(Click on images to enlarge)
Pauline Gibling and Rudolph Schindler, Yosemite, October 1921. Courtesy UC-Santa Barbara Architecture and Design Collections, Schindler Collection and Archives of American Art, McCoy Papers.
Aline Barnsdall, 1922. LA Public Library Photo Collection.
"Walt Whitman School Anniversary Souvenir," verso, ca. 1921. (Photographs possibly by Edward Weston in trade for tuition for Chandler and Brett). From The Southern California Library, Box 44, Folder 15.
The political and progressive educational agendas of the patrons and Board of Directors of the "First Proletarian Day School in the West" were perfectly aligned with Pauline's radical, modernist sensibilities. Both Schindlers were soon elected to the school's board of directors and RMS chaired the building committee. He also designed and built minor renovations for the school housed in an aging Queen Anne-style mansion at 517 S. Boyle Ave., the most extensive being a new library. Schindler had high hopes of landing the commission for the design of a new school evidenced by his preliminary plans (see below) and notes for a lecture on the Modern School dated January 1921 in his papers at UC-Santa Barbara. Fund-raising efforts were anemic at best and plans for a new campus never materialized. (Author's note: Schindler lectured at the Whitman School on this topic in February 1922 thus the date on his speech manuscript could possibly be a new year dating typo.(SWWWS)).
Walt Whitman School preliminary plan, R. M. Schindler, January 1921. Courtesy Architecture and Design Collection, University Art Museum, UC-Santa Barbara.
Chandler and Brett Weston in the dunes, ca. 1919. Photo by Edward Weston. Center for Creative Photography. ©1981 Arizona Board of Regents.
It was most likely at the Whitman School where the Schindlers first met Edward Weston whose two oldest sons, Chandler and Brett (see above), were pupils. This would mark the beginning of a lifelong friendship with Weston's family and circle of mutual friends. Many of these same friends would become, like the Schindlers, beneficiaries of Barnsdall's patronage and associated with the fledgling Hollywood Art Association which was formed in 1920 about the time of the Schindlers arrival in Los Angeles. (SWWWS).
The Schindlers followed a short stay in Highland Park with a move in March 1921 to an apartment on Kane St. overlooking Echo Park. Pauline wrote to her parents that they were "taking this studio in town, because ... we want a preliminary period in which to entertain the few interesting people we are meeting ... and to establish definitely a little of our own atmosphere, tangibly." It was also likely a move of convenience to a location between the downtown Wright office in the Laughlin Building and the Olive Hill job site. (Pauline Schindler to "Parents," March 1921, cited in Sweeney, Robert, "Life at Kings Road: As It Was, 1920-1940" in The Architecture of R. M. Schindler, organized by Elizabeth A. T. Smith and Michael Darling, MOCA, Abrams, Los Angeles, 2000, p. 88).
The move could have been influenced by Lloyd Wright who was well-connected in Hollywood circles through his Paramount Pictures set design work and intimate exposure to Aline Barnsdall's Los Angeles Little Theatre and her Player's Producing Co. troupe beginning in 1916. (WSZW). Lloyd was also at this time overseeing construction of his houses for W. J. Weber and Otto Bollman on which ground was broken just weeks prior to the Schindler's arrival. Bollman's Dial Film Co. had also just released "The Tiger's Coat" starring Edward Weston's new lover Tina Modotti whom the Schindler's would also soon befriend. (For much more on this see my "Tina Modotti, Lloyd Wright and Otto Bollman Connections, 1920").
Curious of their new surroundings, the couple possibly attended the inaugural Easter Sunrise Service held at the fledgling Hollywood Bowl on March 27th. The services were conducted the previous year at Barnsdall's Olive Hill site, a factoid which would likely have been relayed to the Schindlers via Lloyd.
Easter Sunrise Service, March 27, 1921. Photographer unknown. From Hollywood Bowl web site.
Schindler campground, Yosemite, October 1921. Courtesy UC-Santa Barbara Architecture and Design Collections, Schindler Collection.
Upon the essential completion of work on Olive Hill in the fall of 1921, the Schindlers took a much anticipated and badly needed vacation to Yosemite where they excitedly began planning the design of their own residence to be built on Kings Road in Sherman, soon-to-become West Hollywood. From Yosemite Pauline wrote to her by then intimate friend, Weston lover and attic muse and future Kings Road tenant Betty Katz.
"... We return, perhaps at the end of the month, to Los Angeles..and do not go to Japan. Our first immediate work, to build our own studio, -one of the two or three most joyous things in the world to do. I wish we might make it several studios at once, -one for you perhaps, one certainly for Kimmie and Clyde [Chace], since she has such energies to apply toward cooperative housing experiments. Labor and utensils in common, -and much technique of the mere mechanism simplified. When you are well, and permanently in town, -we'll all do something of the sort together if you like..At least as lovely as the Hollywood Hill. You the Community Kitchen altogether, for us, and for as many more as you please!
This stimulating recuperative play of ours out here sets all sorts of music and thinking going within one..I've ideas enough to last us several years..new ways to live..new simplicities. The important thing is, that this new clarity, these new qualities, should outlast the return to town. ..." (Pauline Schindler to Betty Katz, October 19, 1921. Typed letter signed in possession of Betty's great niece Dottie Ickovitz.).
"Betty in Her Attic," 1921. Edward Weston photo. Center for Creative Photography. ©1981 Arizona Board of Regents.
By then in the Weston-Mather-Modotti-"Robo" de l'Aubrie Richey circle via mutual friend Betty, the Schindlers would have attended either before or after their fateful Yosemite trip their new friends' MacDowell Club exhibition which opened October 8th and ran until early November. L.A. Times art critic Antony Anderson favorably reviewed Robo's batiks and Weston's and Mather's photos. The exhibition also included work by the new Hollywood Art Association and Otis Art Institute leaders and teachers Douglas Donaldson, E. Roscoe Shrader and Edouard Vysekal, all of whom the Schindlers would quickly befriend after joining the group in the spring of the following year. (Anderson, Antony, "Of Art and Artists: At the MacDowell Club," Los Angeles Times, October 30, 1921, p. III-48. I am grateful to Weston bibliographer Paula Freedman for bringing this exhibition to my attention.).
An event Pauline definitely would not have missed, since the Schindlers seemingly returned from Yosemite in time to attend, was the Women's World Peace Meeting in the Hollywood Bowl on Armistice Day (see below). Pauline's mentor Jane Addams was elected president of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom in the summer of 1915 about the time she moved into Hull-House upon graduating from Smith College. Pauline's mother Sophie was also affiliated with the organization. (Vienna to Los Angeles: Two Journeys by Esther McCoy, Arts + Architecture Press, Santa Monica, 1979, p. 32).
Women's World Peace Meeting, Hollywood Bowl, November 11, 1921.
Robo and Tina Modotti de Richey Studio, ca. October 1921. Seely photo.
Betty Katz and Pauline most likely met at one of the bohemian and radically oriented studio soirees of Weston's erstwhile lover Margrethe Mather and/or Tina Modotti and Robo de Richey (see above) in early 1921 and quickly discovered their kindred socialist beliefs. Both were strong supporters of the IWW and downtrodden garment workers across the country. By a fluke of scheduling Katz had escaped the tragic 1911 conflagration at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York which took the lives of 146 of her fellow garment workers. This inspired her to join the IWW and become a tireless crusader for better wages and working conditions. After Katz contracted tuberculosis in 1915, the Wobblies sent her to Los Angeles to recuperate and continue organizing L.A.'s rapidly expanding garment trade. (Artful Lives: Edward Weston, Margrethe Mather, and the Bohemians of Los Angeles by Beth Gates Warren, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 2011, p. 125).
I.W.W. Paterson Strike Pageant poster, 1913 from New Jersey Monthly.
The Triangle Shirtwaist tragedy occurred about the time the nearby South Orange, New Jersey resident Pauline was cementing her plans to attend the progressive Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts in the fall. After matriculating she was again exposed to major labor unrest during the infamous 1912 IWW "Bread and Roses" textile workers strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts during her impressionable freshman year at Smith. The following year she received further inspiration from the IWW Paterson Silk Strike a few miles north of her family's New Jersey home. With financial backing from his then lover Mabel Dodge, radical journalist John Reed staged a reenactment of the strike in New York's Madison Square Garden with Pauline and/or her activist mother Sophie possibly in attendance (see above).
About the same time Katz was moving to Los Angeles, Pauline was moving into Jane Addams' and Ellen Gates Starr's Hull-House while continuing post-graduate studies in social work after her graduation from Smith. Shortly after her arrival Pauline fervently joined the picket lines with 15,000 women's garment workers in International Ladie's Garment Workers Union strike organized by her mentor Starr (see above) and was proudly arrested for her zealous involvement. (Sweeney, p. 91 and "Unemployment and Labor Problems: Labor Committee at Hull House, Hull-House Year Book, January 1, 1916, p. 58).
Marian "Kimmie" Da Camara, 1915. From 1915 Smith College Yearbook.
Having compared notes with her best friend, Smith College roommate Marian "Kimmie" Da Camara, who had also moved to Chicago and was then teaching at at the progressive Ravinia School, Pauline presciently wrote to her mother a few months later about the kind of communal house she wished to live in some day.
"One of my dreams, Mother, is to have, some day, a little joy of a bungalow, on the edge of woods and mountains and near a crowded city, which shall be open just as some people's hearts are open, to friends of all classes and types. I should like it to be as democratic a meeting place as Hull-House, where millionaires and laborers, professors and illiterates, the splendid and the ignoble, meet constantly together." (Pauline Gibling to Sophie Gibling, May 9, 1916. Cited in in Sweeney, p. 114 and numerous other sources).
Clyde Chace, 1915. From 1915 University of Cincinnati Yearbook.
Aided by a loan from Pauline's progressive parents Edmund and Sophie Gibling, the Schindler's and "Kimmie" and her engineer/builder husband Clyde Chace (see above) purchased a lot from Walter Dodge at 835 Kings Road in West Hollywood just a block south of his striking residence (see below). Walter Dodge, whose Irving Gill-designed tour de force at
950 Kings Road commanded the street, owned the surrounding property and wanted
to control who moved into the neighborhood. Gill likely vouched for Schindler
and Chace who purchased their lot in December 1921. Schindler had likely viewed
the Dodge House while under construction using the Aiken method in the fall of
1915 during his West coast trip to view the Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco and Panama California Exposition in San Diego followed by stopovers in Los Angeles and Taos. He most likely learned of Gill's work through his December 1914
introductory visit with Frank Lloyd Wright and his son John who lived with
brother Lloyd in a Gill-designed cottage in San Diego ca. 1912-13. (For more on this see my "Sarah B. Clark Residence, 7231 Hillside Ave., Hollywood: Irving Gill's First Aiken System Project" and "Edward Weston and Mabel Dodge Luhan Remember D. H. Lawrence").
Aerial view of Sherman, later West Hollywood, 1922. Note the Dodge House and recently completed Schindler House on Kings Road at the bottom center of this Spence Aerial Photography photo from the Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection.
Dodge House, 950 Kings Road, West Hollywood, 1916. Irving Gill, architect. Photographer unknown. Southwest Builder and Contractor, May 14, 1920, front cover.
The Schindlers and Gill were certainly acquainted by 1921, likely through Gill's former employee Lloyd Wright and Gill's certain interest in the happenings on Olive Hill. The Schindlers invited Gill to dinner at their Kane St. apartment in April 1921 and almost certainly discussed their dream of building their own house. (Pauline Schindler letter to Sophie Gibling, April 30, 1921 cited in Schindler House by Kathryn Smith, Abrams, 2001, p. 18).
