ARTS AND ARCHITECTURE
July 1948
John Entenza [Editor], Gyorgy Kepes [Cover Designer]
John Entenza [Editor]: ARTS AND ARCHITECTURE. Los Angeles: John D. Entenza, Volume 65, number 7, July 1948. Slim folio. Stapled printed wrappers. 62 pp. Illustrated text and articles. Duotone Photogram cover by Gyorgy Kepes. Wrappers lightly worn with a faint vertical crease and minimal etching to front upper edge. A very good copy.
9.75 x 12.75 vintage magazine with 62 pages of editorial content and advertisements from leading purveyors of West Coast mid-century modernism, circa 1948. 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. Check it out:
- Form and Motion by Gyorgy Kepes. 2-page article with a full-page photogram illustration.
- Mechanization takes Command, a review by Richard Neutra
- House by J. R. Davidson
- Case Study House No. 7 by Thornton Abell
- Shop No. 1 By Raphael Soriano snd Serge Chermayeff
- Shop No. 2 By Raphael Soriano
- Sculpture By Ward Bennett
- Furniture: New from Knoll Associates, with work by Abel Sorensen, Eero Saarinen, photographed by Herbert Matter.
- Architect's Notes On Merit Specifications Case Study House No. 7
- Directory Of Merit Specifications Case Study House No. 7
- Art
- Books
- Music
- Notes In Passing
- New Product Literature And Information
- Index Of Advertisers
- and more.
Editorial Associates for Arts and Architecture in 1948 included Charles Eames, Herbert Matter, and Benjamin Baldwin. Julius Shulman was the staff photographer. The Editorial Advisory Board included William Wilson Wurster,Richard neutra, Isamu Noguchi, eero Saarinen, Gardner Dailey, Sumner Spaulding, Mario Corbett, Esther McCoy, John Funk, Gregory Ain, George Nelson, Gyorgy Kepes, marcel Breuer, Raphael Soriano, Ray Eames, Garret Eckbo, Edgar Kaufman, Jr. and others luminaries of the mid-century 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, Raphael Soriano, Whitney Smith, Sumner Spaulding, John Rex, Rodney Walker, William Wilson Wurster, Theodore 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 groundbreakers.