Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Greta Magnusson Grossman : a Swedish designer in California




The Pasadena Museum of California Art (PMCA) presents, from the 28th of october to the 24th of february, Greta Magnusson Grossman: A Car and Some Shorts, the first-ever retrospective of work by pioneering Swedish-American architect and designer Greta Magnusson Grossman (1906-1999). Beginning with her education and early career as one of a handful of female designers defining Swedish Modernism in the 1930s, the exhibition chronicles her meteoric rise upon settling in Los Angeles, where she received prestigious commissions from such firms as Barker Bros. and Ralph O. Smith, and began her career as an architect exemplifying the California modernist style. Since Grossman’s death, her role in the Southern California design movement has been largely under-recognized; this exhibition rediscovers her influential and rare accomplishments as both an industrial designer and architect.