Gill undoubtedly would have brought the Schindlers up to speed on his massive Clarke Residence in Santa Fe Springs and Gartz Duplex in Pasadena then under construction and the Horatio West Court project in Santa Monica on which he would be breaking ground the following month. ("Santa Monica Permits," Southwest Builder and Contractor, May 21, 1921, p. 33 and SWWWS). He also likely gave the Schindlers a tour of his by then considerable portfolio of Los Angeles work including the his pride and joy, the Dodge House.
Clyde and Marian Chace, Cincinnati, summer 1921. Preparing to leave for Los Angeles. Photographer unknown. Courtesy Jeffrey Chace.
Gill might also have indicated his willingness to hire Clyde Chace to assist on his projects then in the works. Using the likelihood of employment with Gill, the Schindlers successfully lured the Chace's to join them in Southern California in the summer of 1921 (see above). By September the Chaces moved into a house Gill was renting in Santa Monica while the apartment project for Horatio West was under construction (see below). Possibly made aware of Gill's modernist aesthetic via RMS before he and Kimmie moved to Los Angeles, civil engineer Clyde would have become a great admirer of the pioneering modernist Gill's work and use of progressive concrete construction techniques. Clyde would parlay what he learned on Gill's projects to use on Kings Road, the Popenoe Cabin in Coachella and the Pueblo Ribera Court in Gill's old stomping grounds of La Jolla and other Schindler-designed projects during his and Marian's 1922-24 stay in Southern California. (Author's note: Gill also had under construction at this time the Kate Crane Gartz duplex in Pasadena. The Schindlers were by then in the Gartz circle and RMS would certainly have been aware of these projects. See my "The Schindlers and Westons and the Walt Whitman School" for more on the Gartz Duplex.)
Horatio West Court, 140 Hollister St., Santa Monica, Irving Gill, architect, Clyde Chace, assistant. Photo by the author, July 2014.
Floor plan, Schindler-Chace House, 835 Kings Road. R. M. Schindler, architect. Courtesy UC-Santa Barbara Architecture and Design Collection, Schindler Collection.
In a letter to her parents in late November, Pauline indicated that Gill and Lloyd Wright had reviewed Schindler's Kings Road design (see above). (Pauline Schindler letter to parents, November 27, 1921, Smith, note 18, p. 42). They also likely discussed the use of the Thomas Fellows tilt-slab method of concrete wall construction which was simpler and more economical than the Aiken System Gill employed on the nearby Dodge House (see below). Gill and Fellows almost certainly knew each other and had likely compared notes on the various concrete building technologies of the day. ("Trying to solve the Problem of Fireproof
Construction for Small Residences," Southwest Contractor and Manufacturer,
April 15, 1911, p. 18. For more on the Gill-Fellows relationship do a "Fellows" search in my "Irving Gill's First Aiken System Project").
Construction photo of the Schindler-Chace House, 835 Kings Road, 1921-2. R. M. Schindler, architect, Clyde Chace, builder. Courtesy UC-Santa Barbara Architecture and Design Collection, Schindler Collection.
The Schindlers were still somewhat involved with the Whitman School while breaking ground on their Kings Road House (see above) and beginning to immerse themselves into Los Angeles and Hollywood cultural circles. Once they realized in early 1922 that the fractious proletarian radicals comprising the Board of Directors of the short-lived school would likely never get their act together to commission a new school, the Schindlers shifted their social and cultural activities to the rapidly developing Hollywood and its burgeoning arts scene. The pregnant Pauline took a three-month teaching job in El Centro during the spring of 1922 to help the cash-strapped couple finance their new house. She returned by early June as the house neared completion.
%2BChace%2Bin%2Bdoorway%2Bon%2Bright%2C%2B1922.jpg)
Schindler-Chace House, 835 Kings Road, 1921-2. R. M. Schindler, architect, Clyde Chace, builder. Courtesy UC-Santa Barbara Architecture and Design Collection, Schindler Collection. (Author's notes: "Kimmie" Da Camara Chace standing in the doorway at right. Gill and Frank Lloyd Wright visited the Schindler-Chace House shortly after its completion. Irving Gill and the Architecture of Reform by Thomas S. Hines, Monacelli, 2000, p. 231).
.jpg)
R. M. Schindler, Pauline Gibling Schindler, Sophie Gibling, Edmund Gibling, Dorothy Gibling and Mark Schindler at Kings Road, 1923. Courtesy UC-Santa Barbara Architecture and Design Collection, Schindler Collection.
As Pauline was nearing childbirth and the couple were moving into their new home with the Chaces in June 1922, they joined the Hollywood Art Association. The group's meetings and activities included exhibitions, lectures, gala dinners, parades and a myriad of fund raising events. The Schindlers recognized it as a potentially more fertile source of architectural commissions and artistic social contacts than the cauldron of radical politics surrounding the Walt Whitman School.
Left, Clyde Chace with daughter Anne Harriet flanked by her grandmother and great grandmother at Kings Road, 1922. Right, Marian Da Camara "Kimmie" Chace at Kings Road, 1922. (Scanned from R. M. Schindler House, 1921-22 by Kathryn Smith, Friends of the Schindler House, 1987, p. 31.
Formed around the time the Schindlers moved to Los Angeles, the organization had by March of 1922 moved their meeting place to the Franklin Galleries' third floor space at 6902 Hollywood Blvd. next door to the brand new Hollywood Masonic Temple (see below at far right). Schindler would design an "exhibition complex" for the Franklin Galleries in 1923 which was not built. (Drawer 2, Folder 159, Schindler Collection, UC-Santa Barbara Architecture and Design Collections).
Left, Hollywood Masonic Temple, 1922. Austin, Field and Fry, architects. Right, a snippet view of the Franklin Galleries, 6902-04 Hollywood Blvd., third floor. From LA Public Library Photo Collection.
One of the goals of the Association was to raise enough money to build an art museum for their permanent home in Hollywood, the commission for which Schindler obviously coveted. The Association's first meeting place was the historic Don Tomas Orquidez Adobe (see below) on the site of a former Cahuenga Indian burial ground. The building was the first structure built in Hollywood ca. 1853.
Orquidez Adobe, 7068 Franklin Ave. at Outpost Dr., Hollywood, 1853. LAPL Photo Collection.
In the late 19th century, General Harrison Gray Otis, a veteran of the Civil and Spanish-American wars and the first publisher of the Los Angeles Times, bought the otherwise undeveloped property and made the adobe his retreat which he named "The Outpost." Otis later built on the land a country home he called "The Getaway" which he reveled in using to entertain his military cronies (see below). Otis also held Los Angeles Arbor Day festivals and picnics for newsboys on the site. The property was purchased from the Otis estate in 1920 by Louise Knappen Woollett, Principal of the Hollywood School for Girls. Otis had two years earlier donated his townhome "The Bivouac" (discussed much later below) enabling the creation of the Otis Art Institute which became an adjunct of the Los Angeles Museum of Science, History and Art.
General Harrison Gray Otis Country Residence aka "The Getaway."
Woolett initially intended to donate the adobe to the Art Association for use as a studio, gallery and museum for Association members. Her grandiose development plans for the acreage to be designed by her architect husband William Lee Woollett included an addition for "The Getaway," a new crescent-shaped Italian Renaissance-style school with athletic fields, a "Hollywood Bowl" outdoor theater, a new Community Theater and a Hollywood Woman's Clubhouse. Other portions of the property were planned to be subdivided to finance the improvements. Woollett's plans did not come to fruition as the land was soon sold to Hollywood developer Charles E. Toberman for a quick profit. Toberman then proceeded to develop the community of Outpost Estates. ("Make Outpost Artist's Bower," Los Angeles Times, April 17, 1921, p. II-5).
(Author's note: Louise's husband William Lee Woollett's lithograph of Boulder Dam under construction was selected for the January 1935 cover of California Arts & Architecture's first special issue dedicated modern architecture which was guest-edited by Pauline Schindler (see below).
Lithograph of Boulder Dam by William Lee Woollett, California Artsb& Architecture, January 1935. From my collection.
Before abruptly selling the "The Outpost" to Toberman, Woollett allowed the Hollywood Art Association to host its inaugural Fiesta Mexicana fund raiser on the site in July of 1922. The idea for Fiesta was a likely a riff on, or reprise of sorts, of the Mexican Nativity play "Los Pastores." Presaging the community's future as a performing arts center, the local townfolk annually staged "Los Pastores" in the property's natural amphitheater up until the late 1870s. (MacDowell, Syl, "The Magic Story of Hollywood," Los Angeles Times, September 28, 1924, pp. VIII-5-6, 12).
Barnsdall compound, Olive Hill, Hollywood ca. 1923. Frank Lloyd Wright, architect, R. M. Schindler, construction supervisor and later modification design. LA Public Library Photo Collection.
William C. de Mille Residence, 4821 Hollywood Blvd. Photographer and architect unknown. From The Story of Hollywood: An Illustrated History by Gregory Paul Williams, BL Press, 2005, p. 77.
The Fiesta was the Art Association's first public fund raiser. The parade comprised of fifteen units, each portraying a scene of Latin-American and early California life. Upon arrival at "The Outpost" a mock bullfight was conducted by Charles H. "Happy" Hawks after which an elaborate Mexican dinner accompanied by entertainment concluded the extravaganza. (Anderson, Antony, "Of Art and Artists," Los Angeles Times, July 2, 1922, p. III-27).
"Hollywood Artist Who Will Write for Holly Leaves, Francis William Vreeland," Holly Leaves, September 2, 1922, front cover. Photo by Viroque Baker.
Ceramicist-graphic designer-water colorist Francis William Vreeland became a director of the Hollywood Art Association about the time the Schindlers became members in 1922 along with soon-to-be Schindler client and project photographer Viroque Baker (see Viroque Baker photos above and below). Vreeland studied in Paris at the Academie Julian and
then became a designer for Rookwood Pottery Company in Cincinnati in the early
1900′s. Also gifted in the graphic arts he moved on to become associate editor
of American Printer where he contributed a monthly column on
commercial art. After moving to California he became a watercolorist of note
and a prominent member of the California Art Club.
Rookwood vase by William Francis Vreeland, 1901.
William Francis Vreeland, cover design for Outing Magazine, 1903. Vreeland, William Francis, "Commercial Art," American Printer, February 1906, p. 611.
Vreeland, Francis William, "A House that Grew in the Mind of an Artist," California Southland, May 1928, p. 17. Photos by Viroque Baker.
The Vreelands frequently entertained the arts community in their gracious craftsman-style home at 2206 Live Oak Drive around the corner from Lloyd Wright's Taggart House completed a few years prior. For example, Antony Anderson reported on their hosting the Arts and Crafts Society in the fall of 1925. (Anderson, Antony, "Of Art and Artists: Arts and Crafts Entertained," Los Angeles Times, September 23, 1925, p. 22).
Vreeland, Francis William, "A House that Grew in the Mind of an Artist," California Southland, June 1928, p. 61. Photo by Viroque Baker.
The well-connected Vreeland was able to place a two issue multi-page spread of his arts and crafts style home in California Southland illustrated with Viroque Baker images (see above for example).
Vreeland, Francis William, "A House that Grew in the Mind of an Artist," California Southland, June 1928, p. 84. Photo by Viroque Baker.
Viroque Baker ca. 1931 by Ernest M. Pratt. Courtesy Ernest M. Pratt Collection, Charles Young Research Library, UCLA.
Along with Vreeland, Baker was one of the prime movers behind the inaugural Fiesta planning effort immediately making use of the knowledge she had gleaned on her 1921 photographic safari in Mexico. Viroque was the Fiesta's general chairman and Vreeland was the day's master of ceremonies. Soon-to-be Schindler collaborator President Douglas Donaldson (see below) and First Vice-President Mrs. E. Roscoe "Bess" Shrader (see later below) also played prominent roles. Vreeland began writing a regular art column for Holly Leaves taking the opportunity to regularly feature Art Association activities.
