California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way"
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."
Pacific Standard Time is an unprecedented collaboration of more than sixty cultural institutions across Southern California, coming together to tell the story of the birth of the LA art scene. Initiated through grants from the Getty Foundation, Pacific Standard Time will take place for six months beginning October 2011. Sponsors
The exhibition was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and funded through a lead grant from 
Corporate sponsorship was provided by 
Additional funding was provided by the Henry Luce Foundation, Debbie and Mark Attanasio, Martha and Bruce Karsh, and LACMA's Decorative Arts and Design Council.
Image: Julius Shulman (1910–2009), photographer, Pierre Koenig, architect, Stahl House (Case Study House #22), Los Angeles, 1960 © J. Paul Getty Trust. Used with permission. Julius Shulman Photography Archive, Research Library, Getty Research Institute (2004.R.10).
Deborah Sussman
Deborah Sussman, whose work is included in the exhibition, talks about her early history with Charles and Ray Eames and her long career as an influential designer.
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Oskar Fischinger and California Abstract Animation
Once upon a time, California was home to groundbreaking work in abstract, avant-garde animation. One of the most influential abstract animators was Oskar Fischinger (1900–1967), brought to Hollywood by Paramount from Berlin in 1936, thus becoming the direct link from the European avant-garde film movement to West Coast experimental filmmaking...
Mid-century Wonderland: Sculptor Adaline Kent in LACMA’s Exhibitions
When the Resnick Pavilion opened in 2010, we hoped that the pathways between exhibitions would facilitate conversations between works that might otherwise never appear in the same room. With the current pairing of two mid-twentieth-century exhibitions, California Design, 1930–1965: “Living in a Modern Way” in the center gallery and In Wonderland: The Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists in Mexico and the United States on the east side, the connections are more than intellectual musings—several of the designers and artists in these shows knew each other...
