Browse Exhibits (2 total)
Irving J. Gill: Simplicity and Reform
Irving J. Gill (1870-1936) is known for his refined and abstracted architectural vocabulary, which he described as “the straight line, the cube, the arch, and the circle.” His deceptively simple forms first began to appear in his California work in 1903; his most significant and mature designs date from 1907 through 1920.
This exhibition (on display at the Art, Design & Architecture Museum from September 2016 until December 2016), was the first major view of Gill’s work since Esther McCoy’s exhibit at the Los Angles County Museum of Art in 1958. It traces the roots of his architectural language to the social concerns of the Progressive era and the Arts and Crafts movement, and especially the influence of Chicago architect Louis Sullivan (1856-1924), whose passionate ideas about architecture were linked to a transcendental view of Nature, borrowed from the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) and the poetry of Walt Whitman (1819-1892).
Sullivan argued for a “new architecture in America” based on Nature and unaffected by the past or European trends. Gill carried Sullivan’s ideas with him to California when he left the Adler and Sullivan office in 1893, and by 1903 was developing his own simplified, distilled, formal vocabulary. He married his abstract forms-- based on the straight line, the cube, and the circle--to experiments in materials and construction that he hoped would fulfill the need for sanitary, fireproof homes and inexpensive ways to build for the poor and working class.
The exhibition in 2016 was curated by Jocelyn Gibbs, then-Curator of the Architecture and Design Collection, and now Curator Emeritus.
Lucile Lloyd: A Life in Murals
Drawn from the Lucile Lloyd Papers at the University of California, Santa Barbara Architecture and Design Archive, Lucile Lloyd: A Life in Murals offers a rare look at a prolific yet understudied artist. During the Great Depression, Lucile Lloyd (1894-1941) built an active career as a mural decorator. Her richly-colored scenic murals and stenciled patterns adorned the interiors of homes, schools, restaurants, shops, and public buildings. Lloyd began her career in New York, and in 1919 relocated to the Los Angeles area. Murals were at a height of popularity. Hand-painted ornament was fashionable in homes and public buildings alike, and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) funded public murals to ease unemployment during the Depression. In 1935, Lloyd became the first woman artist in Southern California to receive a prestigious WPA commission. The resultant mural, California’s Name, was her last major project.
Since Lloyd’s death in 1941, many of her murals have been lost. The mode of decoration she practiced, however, is a hallmark of the Spanish Revival and Art Deco styles of architecture popular during the 1920s and 30s, of which numerous examples remain. The Lucile Lloyd Papers, therefore, give insight into a forgotten trade and the tastes, values, and building practices in Southern California and the United States during the 1920s and 30s.