Douglas Donaldson, n.d., photographer unknown. From Art and Life on the Upper Mississippi, 1890-1915, Michael Conforti, editor, Newark, University of Delaware Press, p. 186. I am forever grateful to Staci Steinberg, assistant Architecture and Design curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for sharing this image.
President Donaldson, a noted Arts and Crafts decorative metalsmith and jewelry designer, was on the faculty of the Otis Art Institute with drawing instructor E. Roscoe Shrader who was then also acting Managing Director of the school. Both were also active in the California Art Club with Shrader holding the position of President throughout much of the 1920s.
Douglas Donaldson, Craftsman catalogue, ca. 1918. Cover photo and catalog illustrations possibly by Edward Weston although he is not credited. From Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
A few years before the Schindlers met Edward Weston, Donaldson gifted Weston the charger seen above and below, perhaps in return for the photographs which illustrate Donaldson's above ca. 1917 catalog. Weston in turn regifted the piece to his niece Jeanette Seaman as a wedding present. The charger can be seen mounted on the wall in Weston's portraits of Jeannette and dancer Norma Gould below.
Jeannette Seaman posing next to the Donaldson charger. Portrait by Edward Weston. From Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Norma Gould posing in front of the Douglas Donaldson charger in Edward Weston's studio, 1921. Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra Program, April 1921. Courtesy Los Angeles Philharmonic Archives, Hall of Records. (For much more on Norma Gould see my "Bertha Wardell Dances in Silence").
The Donaldsons, Mather and Weston exhibited in the First Annual Arts
and Crafts Salon, held at the L.A. Museum of History, Science and Art in
February 1916. (Anderson, Antony, Of Art and Artists: First Annual Salon," Los Angeles Times, February 13, 1916, p. III-4. I am grateful to Weston bibliographer Paula Freedman for bringing this to my attention.). The Donaldsons and Weston also lectured in conjunction with the exhibition. ("Fine Exhibit id Being Shown at Exposition Park," Manual Arts Weekly, n.d., ca. February 1916). Weston also took a portrait of the “Donaldsons at Home” that was
included in a Weston/Mather show at the Friday Morning Club in February 1921 which the Schindlers possibly attended. (I am grateful to Weston bibliographer Paula Freedman for this information.)
Douglas Donaldson Charger, Art Inst. of Chicago, Fine Arts Journal, November 1914.
Not only did Weston have early contacts with Donaldson, the Schindlers also possibly crossed paths with him or at least his work in Chicago as early as 1914 when the above charger was prominently on display as part of the Thirteenth Annual Exhibition of Industrial Art. Donaldson's work was part of this annual Arts and Crafts exhibition at the Art Institute nearly every year during the Schindler's time in Chicago. Donaldson won the prestigious Loeb prize for the below fruit dish in the 1916 show for example. Schindler's renderings for a proposed residence for Dr. T. P. Martin in Taos were included in the Annual Palette & Chisel Club exhibition at the Art Institute in April 1917. (For more details see my "Edward Weston and Mabel Dodge Luhan Remember D. H. Lawrence" (EWMDL)).
Douglas Donaldson, Craftsman catalogue, ca. 1917. Photo possibly by Edward Weston although he is not credited. From Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Both Schindlers had close ties to the Art Institute through 1922-23 Kings Road tenants and former Art Institute employees Karl and Edith Howenstein discussed elsewhere herein. While at the Art Institute Howenstein commissioned Schindler to design a "Children's Corner" for the museum. Schindler intimate and fellow applied artist with Donaldson, Herman Sachs also had a one-man show at the Art Institute in December 1920 just a few weeks after the Schindlers moved to Los Angeles. (See more on this in my "Herman Sachs Batik, ca.1920.").
Donaldson had spent some time studying in Vienna which would have further strengthened his bond with Schindler and Sachs. (Rudolph Schaeffer School of Design: Art in San Francisco Since 1915, Rudolph Schaeffer oral history interview conducted by Margaretta K. Mitchell, Regional Oral History Office, Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley, p. 30).
.
Donaldson Studio, 4960 Melrose Hill, Hollywood, E. A. Titcomb, architect, Norman Edwards wall decoration, tile fireplace decorations and light fixtures by Douglas and Louise Donaldson. Photo by Viroque Baker. From Donaldson, Douglas, "Craftsmanship Comments," California Southland, February 1924, p. 24.
Like the Vreelands, Donaldson and his designer wife Louise also entertained frequently and hosted Art Association events in their Hollywood studio at 4960 Melrose Hill (see above). Donaldson also hosted a series of lectures on interior decoration here in 1924 under the auspices of the newly formed Arts and Crafts Society of Southern California discussed later below. ("Art," California Southland, October 1924, p. 4).
With his earlier photographer and fellow frequent group show exhibitor Edward Weston in Mexico in 1924, Donaldson called instead upon fellow Hollywood Art Association officer Viroque Baker to photograph his studio and work for publication in California Southland.
Wall clock, Douglas and Louise Donaldson. Photo by Viroque Baker. Donaldson, Douglas, "Craftsmanship Comments," California Southland, February 1924, p. 24.
"Krotona Institute," Holly Leaves, July 1, 1922, p. 7. Top, Krotona Court, Lecture Hall and Institute, 2130 Vista Del Mar, Beachwood Canyon, 1913, Mead & Requa, architects.
With their center of activities now firmly based in Hollywood the Schindlers certainly read the local weekly Holly Leaves, the community organ for the Hollywood Art Association and for many other loosely affiliated local civic, cultural and social organizations. (Author's note: Publisher Orren M. Donaldson was formerly editor of Oak Leaves in Oak Park, Illinois until starting Holly Leaves in 1915.).
Besides the July 1st article on the inaugural Fiesta, ardent Theosophist Pauline would have enjoyed in the same issue the above article on Krotona Institute. The Schindlers would have known shortly after moving to Los Angeles through Lloyd Wright and/or Irving Gill that Krotona Court and the Knudsen Residence across the street (see below) were designed in 1912-14 by Gill's former partner and field supervisor Frank Mead and Richard Requa. Pauline would often use the Krotona Inn as her Hollywood pied-a-terre after leaving Kings Road in 1927. (For much more on the enigmatic and highly under-recognized Mead see my "Frank Mead: 'A New Type of Architecture in the Southwest,'Part II, 1907-1920").
Residence for Mrs. V. Knudsen, Vista Del Mar, Hollywood, Mead and Requa, architects. From Western Architect, July 1917, p. 62.
It was also at Krotona's "School of the Open Gate" that soon-to-be Schindler client Leah Press [Lovell] would find employment ca. 1918-19. ("Notes from Krotona Institute," Holly Leaves, June 21, 1919, p. 16). Pauline and Leah would teach together at Leah's "School in the Garden" after meeting and teaching together at Aline Barnsdall's progressive Olive Hill kindergarten sometime in 1921-22. The publishing headquarters of the Pacific Coast Musical Review's then Los Angeles editor, Bruno David Ussher was also located at Krotona Court, another reason for Smith College music major and Clef Club president Pauline to be attracted to the site. ("Clef Club," Smith College Yearbook, Northampton, MA, 1915, p. 101). (For more on this see my "Pauline Gibling Schindler: Vagabond Agent for Modernism" (PGS). Also see more on the Pauline-Ussher connection later below.).
Other exciting Hollywood happenings were taking place the same week as the inaugural Fiesta (see above), namely the Retail Merchants Street Carnival, the opening of "Carmen" at the Hollywood Bowl and the opening of the third annual summer run of Christine Wetherill Stevenson's "Pilgrimage Play" in her newly completed Pilgrimage Playhouse. (Donaldson, O. M., Editorial, "Hollywood's Biggest Week," Holly Leaves, July 8, 1922, p. 3.
Like Pauline, Stevenson was a devout Theosophist who, emboldened by the success of the epic 300th anniversary production of Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" in Beachwood Canyon two years earlier, sponsored a 35 performance run of the "Light of Asia," the story of Buddha, in 800-seat Krotona Stadium in the upper gardens of the Krotona Colony in Beachwood Canyon in the summer of 1918. The production featured Ruth St. Denis and her troupe, many of whom had already been photographed by Edward Weston beginning in 1915-6 (see rehearsal photo below). (Kingsley, Grace, "Ruth St. Denis Plans," Los Angeles Times, June 26, 1918, p. II-3. Author's note:Stevenson stayed at the Krotona Court during this period while working on the development of her plays and in 1919 wrote the Colony leader A. P. Warrington a $14,875 check to pay off one of the group's last mortgages. (Krotona in the Ojai Valley by Joseph E. Ross, Ojai Printing and Publishing Co., 2009, p. 25).
Ternary Building, 6205 Temple Hill Dr., Krotona, 1915, Alfred Heineman, architect. Ruth St. Denis and the Denishawn Dancers, including Doris Humphrey and Julianne Johnston, with Walter Hampden as Buddha in the ballet "Vision of Yashodhara" from "Light of Asia," a religious drama given at the Krotona Theosophical
Society in June 1918. From NYPL Digital Collection.
Marie Rankin Clarke ca. 1920. Photo by Edward Weston. From
the Clarke Estate Collection, Santa Fe Springs City Library. Center for Creative Photography. ©1981 Arizona Board of Regents.
The success of "The Light of Asia" further inspired Stevenson to embark upon what would become her annual summer production of the "Pilgrimage Play" beginning in 1920. Leading up to this, there was a section of land in Bolton Canyon in the Cahuenga Pass called “Daisy Dell.” Stevenson and then Irving Gill client and Weston portrait sitter Marie Rankin Clarke (see above) raised the funds and negotiated for the purchase of the land. They formed the Theatre Arts Alliance and envisioned building what would become the Hollywood Bowl. Discord soon arose between Stevenson and the other Alliance members who favored a more secular bill of fare than she had in mind such as the cast of hundreds in the 1920 "Thanksgiving Pageant" directed by soon-to-be Schindler-Weston intimate Hedwiga Reicher (see below for example).
"Miss Hedwiga Reicher Who Directs Hollywood's Pilgrim Pageant," Holly Leaves, November 13, 1920, front cover.
Hedwiga Reicher was outrageously ousted at the last minute as director of the 1,500 member cast of "The Mayflower Pageant" commemorating the 300th anniversary of
the Pilgrim's arrival in America. Under the auspices of the
Hollywood Women's Club, the spectacle attended by 10,000 people was held at the
Theatre Arts Alliance site which would soon become the Hollywood Bowl. This was
also about the time the Schindlers were on their way to Los Angeles from
Chicago. The American Legion cited Reicher's alien status and the nation still
being technically at war with Germany as their reasoning for their demands that
she step down. ("Director Withdraws by Request; Legion Has Miss
Reicher Ousted," Los Angeles Times, November 27, 1920, p. II-1. Author's
note: Reicher would later perform at the Schindler's Kings Road House and
direct plays for Schindler intimate Maurice Browne at the Theatre of the Golden
Bough in Carmel during its inaugural season in 1924. For much more on this see my (WSZW) and my "The
Schindlers in Carmel, 1924." Reicher would also go on to play Mary
Magdalene in "The Pilgrimage Play" and have a distinguished movie career.).
Hollywood Bowl postcard, 1922. Note Pilgrimage Playhouse off to the right.
Stevenson cut ties with the Theatre Arts Alliance and built her own outdoor theater in nearby El Camino Real Canyon (see below). She commissioned architect R. Germain Hubby to rush completion of her "stadium" in time for the opening performances. ("Building Permits," Southwest Building and Contractor, May 7, 1920, p. 26).
Christine Wetherill Stevenson at the Pilgrimage Play Theater, Cahuenga Pass, ca. 1921. R. Germain Hubby and Bernard Maybeck, architects, 1920-22. From Hollywoodbowl.com.
