Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture At Midcentury

Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture At Midcentury takes a look at the broad cultural zeitgeist of “cool” that influenced the visual, graphic, and decorative arts, furniture, architecture, music, and film produced in California in the 1950s and early 1960s. The exhibition, organized by the Orange County Museum of Art, includes a jazz lounge; a media bar with film, animation, and television programming; a period art gallery of hard-edge abstract paintings; selections of art, architectural, and documentary photography; and an interactive timeline that highlights examples of California, national, and international culture and history in the 1950s. Birth of the Cool examines the dynamic community of artists who overlapped and interacted in Southern California at midcentury—Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan, Charles and Ray Eames, John Lautner, Richard Neutra, Helen Lundeberg, and others who played a germinal role in the development of this iconic style of high modernism.

Presentation at the Blanton is generously funded in part by Mr. and Mrs. Jack Blanton, Sr. and Melba and Ted Whatley.

This exhibition is organized by the Orange County Museum of Art and is curated by Elizabeth Armstrong. Major support for Birth of the Cool is provided by Brent R. Harris, The Segerstrom Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.

Significant support is provided by Bente and Gerald Buck, Twyla and Chuck Martin, Jayne and Mark Murrel, Pam and Jim Muzzy, Barbara and Victor Klein, and Victoria and Gilbert E. LeVasseur Jr. Additional support is provided by Toni and Steven Berlinger and Patricia and Max Ellis.

Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture At Midcentury
Kurator: Elizabeth Armstrong

Künstler: Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan, Charles & Ray Eames, John Lautner, Richard Neutra, Helen Lundeberg ...