ARTS AND ARCHITECTURE
May 1949
John Entenza [Editor], Charles Kratka [Cover Designer]
John Entenza [Editor]: ARTS AND ARCHITECTURE. Los Angeles: John D. Entenza, 1952. Volume 66, number 5, May 1949. Wrappers lightly worn and soiled. Textblock lightly thumbed. Interior unmarked and very clean. Cover by Eames Office employee and Graphic Design whiz Charles Kratka. A very good or better copy.
9.75 x 12.75 vintage magazine with 62 pages of editorial content and advertisements from leading purveyors of West Coast modernism, circa 1949. Staff photography by Julius Shulman. In terms of decor, there is none of that Chippendale jive here-- every residential interior is decked out in full midcentury glory.
The contents of this vintage issue of Arts and Architecture read like a veritable rosetta stone of West Coast Postwar Modernism.
- CASE STUDY HOUSE No. 8 Designed by Charles Eames
- The Modern Institute of Art by Kenneth Ross
- From Mountainheads to Mole Hills-A Review by Victor Gruen, Architect
- Study for Spokane, Washington, by the University of Idaho Royal McClure, Acting Professor
- House in a Museum Garden by Marcel Breuer, Architect
- House by Mario Corbett, Architect; Albert Lanier, Collaborator
- The AIA honor Award house by Fred Langhorst, Architect
- The Prudential building by Wurdeman and Becket, Architects
- Murals for a Chicago restaurant by Richard Koppe
- full-page advertisement for Herman Miller; and more.
Editorial Associates for Arts and Architecture included Charles Eames and Benjamin Baldwin. Julius Shulman was the staff photographer. The Editorial Advisory Board included William Wilson Wurster, Richard Neutra, Eero Saarinen, Sumner Spaulding, Gregory Ain, Ray Eames, Garrett Eckbo, Herbert Matter and others luminaries of the midcentury modern movement.
In 1938, John Entenza joined California Arts and Architecture magazine as editor. By 1943, Entenza and his art director Alvin Lustig had completely overhauled the magazine and renamed it Arts and Architecture. Arts and Architecture championed all that was new in the arts, with special emphasis on emerging modernist architecture in Southern California.
One of the pivotal figures in the growth of modernism in California, Entenza's most lasting contribution was his sponsorship of the Case Study Houses project, which featured the works of architects Thornton Abell, Conrad Buff, Calvin Straub, Donald Hensman, Charles Eames, Eero Saarinen, J. R. Davidson, A. Quincy Jones, Frederick Emmons, Don Knorr, Edward killinsworth, Jules Brady, Waugh Smith, pierre Koenig, Kemper Nomland, Kemper Nomland Jr., Richard Neutra, Ralph Rapson, Raphale Soriano, Whitney Smith, Sumner Sapulding, John Rex, Rodney Walker, William Wilson Wurster, Theordore Bernardi and Craig Ellwood. Arts and Architecture also ran articles and interviews on artists and designers such as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, George Nakashima, George Nelson and many other ground-breakers.