Reginald Pole as Judas in the Pilgrimage Play, ca. 1923. Photographer unknown. From I Shock Myself by Beatrice Wood, p. 67. (Author's note: Pole would be promoted to the role of Christ for the 1925 and 1926 seasons.)
Stevenson finally had her own venue where she could stage her religious/spiritual productions in the manner she saw fit. The Schindlers had most likely seen the "Pilgrimage Play" during the summer of 1921 as it starred Weston-Mather intimate Reginald Pole first as Judas (see above) and later switching to the Christ role near the end of the play's eleven week run. (WSZW). The music was composed by Dane Rudhyar (see below), another Schindler-Weston circle member and later Carmelite editorial advisory board member during Pauline's editorial reign in 1928-29. (PGS). The Schindlers may have met or reconnected with Rudhyar as early as December 11, 1920 at his performance at the Krotona Lecture Hall. ("Concert in Krotona Lecture Hall," Holly Leaves, December 11, 1920, p. 26. Author's note: Rudhyar first moved to Southern California in 1919 from New York and played the role of Jesus Christ in Cecil B. DeMille's 1923
silent version of "The Ten Commandments.").
It was most likely through Pole's largess that his then lover Beatrice Wood's close friend Helen Freeman was chosen for the role of Mary Magdalene in the 1922 production (see below). Pole and Wood had starred in Freeman's Broadway production "Great Way" the previous November. (WSZW). Coincidentally Freeman starred as Priscilla in the above-mentioned 1920 Thanksgiving "Pilgrim Pageant."
"Miss Helen Freeman as Mary Magdelene in the Christ Play," Holly Leaves, August 19, 1922, front cover. Photo by former Edward Weston employer A. L. Mojonier.
At the conclusion of the 1922 summer season before moving east for the winter, Stevenson announced in Holly Leaves her future grandiose plans for her El Camino Real Canyon site. She commissioned Panama-Pacific International Exposition Palace of Fine Arts architect Bernard Maybeck to design "comprehensive plans for development [of the 27-acre site] into a great art center" including dressing rooms and cafeteria for the Pilgrimage Play cast, a restaurant for the public, a personal residence for her and a "school of the synthetic art of the theater." The article most certainly piqued Schindler's and Lloyd Wright's interest as to the possibilities for future potential commissions form the Hollywood Art Association, the Hollywood Bowl-affiliated Theatre Arts Alliance and their related circles. (Day, Harriet, "Mrs. Stevenson's Plans," Holly Leaves, September 22, 1922, p. 10).
Edward Weston Studio, Brand Blvd., Glendale, ca. 1920. Image from Warren, p. 12. Original courtesy J. Paul Getty Museum, 84.XM.229.30.
Whether or not the Schindlers attended a performance of the Pilgrimage Play during the summer of 1922, likely the first of L.A.'s bohemian avant-garde to visit their now-iconic Kings Road abode was none other than Edward Weston who was most likely accompanied by some combination of his inseparable companions during this period, Johan Hagemeyer, Ramiel McGehee, Margrethe Mather, Betty Katz and/or Tina Modotti. Having a lifelong passion for avant-garde piano music composition and its performers, an eight-month pregnant Pauline excitedly wrote of the traveling party from Weston's Glendale studio (see above) to Kings Road,
"On Sunday we stole some time for a lark, - and went off to call on Mr. Weston, an artist of whom we had heard much, and whose personality we liked through having heard him lecture, and seen his work. He was exceedingly interesting - showed us things, responded, of course, to R.M.S. - and when the evening was ripe, took us over to the house of a brilliant pianist [Deardorff-Shaw (see below)], who happened to be among his guests. Jolly, the way we all drifted over to her studio from his, and all sat on the floor to listen. She really was very brilliant, - said to be the finest player of modern French literature upon the Pacific coast ... and to out-Ornstein [Leo] Ornstein. Shortly before midnight I suggested we all motor over to our house, to try our Steinway ... Mr. Weston, of course, very much excited about the house, and wanting to see it by daylight. All of it a fearfully stimulating evening ... R.M.S. and I couldn't sleep, with the stimulus of the music and Mr. Weston's pictures." (Warren, p. 253, Pauline Gibling Schindler, letter to Mr. and Mrs. Edmund J. Gibling, July 16, 1922). (Author's note: Weston photographed Ornstein in 1918. Author's note: Pauline gave birth to son Mark four days later).
Ruth Deardorff-Shaw, 1922. Edward Weston portrait. From Weston's Westons: Portraits and Nudes by Theodore E. Stubbins, Jr., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1989, p. 47). Collection Center for Creative Photography. ©1981 Arizona Board of Regents.
Fueled by the success of their spur-of-the-moment inaugural salon, Pauline soon regularly planned similar get togethers of their rapidly expanding social circle. It is evident that the Weston, Mather, McGehee, Hagemeyer crowd were in attendance at an early event as Johan's former employer, date-grower and eugenics scholar Paul Popenoe, soon commissioned Schindler and his contractor housemate Clyde Chace to design and build a house for his family in the Coachella Valley (see below). While still living in Chicago Pauline had also likely run across Popenoe's Applied Eugenics which was published in Birth Control Review 1918 by another of her formative idols, early birth control activist Margaret Sanger.
Popenoe Cabin, Coachella Valley, 1922. Courtesy of the
UC-Santa Barbara, University Art Museum, Architecture and Design Collections,
R. M. Schindler Collection.
"Coming Orchestra Programs," Holly Leaves, July 22, 1922, p. 38.
An event Pauline would not have missed for anything, except for the July 20, 1922 birth of son Mark, was the appearance of Richard Buhlig as a soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra at the Hollywood Bowl on July 22nd. Pauline was a lifelong friend of Buhlig, as were Johan Hagemeyer, Edward Weston and Margrethe Mather who photographed Buhlig sometime the same year (see below). Buhlig again soloed at the Bowl on August 18th.
Richard Buhlig, 1922. Photo by Margretehe Mather. From Margrethe Mather and Edward Weston: A Passionate Collaboration by Beth Gates Warren, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 2001, p. 97.
With her editorial advisory board member Edward Weston usually in tow, Pauline would religiously attend and review Buhlig's Carmel lectures and recitals during her late 1920s editorship of The Carmelite. She often mentioned Buhlig in correspondence with Weston and others while Weston often referenced him in his Daybooks entries. Possibly the first time the Schindlers might have viewed Buhlig on stage after moving to Los Angeles was in his soloist role as part of a January 14, 1921 Los Angeles Philharmonic concert in Pasadena. ("Prokofieff Inaugurates Series in Los Angeles," Musical America, January 22, 1921, p. 15).
Thanksgiving at Kings Road, 1923. Clockwise from far left, Dorothy Gibling, Betty Katz, Alexander "Brandy" Brandner, obscured, Max Pons, Herman Sachs, Karl Howenstein, Edith Gutterson Howenstein, Anton Martin Feller, E. Clare Schooler, and unidentified. Photograph attributed to R. M. Schindler. Courtesy UC-Santa Barbara Architecture and Design Collections, R. M. Schindler Collection.
Coincidentally, the Schindlers most likely attended the Sergei Prokofiev recital the night before at the Trinity Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles. (Ibid). It was at a similar Prokofiev performance in Chicago's Orchestra Hall just two years earlier that the couple had been fatefully introduced by RMS's then fiance Edith Gutterson. Edith and new husband Karl Howenstein (see right above), both former employees of the Art Institute of Chicago, became tenants in the guest apartment at the Schindler's Kings Road home while the Chaces were in Coachella building the Popenoe House. Possibly through the Schindler's Hollywood Art Association connections with the Shraders, Karl was handed over the reins as Managing Director of the Otis Art Institute and Curator of Art for the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science and Art while Shrader became Dean of the Faculty (see below).
Otis Art Institute Catalogue, 1923-4, p. 2.
Students and faculty, Otis Art Institute, Class of 1923, January 1923. Keystone Photo. Courtesy of Steven Clauser, Arroyo Seco Books.
The activities of the Hollywood Art Association were deeply intertwined with those of the Hollywood Woman's Club, the California Art Club, Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art, Chouinard School of Art and the Otis Art Institute through the leadership roles taken by E. Roscoe Shrader and wife Bess and their fellow officers, curators and faculty members. Exhibitions of Shrader's "Group of Eight," Edward Weston and Margrethe Mather's Camera Pictorialists of Los Angeles, the California Water Color Society, the Art Teacher's Association of Southern California and numerous other groups rotated among these institutions and the major local commercial galleries.
Elisabeth "Bess" Condit Shrader, ca. 1921. From The Art and Life of Edwin Roscoe Shrader by Janet Blake and Phil Kovinick, George Stern Fine Arts, West Hollywood, 2010, p. 9.
Mrs. E. Roscoe "Bess" Shrader, whose new Mead and Requa-designed residence (see later below) was right around the corner from "The Outpost," was the Art Association's vice president when the Schindlers came upon the scene. She was also chair of the Arts Department of the affiliated Hollywood Woman's Club (see below). ("Woman's Club of Hollywood," Holly Leaves, July 1, 1922, p. 18).
Woman's Club of Hollywood, 7078 Hollywood Blvd. 1915. Arthur R. Kelley, architect, E. Fossler, builder. 2-story, 10-rooms, $13,000. From "Woman's Club of Hollywood," Holly Leaves, July 1, 1922, p. 18. Photo by Viroque Baker.
Maud Davis Baker Residence, Hollywood, 1923, unbuilt. R. M. Schindler, architect. From R. M. Schindler, Architect by David Gebhard, Art Gallery University of California Santa Barbara, 1967, p. 66.
Two other woman active in both the Hollywood Art Association and Woman's Club were Maud Davis Baker and her daughter Viroque. Maud Baker was the second woman in U.S. history to have her own photo studio which was originally located in Helena, Montana in the 1890s. She would in 1923 commission Schindler to design a new home in Hollywood which was not built (see above) after she instead purchased an existing house at 7959 Hollywood Blvd. (Drawer 8, Folder 65, Schindler Collection, UC-Santa Barbara Architecture and Design Collections and Los Angeles City Directory).
Around 1915 Viroque Baker decided to take over her mother's portraiture business after she retired and went to New York to study under the legendary Clarence White. After her return she exhibited with the Southern California Camera Club with Edward Weston and his then assistant and apprentice Rae Davis at least as early as the 1916. Davis and Baker won awards for their work in the club's First Annual Exhibition held at their new headquarters in the Lyceum Theatre Building. Edward Weston and Fred Archer also had concurrent exhibitions at the same venue. ("Club News and Notes," Camera Craft, July 1916, p. 293). Baker soon branched out into landscapes, commercial work, advertising, and architecture and became active in the Woman's Advertising Club. (Whitaker, Alma, "Woman Photographer Wins Acclaim at Fair," Los Angeles Times, November 13, 1933, p. I-6).
While studying under White, Baker befriended Karl Struss with whom she would reconnect after he moved to Los Angeles after the war. Struss and Weston also became close friends possibly through an introduction by Baker. Struss met his future wife at a party in Baker's studio on Valentine's Day 1920. (McCandless, Barbara, "A Commitment to Beauty," in New York to Hollywood: The Photography of Karl Struss by
Richard Koszarski, Bonnie Yochelson and Barbara McCandless, Amon Carter Museum, 1995).
Viroque Baker Photography Studio, 5417 Hollywood Blvd., 1925, R. M. Schindler, architect. Viroque Baker photograph courtesy UC-Santa Barbara Architecture and Design Collections, Schindler Papers.
Baker would also later commission Schindler to design two different photography studios. The first was at 5417 Hollywood Blvd. in 1925 (see above). The second, shared with later partner Ernest Pratt, was in a remodeled space on the second floor of Sepulveda House just a few doors down from Franz Ferenz's Plaza Art Center in the old Italian Hall on Olvera Street in 1931 (see below). (For more on the Ferenz, Siqueiros, and Plaza Art Center see my "Richard Neutra and the California Art Club").
