, Donald Davidson Library, University of California, Santa Barbara

Miracle Brand
Bradford Bros. Inc.
Placentia, California
Designer: Unknown, c. 1940
Printer: Western Litho. Co.,
Los Angeles, California
Medium: Offset Lithograph
Dimensions: 10 3/4 in. x 9 7/8 in.
Collection: Museum of
California Design

Although they draw on similar themes each graphic in a pair uses its own style to convey its message. Thus, the key element in each — whether that be the California landscape, women, modes of transportation or animals — is represented in a radically different way.

The names of few of the artists who designed the citrus labels — which were printed in San Francisco and Los Angeles in the first half of the 20th century — are known. However, most of the Untied Farm Workers posters in the exhibition, from later in the 20th century, were designed by well-recognized Chicano artists and designers — Barbara Carrasco, Octavio Ocampo, Peter Gallegos, Ricardo Favela, Juanishi Orozco, Estaban Villa, and Xavier Viramontes — and Chicano art collectives — Graphic Arts Group (San Francisco), Royal Chicano Air Force (Sacramento) and La Raza Silkscreen Center (San Francisco).

Both the citrus industry and the United Farm Workers played significant roles in the economic development of California in the 20th century and continue to be mainstays of the state’s economy. Each has had a significant impact on the multi-faceted character of the state, from the wealth that produced “millionaires row” on Orange Grove Boulevard in Pasadena to the strides made for social justice by Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta and activists of the farm workers movement. MYTH AND MANPOWER honors their contributions to California’s design history.

The United Farm Workers posters were lent to the exhibition by the California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives at the University of California, Santa Barbara, the Center for the Study of Political Graphics in Los Angeles and All Of Us Or None Archive, Berkeley, courtesy of Lincoln Cushing.  The citrus box labels are from the collection of the A. K. Smiley Library, Redlands, California, Museum of California Design, Los Angeles, California, and Jill and Lily Collins. Exhibition paper conservator and framing consultant: Kene Rosa.

Dates and venues for this exhibition are pending.

MID-CENTURY MANDARIN: THE CLAY CANVASES OF TYRUS WONG

AT CRAFT AND FOLK ART MUSEUM

JULY 14 - OCTOBER 31, 2004

  Lobster
   Mark: Winfield Pottery
   Plate modified by Tyrus Wong
   Porcelain, 17" diameter, c. 1945
   Collection of Tyrus Wong
   Photograph by Peter Brenner   

Paintings by the Chinese-American artist Tyrus Wong have been exhibited at the Pasadena Art Institute, the Los Angeles Museum of Art (now the Los Angeles County Museum of Art) and the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1939, he won the Los Angeles Art Association’s first-prize purchase award judged by two of California’s most respected artists, Stanton Macdonald-Wright and Lorser Feitelson.

This is the first exhibition of the paintings Wong produced for the Winfield Pottery of Pasadena between about 1944 and 1950. His canvases were 48 plates, bowls and a teapot designed by Margaret Mears Gabriel (1888-1987), which were made in molds for nation-wide distribution. Pablo Picasso, Roy Lichtenstein, Keith Haring, Andy Warhol and Ed Moses are among the artists who have created decorations for commercial ceramics, but Wong is apparently the only one to have decorated them entirely by his own hand: the other artists either produced paintings for staff decorators to copy or line drawings that could be applied as transfers. Thus this aspect of Wong’s oeuvre seems to occupy a unique place in the continuum between studio and commercial ceramics.

The exhibition consists of two sections: pieces Wong painted for commercial distribution and those he did for himself and friends. The commercial pieces include traditional subjects done in the monochromatic black ink style of painting that developed in China’s Sung Period (960-1279 AD), notably a series of horses in motion. Among the personal images are whimsical children’s subjects.

This is the first time that these works have been assembled in one place. Wong himself was very surprised by the display: "I’d certainly never seen them all together before," he said. Then he added, "It’s been so long [more than half a century], that I don’t even remember doing some of them."

Exhibition Catalog

At the Opening