Exterior, Viroque Baker-Ernest Pratt Studio, 1931, Sepulveda House, 29 Olvera St., 2nd floor.
Interior, Viroque Baker-Ernest Pratt Studio, 1931, Sepulveda House, 29 Olvera St., 2nd floor. R. M. Schindler, architect.
Lowes House, 5325 Ellenwood Dr., Eagle Rock, 1923. R. M. Schindler, architect. Viroque Baker photograph courtesy UC-Santa Barbara Architecture and Design Collections, Schindler Papers.
How House, 2422 Silver Ridge Ave., 1924, R. M. Schindler, architect. Viroque Baker photograph courtesy UC-Santa Barbara Architecture and Design Collections, Schindler Papers.
Schindler would also reciprocate by hiring Viroque to photograph many of his early projects, most notably the 1923 Lowes House and 1924 How and Packard Houses (see above and below), and the 1929 Braxton Gallery. Baker's work would also frequently grace the cover and illustrate the pages of Holly Leaves.
Packard House, 931 N. Gainsborough Dr., Pasadena, 1924, destroyed. R. M. Schindler, architect. Viroque Baker photograph courtesy UC-Santa Barbara Architecture and Design Collections, Schindler Papers.
Pauline wrote her mother in the fall of 1922 that RMS "was very active on half a dozen committees," and continued, "Except that they are rather fun, they would be a waste of time if they did not also mean interesting contacts." (Pauline Gibling Schindler, letter to Sophie Gibling, October 22, 1922, Sweeney, p. 91). She also soon became quite active herself and an officer in the group evidenced by numerous later Holly Leaves articles discussed throughout below.
Schindler, R. M., "Who Will Save Hollywood," Holly Leaves, November 3, 1922, p. 32. Courtesy of the UC-Santa Barbara, University Art Museum, Architecture and Design Collections, R. M. Schindler Collection. (Author's note: The bottom photo is of the Martha Taggart Residence, mother of Reginald Pole's wife Helen, designed by Lloyd Wright. Helen would divorce Reginald and marry Lloyd in 1927. For much more on this see my WSZW).
RMS also published and lectured under the auspices of the Association on numerous occasions. For example, his October lecture "Who Will Save Hollywood?" at the Hollywood Woman's Club discussed the destruction by developers of the ridge-lines of the Hollywood Hills. His lecture was reviewed and later published in Holly Leaves (see above).
During the same meeting future Architectural Group for Commerce and Industry partner (with Richard Neutra), Carol Aronovici lectured on "New Cities for Old" in which he discussed current deficiencies in Los Angeles City Planning which negatively impacted civic beauty. Viroque Baker's moderation of their talks presaged her future collaboration with both Schindlers as Association officers. ("Art Luncheon Program: Interesting Speakers Before Woman's Club Audience on Wednesday; Civic Beauty Is Considered," Holly Leaves, October 20, 1922, p. 24. For more on Aronovici see my "The Schindlers in Carmel, 1924.").).
Duell, Prentice, "A Note on Batik," California Southland, November, 1921, p. 19. Photo by Walter Frederick Seely.
The next Association meeting chaired by Bess Shrader at the Franklin Galleries included a lecture on batiks by Milton Monroe accompanying the "city's first Art Exhibition devoted exclusively to batiks." On display were examples of Javanese antique batiks loaned by Jarvartam and modern examples by Messrs. Monroe, Darwin and Blaine. Schindler-Weston intimate Tina Modotti Richey would likely have been in attendance adorned in one of her batik dresses such as she might have worn in the 1920 film "Tiger's Coat" (see below for example). ("Batiks and Good Music," Holly Leaves, November 10, 1922, p. 10. Author's note: For much more on the cross-pollination of batik artistry among the Schindler-Weston circle of friends see my "Herman Sachs Batik, ca. 1920" and my "Tina Modotti, Lloyd Wright and Otto Bollman Connections,1920").
.jpg)
"Tiger's Coat" movie still featuring Tina Modotti in one of her Robo-designed batik dresses. Photographer unknown, 1920.
Hard on the heels of a Weston exhibition at the MacDowell Club the previous March, Tina had arranged for an exhibition of her recently deceased husband Robo's batiks and drawings at the same venue using the proceeds to finance her batik-covered memorial publication The Book of Robo (see below). ("Art, Love and Death: Woman Must Sell Batiks," Los Angeles Record, [ca. early May 1922] Edward Weston Collection, Center for Creative Photography).
The Book of Robo, by Ro[u]baix de l'Abrie Richey, edited by Tina Modotti, introduction by John Cowper Powys, 1923. (Author's note: Modotti likely solicited Powys to write the introduction during a lecture at the Kate Crane Gartz residence at which the Schindlers, Weston, Mather and their circle were most likely in attendance). (SWWWS and John Cowper Powys, letter to Paul Jordan-Smith, January 31, 1923. Paul Jordan-Smith Papers, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA).
Robo died in Mexico in early February 1922 while awaiting Edward and Tina to join him. Weston's still sometime lover Margrethe Mather's bisexual paramour Florence Deshon (see below) committed suicide in New York within days of Robo's passing. The Schindlers had befriended Robo, Tina and Deshon through Weston, Margrethe Mather and Betty Katz. Deshon's suicide caused quite a stir in the Weston-Mather circle. Soon-to-be Kings Road tenant Katz (see front center two below) frankly relayed the news of Robo's and Deshon's demise to by then close friend Pauline, "Florence Deshon did not commit suicide. It was an accident like everything else which came to her." (Betty Katz letter to Pauline Schindler, then teaching in El Centro, ca. March 1922. Courtesy Schindler Family Collection cited in Warren, p. 244. For much more on this see my WSZW)
Florence Deshon, 1921. Photo by Margrethe
Mather. From Margrethe Mather
& Edward Weston: A Passionate Collaboration by Beth Gates Warren,
Norton, 2001, p. 93.
Viroque Baker's and Schindler's first reported collaboration
in Art Association activities was in the planning and preparation for the
November 25, 1922 Pioneers Dinner at the Hollywood Woman's Club. The theme of
the dinner was to honor Los Angeles pioneers in the arts, music, literature and
public life including Charles F. Lummis,
Senator Cornelius Cole, Ida Mecchan Strobridge, Willima L. Judson and Harley
Hamilton. Viroque Baker and R. M. Schindler on the Decoration Committee
"...assisted by a number of professional artists, have promised to furnish
a background and setting of a most unusual, colorful and romantic character,
comes the report "the atmosphere" is all ready for
installation." ("Pioneer Dinner Planned," Holly Leaves,
November 17, 1922, p. 9).
Geritz, Frank, "Revival of Block Printing," Holly Leaves, November 17, 1922, pp. 36-7.
Possibly through the Schindlers' largess, Franz Geritz had a lengthy article on wood block printing published in the same issue (see above). Geritz, a painter, print maker, illustrator, writer and educator, was born in Budapest, Hungary. Immigrating to the U.S. in 1909, his education continued in the public schools of Philadelphia and Chicago. It is possible that the Schindlers crossed paths with Geritz during their Chicago years as they all had strong ties to the Art Institute of Chicago through mutual friends Karl Howenstein and Edith Gutterson who were both Art Institute employees. Geritz also worked for the Pullman Company in Chicago before moving to Northern California. In 1921 Geritz graduated from the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland where he was a student of Perham Nahl, Xavier Martinez, and Frank Van Sloun. (For much more on Geritz see my "Schindler-Weston-Franz Geritz-Arthur Millier Connections").
Franz Geritz, 1920. Photo by Edward Weston. © 1981 Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents.
Just two weeks after photographer Edward Weston and his earlier-mentioned entourage visited the Schindler’s recently completed Kings Road House for the first time, L. A. Times art critic Antony Anderson (see below) reviewed the Los Angeles Museum exhibition of mutual friend Franz Geritz. At the time Geritz was supporting himself by freelancing for the San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times, and the Los Angeles Examiner. He also began teaching block printing at the University of California Extension, Los Angeles the same year. Coincidentally, mutual Weston-Schindler intimates Annita Delano, Barbara Morgan nee Johnson, Norma Gould and Bertha Wardell were also teaching at University of California-Southern Branch as was Pauline's sister Dorothy Gibling during 1922-24. (For much more on this see my "Bertha Wardell Dances in Silence at Kings Road, Olive Hill and Carmel" (BWDIS)).
In his review Anderson particularly singled out for praise Geritz's portrait of Weston.
Antony Anderson, 1919. Edward Weston photograph. From De Rome, A. T., "A Few Pictures Reviewed: Illustrations from California Liberty Fair Exhibition," Camera Craft, March 1919, p. 89. © 1981 Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents. (Author's note: For much more on Antony Anderson and his rivalry with Schindler-Weston friend Ramiel McGehee over the charms of Olive Percival see my "BWDIS").
In his review Anderson particularly singled out for praise Geritz's portrait of Weston.
“Especially interesting to me are the various impressions in color that the artist has taken of the portrait of Edward Weston, all of them experimental except the last one, which is exactly the scheme of color that Geritz thinks suits best the Weston temperament and personality. The artist is never satisfied till he has struck what may be called the right color note. And then we have added to the beauty of lines, the beauty of harmony in color. In brief, a little portrait, simple and forceful, that is also a fine work of art.” (Antony Anderson, “Of Art and Artists, Los Angeles Times, July 30, 1922).
Edward Weston by Franz Geritz, 1922. Courtesy UC-Berkeley, Bancroft Library.
Edward Weston, posing before a wood block print by Franz Geritz, 1921. Photo by Margrethe Mather and Johan Hagemeyer. From Museum of Modern Art. © 1981 Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents.
Geritz also almost certainly included portraits of others in Weston's orbit such as Tina Modotti (see above) and Margrethe Mather (see below) in his first one-man show at the Exposition Park venue.
Margrethe Mather, etching by Franz Geritz, 1922. From LACMA.
Evidencing the closeness of the group's entwined relationships, around the same time Geritz referenced the work of Mather and Weston to illustrate a point in a California Southland article on how to make block prints published the same month (see below).
Geritz article referencing the work of Mather and Weston, California Southland, November 1922, p. 23.
Arthur Millier, 1929 by Edward Weston. From Edward Weston Collection, © 1981 Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents.
Noted etcher Arthur Millier's equally well-received exhibition ran concurrently with close friend Geritz's at the Los Angeles Museum. Millier, who a month earlier had been named the first Southern California winner of the California Society of Etcher's Prize, would go on to replace Anderson as the Times art critic in 1926 and champion the work of Weston, Schindler, Richard Neutra, and many others from their illustrious circle including numerous reviews of Geritz's work. (Anderson, Antony, "Of Art and Artists," Los Angeles Times, August 13, 1922, p. III-27. For more on Geritz see my "Schindler-Weston-Franz Geritz-Arthur Millier Connections").
"From Ox Cart to Airplane," Franz Geritz, The Carmelite, November 12, 1928, p. 1. Courtesy Harrison Memorial Library, Carmel.
Pauline Schindler would later feature the work of mutual friend Geritz on the November 12, 1928 cover of The Carmelite during her editorship in 1928-29. Lifelong friend Weston would be tapped by Pauline as a contributing editor after his move into Johan Hagemeyer's studio in Carmel the following month. (For much more on Pauline's life after separating from RMS and departing Kings Road in 1927 see my "Pauline Gibling Schindler: Vagabond Agent for Modernism.")
Charles Wakefield Cadman, Margaret Messer Morris, and Arthur Alexander, ca. 1926. From Musical Metropolis: Los Angeles and the Creation of a Music Culture, 1880-1940 by Kenneth H. Marcus, Macmillan, 2004, p. 133. Photographer unknown.
At the next Association meeting Margaret Messer Morris (see center above) performed at the Franklin Galleries on December 4, 1922. She also sang on the same program with Schindler-Weston circle regular and soon-to-be New York Metropolitan Opera star baritone Lawrence Tibbett (see below) at the Woman's Lyric Club concert at the Philharmonic Auditorium on June 24th and in the Hollywood Bowl on Cadman night on August 1st, likely with numerous Schindler-Weston friends in attendance. ("Hollywood Soprano," Holly Leaves, December 1, 1922, p. 20 and Ussher, Bruno David, "This Week's Music Events in Los Angeles," Pacific Coast Musical Review, July 1, 1922, p. 4. For much more on Tibbett see my "WSZW").
Lawrence Tibbett ca. 1923 by Arthur Millier. (Ussher, Bruno David, "This Week's Music Events in Los Angeles," Pacific Coast Musical Review.
On the same December 4th bill with Morris was Schindler
Kings Road House tenant Edith Gutterson Howenstein (second from right below).
She lectured on "Dress As an Art and Medium for Human Expression"
possibly using her former fiance RMS and Pauline as models. ("Art
Association Meets: Edith Gutterson Howenstein, Carl Bush and Margaret Messer
Morris, Soprano on Monday Program," Holly Leaves, December 8, 1922,
pp. 42-3)
Karl Howenstein (far right above) graduated in 1910 with a degree in architecture from the Armour Institute of Technology in Chicago. Design critics for his thesis "Casino and Recreation Pier" included Louis Sullivan, Daniel Burnham and Irving Pond. Upon graduation he took a job in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. By 1915 Howenstein moved back to Chicago to assume a position at the Art Institute. It was likely through his activities with the Chicago Palette and Chisel Club that Rudolph Schindler met Howenstein and Gutterson, a Hull-House room mate of Pauline's, who had also secured a position at the Art Institute as curator of lantern slides.
The Shraders had in 1918 commissioned former Irving Gill partner and field supervisor and Krotona Court architects Mead & Requa to design their home at 1927 Highland Ave. (see below). The Shraders frequently entertained Art Association, Otis faculty and California Art Club members at their modernist home which was coincidentally located directly below and adjacent to the site of Frank Lloyd Wright's Freeman House. The Freeman's would also entertain many of the same Schindler-Weston circle habitues in their home at 1962 Glencoe Way after its 1924 completion.
Thanksgiving at Kings Road, 1923. Clockwise from far left, Dorothy Gibling, Betty Katz, Alexander "Brandy" Brandner, obscured, Max Pons, Herman Sachs, Karl Howenstein, Edith Gutterson Howenstein, Anton Martin Feller, E. Clare Schooler, and unidentified. Photograph attributed to R. M. Schindler. Courtesy UC-Santa Barbara Architecture and Design Collections, R. M. Schindler Collection.
Karl Howenstein (far right above) graduated in 1910 with a degree in architecture from the Armour Institute of Technology in Chicago. Design critics for his thesis "Casino and Recreation Pier" included Louis Sullivan, Daniel Burnham and Irving Pond. Upon graduation he took a job in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. By 1915 Howenstein moved back to Chicago to assume a position at the Art Institute. It was likely through his activities with the Chicago Palette and Chisel Club that Rudolph Schindler met Howenstein and Gutterson, a Hull-House room mate of Pauline's, who had also secured a position at the Art Institute as curator of lantern slides.
The Shraders had in 1918 commissioned former Irving Gill partner and field supervisor and Krotona Court architects Mead & Requa to design their home at 1927 Highland Ave. (see below). The Shraders frequently entertained Art Association, Otis faculty and California Art Club members at their modernist home which was coincidentally located directly below and adjacent to the site of Frank Lloyd Wright's Freeman House. The Freeman's would also entertain many of the same Schindler-Weston circle habitues in their home at 1962 Glencoe Way after its 1924 completion.
Shrader Residence, 1927 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood, 1918. Mead & Requa, architects.
Shrader Residence, 1927 Highland Ave., Mead and Requa, architects, 1919 from Jennings, Frederick, "The Architecture and Landscape Architecture of Los Angeles and Vicinity," Architect and Engineer, August 1920, pp. 47-117.
Shrader Residence, 1927 Highland Ave., Mead and Requa, architects, 1919 from Jennings, Frederick, "The Architecture and Landscape Architecture of Los Angeles and Vicinity," Architect and Engineer, August 1920, pp. 47-117.
Quickly becoming aware of Mead and Requa's 1918 Shrader House after his arrival through Lloyd Wright and/or Gill, Schindler must have admired Mead's clean, Pueblo-inspired design which echoed his own 1915 Pueblo inspirations for Kings Road. (EWMDL). It was clearly the most modern project in Architect and Engineer's 1920 annual architecture awards competition. It would be interesting to learn how the San Diego-based Mead and Requa landed the Shrader commission from under the nose of the then Los Angeles-based Gill. In any event, Gill and Lloyd Wright would both likely have watched with interest as the house was constructed. The Shrader House was included in the "Three Best Houses in Los Angeles" in the February 1920 issue of House Beautiful and was given a design award by the local chapter of the A.I.A. ("Jury Designates Notable Examples of Architecture," Southwest Builder and Contractor, April 16, 1920, p. 11 and Mead, Part II).
Xavier Guerrero, 1921. Portrait by Diego Rivera.
Again most likely through the Schindler's connections, Holly Leaves published in the same December 1, 1922 issue Tina Modotti's glowing review of the exhibition of Mexican paintings and drawings at the MacDowell Club featuring the work of her future lover Xavier Guerrero (see above) and Adolfo Best-Maugard (see below). Modotti met Rivera and Guerrero and most likely Best-Maugard and Robo's new artist and photographer friend Roberto Turnbull while in Mexico during February-March 1922 settling Robo's affairs after his untimely death. (Shadows, Fire, Snow: The Life of Tina Modotti by Patricia Albers, University of Califiornia Press, 2002, p. 79).
Adolfo Best-Maugard, Paris, 1913 by Diego Rivera.
Ricardo Gomez-Robelo, 1921. Photo by Edward Weston. © 1981 Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents.
Robo had preceded Tina and Edward to Mexico City at the urging of Ricardo Gomez Robelo (see above) who had been a Tina-infatuated member of their social circle during his revolution-related exile in Los Angeles. Before being summoned back to Mexico to serve as Director of Fine Arts under newly ensconced Education Minister Jose Vasconcelos, Robelo was working as a journalist, likely for the immigrant blue collar worker Spanish language newspaper El Heraldo de Mexico, and an attorney with the law firm of C. F. Marburg & Company. While in Mexico Tina also assisted Robelo in organizing the promised exhibition of her deceased husband's batiks and photographs by Weston, Margrethe Mather, Jane Reece, Walter Frederick Seely, Mahlon Blaine and others.
de Cordova, [Rafael] Vera, "Los Fotografias como Verdadero Arte," El Universal Ilustrado (México, D. F., Mexico), No. 255 (Mar. 23, 1922), pp. 30-31, 55.
The above article on the exhibition held at the Palace of Fine Arts under Robelo's largess was published around the time Tina returned to the U.S. after her father's death. It features illustrations of her and Robelo by Weston and Margrethe Mather photos of Moon Kwan and Otto Matiesen (discussed later below) in costume as Pierrot. At the time Guerrero was assisting on Rivera's first mural "Creation" at the National Preparatory School. Rivera's fiance Lupe Marin later recalled being present during Robelo's initial introduction of Tina to Diego and most likely Guerrero as they made the rounds meeting his circle of artist friends. (Hooks, p. 56).
Frontispiece from "Las Artes Populares en Mexico, Vol. 1," Mexico City, 1922 by Dr. Atl.
During Tina's early 1922 Mexican sojourn, Guerrero, Best-Maugard, Jorge Encisco, Roberto Turnbull, Katherine Anne Porter and another soon-to-be Modotti-Weston intimate Miguel Covarrubias together organized a reprise of the previous fall's highly successful post-revolutionary "Las Artes Populares en Mexico" exhibition arranged by Encisco, Dr. Atl and Roberto Montenegro (see above and below). Weston and Modotti would befriend most of this circle shortly after their August 1923 arrival in Mexico.
Dr. Atl, Mexico City, 1924. Edward Weston photo.
It was the intention of
Mexico's Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Labor for the new exhibition to
"further promote national pride, open up possibilities for export, and
create a positive image of Mexico in the minds of the American public." It was also intended for the show to travel to various venues around the United States. Before Modotti returned to California in late March perhaps she and Guerrero, Turnbull and Best-Maugard discussed their plans for bringing the massive 5,000 item exhibition to Los Angeles evidenced by her involvement with the show after her new friends arrived in Los Angeles to promote the exhibition.
Besides the previously mentioned MacDowell Club water color and oil painting exhibition featuring mainly the work of Guerrero and Best-Maugard, the much larger companion exhibition of Mexican arts and crafts was concurrently on display at 807 W. Seventh Street. As originally planned, the combined exhibition's intended venue was to be the California Pageant of Progress and Industrial Exposition slated for August 26-September 9 in Exposition Park (see poster below).
Poster for California's Pageant of Progress and Industrial Exposition, August 26 - September 9, 1922. From Pinterest.
As mentioned, Guerrero preceded the exhibition to Los Angeles to promote it and in an interview discussed at length the exciting Diego Rivera mural work he was assisting on and the Mexico City activities of American art critic Walter Pach. ("Southern Art Discussed; Noted Mexican Painter Precedes to City Exhibition of Skill to be Seen at Exposition," Los Angeles Times, August 22, 1922, pp. II-1-2).
The exhibition was held up at a border railroad siding for almost two months due to the collection being deemed "politcal propaganda" from the ostracized Obregon regime. The exhibition was held ransom until a $10,000 commercial enterprise duty was paid by a Los Angeles art dealer who purchased the entire lot. This unfortunately dashed the travel plans for the exhibition as the works were sold off by the dealer during the show. (Tina Modotti Photographs by Sarah M. Lowe, Abrams, 1995, note 196).
Richey, Tina Modotti, "Mexican Art Exhibit," Holly Leaves, December 1, 1922, p. 36.
Tina most certainly reconnected with Guerrero, Best-Maguard and Turnbull shortly after their arrival in Los Angeles and she would have quickly introduced them to the Weston-Mather-McGehee-Schindler circle evidenced by her above exhibition review in Holly Leaves. It was likely through Tina's and Weston's earlier-mentioned MacDowell Club Robo exhibition connections that the Mexican trio were able to arrange for the delayed exhibition to be split and displayed at the Club and another venue at 807 W. Seventh St. in November, possibly at the art dealer's commercial space. Weston left for Ohio to visit his sister and capture his iconic ARMCO Steel images in October and continued on to New York for his fateful visitation with Alfred Steiglitz but returned in time to eagerly view the exhibitions before they closed. (Warren, p. 268-9).
Xavier Guerrero with the Mexican Arts and Crafts Exhibit likely at 807 W. Seventh St., December 1922. Photograph attributed to Roberto Turnbull. From Tina Modotti Photographer and Revolutionary by Margaret Hooks, HarperCollins, 1995, p. 63.
Outline of Mexican Popular Arts and Crafts by Katherine Anne Porter and cover art by Xavier Guerrero and photo illustrations by Roberto A. Turnbull, Young & McAlister, Los Angeles, 1922.
Guerrero designed the above cover for the 56 page exhibition catalog Outline of Mexican Popular Arts and Crafts. The catalog was published in Los Angeles in December of 1922 and distributed by Guerrero and Tina to prominent patrons, collectors and art dealers around Los Angeles. (Hooks, p. 62). Written as a labor of love by future Pulitzer Prize winning author Katherine Anne Porter, the catalog was illustrated with photographs by Robo's recent friend Turnbull who also traveled north to film the exhibition. The catalog was published around the time Tina was compiling her earlier-mentioned memorial The Book of Robo and judging by her involvement in its distribution, she possibly played a role in sourcing the publisher.
"L. A. Museum to Get Rare Lot of Mexican Relics," Los Angeles Herald, January 21, 1920.
As stated earlier, Tina likely met Turnbull during her initial February-March 1922 stay in Mexico City. She and Robo and others in their circle could also possibly have met Turnbull through Robelo during his earlier January 1920 visit to Los Angeles with a cache of Mexican antiquities for display at the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science and Art (see above). Having recently returned from a Mexican photography safari herself in early 1922, Weston, Viroque Baker and the Schindlers were likely introduced to Turnbull, Guerrero and Best-Maguard by Tina.
Tajo Building, First St. and Broadway, 1897. George Herbert Wyman, architect. Beginning in 1918 the MacDowell Club of Allied Arts was located on the fifth floor. (Author's note: Wyman also designed the Bradbury Building for the Tajo Building owner Simona M. Bradbury).
Guerrero lectured on the theories and principles of Mexican art at the MacDowell Club (see above) in the Tajo Building on December 6th likely with a large audience from the Schindler-Weston circle. ("Theory of Mexican Art Lecture Topic," Los Angeles Times, November 29, 1922, p. II-7).
Xavier Guerrero, 1922. Edward Weston photograph. © 1981 Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents.
Modotti and Guerrero, et al, would reconnect in Mexico City after she and Weston moved there the following August. Tina and Xavier would eventually become lovers during Weston's 1925 return to the United States.
"Woodcuts Specialty of Geritz," Los Angeles
Times, January 14, 1923, p. II-1.
Evidence of the interaction and cross-pollination between the Guerrero, Best-Maugard, Turnbull group in Los Angeles for the Mexican exhibitions and the Modotti-Weston circle can be seen in the above L.A. Times article. Geritz shared with Guerrero the finer points of wood block printing
while he was in town in conjunction with the well-received Mexican Art Exhibition. Guerrero also sat for an etching by Geritz before he returned to Mexico which Geritz included in his one-man show at the Los
Angeles Museum in September 1923.
"Painters and Soldiers of the Revolution" by
Xavier Guerrero, ca. 1924. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Gift of Jean
Charlot. From Tina Modotti Photographs by Sarah M. Lowe, Abrams, 1995, p. 34.
The result of Guerrero's Los Angeles wood block print interchange with Geritz can be seen in the 1924 example above used to illustrate the Mexican Communist Party organ El Machete which he co-founded with Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros shortly after returning to Mexico.
"Worker reading El Machete," 1927. Tina Modotti photograph.
"Mary Pickford "America's Sweetheart," Honorary Chairman, Hollywood Art Association's "Save that Tree" Committee," Holly Leaves, December 29, 1922, front cover.
The last Holly Leaves issue of 1922 featured an article on Mary Pickford agreeing to be the poster girl for the Hollywood Art Association's "Save that Tree" campaign. Schindler must have felt a pang of disappointment when he learned of Pickford's predilection for Spanish revival architecture.
"Miss Pickford's idea is to engage some famous architect, preferably one who specializes in Spanish type of buildings, and make him sort of a building supervisor and consulting architect for the community. Then no building could be erected without his approval, thus insuring an artistic harmony of construction not equalled in any other city in the world." ("Mary Pickford Leads," Holly Leaves, December 29, p. 18).
The January 5, 1923 issue announced the January 8th Art Association meeting topic "A More Beautiful Hollywood" featured speaker Rob Wagner who was an intimate friend of Margrethe Mather, Max Eastman, Charlie Chaplin and soon to be Schindler client Job Harriman, founder of the Utopian Community of Llano del Rio. The Schindlers most likely met Wagner at an Eastman lecture at the Kate Crane Gartz Residence in April of 1921. (SWWWS).
Rob Wagner self-portrait, 1913. Western Comrade, July 1913, front cover.
Wagner edited The Western Comrade in 1913-14 prior to it becoming the organ for Harriman's utopian community of Llano Del Rio through its demise in 1920. The review of Wagner's lecture in the next issue of Holly Leaves mentioned him devoting most of his talk to "clarifying the usefulness of Art and Artists and the benefits they could offer to the community and the business man." ("Art Association," Holly Leaves, January 5, 1923, p. 1 and "Whitnall and Wagner," Holly Leaves, January 12, 1923, p. 14).
Florence Yoch, ca. 1923. Photographer unknown. From Reviews and Ramblings.
The same issue reported on the Art Association's joint meeting with the Hollywood Woman's Club which featured talks by architect Harold C. Chambers and landscape architect Florence Yoch on the topic, "Possibilities of Beautifying Business Sections of Hollywood." The meeting was moderated by Woman's Club art section chair and Art Association director Viroque Baker. (Day, Harriet, "Art and Reciprocity," Holly Leaves, January 12, 1923, p. 34).
The February 2nd issue had a lengthy Orren M. Donaldson editorial discussing the possibilities of Hollywood taking over much of Barndsdall's Olive Hill as a public park and how various alternatives of park development might be financed. Charles G. Adams, another noted landscape architect, spoke at the February Art Association meeting on the importance of trees to a city's ambience.Viroque Baker's heartfelt plea for protecting the beauty of Hollywood and creating exhibition space for local artists appeared in the February 23rd issue. (Donaldson, Orren M., "Editorial: Here's a Park for Nothing," Holly Leaves, February 2, 1923). (Eyler, Walter Wesley, "Hollywood Art Association," Holly Leaves, February 9, 1923, p. 34). (Baker, Viroque, "Why? In Which a Resident of Hollywood and Active Worker in the Hollywood Art Association Tells the Reasons for an Art Association," Holly Leaves, February 23, 1923, pp. 12-13).
The March Association meeting featured landscape architect C. D. Hanson, composer-pianist Homer Grunn and Edward Langley, Fairbanks Motion Picture Studio art director, who lectured on "The Future of the Motion Picture from the Art Director's Standpoint." Schindler would soon collaborate with Langley on the decorations for the third annual Fiesta.
(Vreeland, Francis William, "Stanton [sic] Stojano [sic], Artist, Freak, or Both?" Holly Leaves, March 16, 1923, p. ).
The March 16th issue featured an article on Weston-Mather friend and soon-to-be Schindler client, Gjura Stojana, again likely made possible through an intro by the Schindlers. Weston, Mather, Hagemeyer and Modotti, inseparable during the spring of 1923, hung out and photographed Stojana at work in his studio during this period. (Daybooks I, pp. 9-10). Francis William Vreeland's article (see above) after a studio visit included a physical description of the Stojana which could easily have been done after viewing the below Weston-Mather photo of the artist at work.
"Stojano is crude in appearance - hairy of body in a way supposed to mean two things - primitiveness and strength. Perhaps he is both, or neither. He looks like a poseur with his thick-set body wound about the middle with a square of real native batik, his feet bare and his great toes wriggling up and down. Perhaps he is a poseur - perhaps he likes that sort of working costume. He talks little - consequently perhaps he thinks much - perhaps not." (Vreeland, Francis William, "Stanton [sic] Stojano [sic], Artist, Freak, or Both?" Holly Leaves, March 16, 1923, p. ).
Gjura Stojana, 1923. Edward Weston-Margrethe Mather photo. Center for Creative Photography. ©1981 Arizona Board of Regents.
The first mention of the Art Associations plans for a new gallery space in the soon-to-be opened Hollywood Public Library came in the March 23rd issue. The group hoped to raise $1500 dollars for the improvements which were being planned before moving their meeting location from the Franklin Galleries. ("Art Gallery in Library," Holly Leaves, March 23, 1923, p. ).
Further evidence of the interaction of the photographers in the Schindler's circle, Viroque Baker most likely arranged the group exhibition of her work and that of Edward Weston, Margrethe Mather, Karl Struss, and others at the Hollywood Woman's Club which the Schindlers undoubtedly would have attended. (Los Angeles Times, April 8, 1923).
The April 20th issue of Holly Leaves contained an article by Vreeland which outlined the the Art Association's plans for the coming year. Besides designing the improvements with Douglas Donaldson for the Association's new meeting space-gallery in the new library, Schindler was placed in charge of creating an "Award for merit in Hollywood Architecture."
"A reward for merit in Hollywood architecture taking the form of a bronze tablet is to be placed by the Art Association upon the best example, for its purpose, designed for and erected in Hollywood during the year, this together with an exhibition of drawings and photographs of the various examples considered in making this unique reward will make the competition and entire program of exceptional interest to all the community. R. M. Schindler, well known architect, is Chairman for the committee to have this award and exhibition in charge." (Vreeland, Francis William, "Of Plans and Programs," Holly Leaves, April 20, 1923, pp. 37-8).
The May Art Association monthly meeting featured a lecture on "Peasant Art" by Nelbert Chouinard, a former member of the Otis Art Institute faculty and then director of her new Chouinard School of Art. Chouinard would later employ both Schindler and Neutra and others in their circle to teach at her school. ("Art Association: Mrs. Herbert [sic] Murphy Chouinard to Speak on Peasant Art," Holly Leaves, May 4, 1923, p. 1 and "Richard Neutra and the California Art Club").
Art Association past president Douglas Donaldson, who had also recently resigned from the faculty of the Otis Art Institute to join Chouinard, lectured on recent changes in dramatic art. ("Vonnoh Guest at Club: Parisian Artist Shares Honors with Norman Edwards and Douglas Donaldson at Art Program," Holly Leaves, May 18, 1923, pp. 20-21).
Schindler, Pauline, "Revives Art of Improvisation," Holly Leaves, May 18, 1923, p. 26).
Pauline Schindler published a brief piece on a Max Pons recital at the Schindler's Kings Road House in the May 18th issue (see above and below). Not unlike her later use of the pages of The Carmelite in Carmel in 1928-29 as her personal newsletter, she was beginning to view Holly Leaves as an organ for Kings Road salons and performance activities. (Also see Pons in the earlier Thanksgiving at Kings Road photo).
Max Pons marketing brochure, ca. 1930. Photographer unknown. Courtesy UC-Santa Barbara Architecture and Design Collections, Schindler Collection.
The following week Holly Leaves, under the auspices of the Hollywood Art Association, published Pauline's article "Types of Musical Listening" which had originally appeared in Musical Quarterly in 1917, shortly after her graduation from Smith College. (Gibling, Pauline, "Types of Musical Listening," Holly Leaves, May 25, 1923, pp. 26-7).
The May 11th issue announced an upcoming June 2nd performance by Schindler-Weston mutual friend, dancer Norma Gould and her troupe at the Hollywood Women's Club where she was also scheduled to conduct a six-week summer course. ("The Art of Norma Gould in Hollywood," Holly Leaves, May 11, 1923, p. 21. For much more on Gould see my "Bertha Wardell Dances in Silence").
June was a busy month indeed for the Art Association. The June 4th "Community Night" meeting hosted by the group featured an exhibition of the best Hollywood insignia ideas at their last meeting in the Franklin Galleries. Besides announcing the winner of the design competition, a group of talks were presented by Schindler - "Possibilities for Architectural Expression in Hollywood," E. Roscoe Shrader - "The Environment that Hollywood Offers the Artist," Douglas Donaldson - "The Purpose of the Hollywood Art Association," and others on other Hollywood as a future art center topics such as "Possibilities for Beauty in Civic Development for Hollywood," "The Value of Art to Our Community," and "Why Hollywood Needs an Insignia." Schindler "...decried the lugging into the Southern California landscape types of architecture that had been the development and expression of other lands and climes and made a plea for an architecture that should be the outgrowth of California conditions and climate, an architecture that had not yet been developed but was surely coming." ("Hollywood Insignia," Holly Leaves, June 1, 1923, p. 1 and "Has Community Night," Holly Leaves, June 8, 1923, pp. 3-4).
The same issue included an article on the initial planning session at the Shrader house for the second annual Fiesta Mexicana scheduled for July 7th at the Hollywood Bowl. Viroque Baker and Francis William Vreeland were named co-chairs of the event. Baker's deep knowledge of Mexican culture absorbed during her 1920-21 Mexican photo safari and success with last year's event and mural painter and new Association president Vreeland's experience handling the great pageants and spectacular balls for the Beaux Arts in New York were cited as their qualifications. ("Second Annual Fiesta," Holly Leaves, June 1, 1923, p. 16). (Author's note: Baker's Mexican photographs are among her collection at the Seaver Center for Western Research at the Natural History Museum in Exposition Park).
Hollywood Branch Library, 1923. Dodd and Williams, architects. LAPL Photo Collection. (For much more on Dodd and his mentorship of Lloyd Wright see my "Irving Gill, Homer Laughlin and the Beginnings of ModernArchitecture in Los Angeles, Part II, 1911-1916").
"The atmospheric background and decorations are under the able direction of L. M. Schindler [sic], artist-architect and Edward Langley, art director for "Robin Hood," The Mark of Zorro" and other highly artistic super-films." The article closed with "Proceeds are to be devoted to making up the much needed balance for decorating and furnishing the Association's exhibition gallery in the new library. The Art Association is endeavoring to complete this as the finest community art gallery in the country." Design and construction for the Association's new library gallery space was being done under the collaboration of Schindler and Douglas Donaldson. ("Second Fiesta in Bowl," Holly Leaves, June 8, 1923, p. 20).
Margrethe Mather, Otto Matiesen and Johan Hagemeyer, 1921. Photo by Edward Weston. Courtesy Johan Hagemeyer Collection, Bancroft Library, UC-Berkeley.
The June 8th issue of Holly Leaves also contained an article on Weston-Mather-Hagemeyer intimate Otto Matiesen (see above). Matieson was by then also well known to the Schindlers who again possibly brokered the appearance of the article (see below) as with the earlier-mentioned Modotti, Geritz and Stojana pieces. The article is illustrated by a photo of Matiesen portraying Napolean Bonaparte in the Hugo Ballin production of "Vanity Fair." Matiesen's fondness for Shakespeare and Ibsen dramas also placed him at the epicenter of the dramatic circle of Reginald Pole and future Schindler client and lover Anna Zacsek. (For more on this see my "WSZW").
"Makes History Live," Holly Leaves, June 8, 1923, p. 16.
Also a noted muralist and set designer, Ballin soon became an intimate friend of future Schindler client Herman Sachs, yet another recently arrived friend from Chicago. Sachs is also seen in the earlier 1923 Kings Road Thanksgiving photos. (For much more on Sachs see my "Hugo Sachs Batik, ca. 1920").
Playbill for "The Pilgrimage Play: The Life of Christ,
Pilgrimage Playhouse, 1923. (Reginald Pole as Judas Iscariot, Otto Matiesen as
Matthew the Publican, Helen Freeman as Mary Magdelene, Billy Justema as Shepherd and Dane Rudhyar, composer of the anthem for the Last Supper). From
Los Angeles Philharmonic Archives, Hall of Records).
Matiesen would join other Mather-Weston-Schindler orbit members Reginald Pole, Helen Freeman, Dane Rudhyar and Billy Justema in the summer of 1923 Pilgrimage Play production (see playbill above and Holly Leaves cover below). ("WSZW"). Weston and Modotti were around this time preparing in earnest for their fateful move to Mexico and would leave with Edward's son Chandler in late July but would likely have attended a performance before their departure.
"Helen Freeman: Mary Magdalene of Pilgrimage Play," Holly Leaves, August 10, 1923. Photo by Mojonier.
The June 15th issue followed up on the upcoming Hollywood Bowl Fiesta Mexicana planning efforts and announced the cast for the Pilgrimage Play which was slated to open nine days later. Henry Herbert was again selected to play Jesus Christ, Helen Freeman was cast as Mary Magdalene, Rosamonde Joyzelle as the Virgin Mary, H. Ellis Reed as John the Baptist, and Reginald Pole "...coming from London to play the part of Judas." ("Pilgrimage Season," Holly Leaves, June 15, 1923, p. 44).
The next issue described the cooperation of Hollywood High School art department, Chouinard and Otis in developing over 100 advertising posters for the Fiesta to be displayed all over Hollywood and the downtown Los Angeles hotels. A movie studio also agreed to provide Indian tepees and covered wagons and build a historical California settlement including period props. It was announced that the Fiesta proceeds were earmarked "...to make up the large balance required to furnish Hollywood's Community Art Gallery in the handsome new library on the Boulevard at Vine and to promote the cause of fine arts in Hollywood." ("Posters Foretell Fiesta," Holly Leaves, June 22, 1923, p. 21).
The June 30th dedication of the new Hollywood Art Association gallery in the new library was announced in the June 29th issue of Holly Leaves. The inaugural exhibition arranged by Mrs. Roscoe "Bess" Shrader and Mrs. Douglas Donaldson included paintings by Helena Dunlap, John Rich, Edouard and Luvena Vysekal, Hanson Puthoff, Loren Barton, E. Roscoe Shrader, Francis William Vreeland and Benjamin Brown. ("Art Night at Library," Holly Leaves, June 29, 1923, p. 5). (Author's note: Bess Shrader would also arrange exhibitions of the same artists and many more during her Chairmanship of the Woman's Club of Hollywood Art Department beginning in 1926).
Paul Swan: Dancer, Painter, Sculptor, Musician," Holly Leaves, July 6, 1923, front cover.
The cover of the following issue (see above) featured Paul Swan "Whose dancing will be a leading feature at the Fiesta in the Bowl Saturday." The readiness of the Pilgrimage Play and the cast were discussed in an article on the Pilgrimage Dinner held at the Hollywood Woman's Club kicking off the fourth annual summer run. ("Pilgrimage Dinner," Holly Leaves, July 6, 1923, p. 18).
The lead article on page one announced the Art Association's readiness for the next day's big event and the Schindlers' considerable involvement in the design of the Spanish village and the Fiesta song competition.
"The decoration committee under R. M. Schindler, has been hard at work for two days, with a corps of carpenters and electricians. Russell Iredell (see Hollywood Bowl program cover later below) designed the lighting effects and has also been working with the committee of decoration. ...
The Fiesta Song competition is drawing out a number of interesting compositions. Mrs. Frederick Rice will sing one of the most charming numbers yet presented to the committee and other singers will give the works of several composers. Mrs. Michael Schindler has charge of this competition, the judges of which are Emil Oberhoffer, Charles Wakefield Cadman, Sol Cohen and David Bruno Ussher." ("Fiesta Plans Complete," Holly Leaves, July 6, 1923, pp. 3, 12).
The article also described the Fiesta's extensive dance program which included besides Swan and his troupe of 10 pirates, Hazelle Williams, Mme. da Silva and a corps of Spanish dancers, and James Bush, a young dance star completing his studies at U.C. Southern Branch, possibly under the tutelage of later Weston muse Bertha Wardell, Pauline's sister Dorothy Gibling's Physical Education Department faculty-mate. (For much more on this see my "Bertha Wardell Dances in Silence at Kings Road, Olive Hill and Carmel" (BWDIS)).
"This Wonderful Tract Speaks for Itself," Holly Leaves," July 6, 1923, p. 19.
Real estate developers used the exciting activities at the Pilgrimage Playhouse and the Hollywood Bowl, including the Fiesta Mexicana, in the marketing of nearby tracts such as the Cahuenga-Highland Tract seen above.
Vreeland, Francis William, "Hollywood's Community Art Gallery," Holly Leaves, July 6, 1923, p. 36
Hollywood Library Tower, 1924. Dodd and Williams, architects, 1923. Holly Leaves, May 16, 1924, front cover. George Brookwell photo. Courtesy Hollywood Branch Library Archives.
"Mrs. Eleanor Brodie Jones, Hollywood's Efficient Librarian and Community Leader." From "Hollywood Public Library, Holly Leaves, July 1, 1922, p. 58. Photographer unknown, possibly by Viroque Baker.
Another article referencing Schindler's frenetic activities on the Association's behalf described the status of the group's long-anticipated gallery space provided by Librarian Eleanor Brodie Jones (above) in her brand new Hollywood Branch Library (see article two above and an interior view of library two below). Of Schindler's design for the gallery's skylight screen Vreeland wrote,
"There still remain to be accomplished many things, for example: the construction and decoration of the skylight screen (see plan below) which is the largest, most important and most costly single item in the scheme for the room. This screen is to temper the glaring top light from the sky-light and to distribute it to the proper places upon the walls where the exhibited works of art will be hung. It also provides for the electrical outlets and reflectors for the special concealed light plan for exhibition illumination and, by reason of its excellent and unusual design, will add importantly to the beauty of the ensemble." Vreeland, Francis William, "Hollywood's Community Art Gallery," Holly Leaves, July 6, 1923, p. 36
Hollywood Art Association Gallery, Hollywood Public Library, Hollywood Blvd. and Ivar St., 1923, R. M. Schindler and Douglas Donaldson, architect and interior designer. Courtesy UC-Santa Barbara Architecture and Design Collections, R. M. Schindler Collection.
Interior of Hollywood Public Library, 1923. Dodd and Williams, architects. LA Public Library Photo Collection.
Fountain with Mexican tile, Hollywood Library, 1924. W. J. Dodd, architect. Photo by Viroque Baker. "Rare Old Mexican Tile," Holly Leaves, October 10, 1924, p. 12.
Hollywood Bowl Program, "A Symphony Under the Stars," July 10, 1923. Cover portrait of conductor Emil Oberhoffer by movie magazine illustrator Russell Iredell who collaborated with Schindler on the lighting for the Spanish village built for the Fiesta Mexicana at the Bowl the previous week. From Hollywood Public Library Hollywood Bowl Collection.
The July 13th issue of Holly Leaves led off with articles on the opening of the Hollywood Bowl summer concert season and the Pilgrimage Play. Weston-Schindler-Lloyd Wright intimate Lawrence Tibbett, back in Los Angeles for the summer after his triumphant Metropolitan Opera debut in New York the previous fall, was slated to solo during the August 3rd Los Angeles Philharmonic concert under guest conductor Emil Oberhoffer (see above). Oberhoffer served as one of Pauline's judges on the Fiesta song competition. Tibbett would also star in the Bowl's September 20-22 performances of "Aida" (see below). ("WSZW"). Another article provided a detailed recap of the the Art Association's Fiesta Mexicana including the RMS-designed Spanish village and Pauline's music booth and Fiesta song contest activities. ("Concert Season Opens," "Christ Play Monday," and "Second Annual Fiesta, Holly Leaves, July 13, 1923, pp. 1, 26-7, 39).
"Aida, Hollywood Bowl," Pacific Coast Musical
Review, September 15, 1923. Lloyd Wright, Reginald Pole, Arthur Millier, Merle Armitage intimate Lawrence Tibbett at upper right.
Tina Modotti and Edward Weston on board the Colima on the way to Mexico, July 1923. Photo by
Chandler Weston.
The July 20th Holly Leaves review of the opening of the Pilgrimage Play singularly praised Schindler-Weston friends Reginald Pole and Helen Freeman a week before Weston and Tina Modotti sailed south for Mexico with Pauline's former Walt Whitman School student Chandler in tow (see above). ("SWWS").
"The acting of Reginald Poel [aka Pole] in the part of Judas Iscariot stands out. So perfect is his interpretation of intensity of nature either for devotion or treachery that the audience feels in its heart to be sorry for the man of whom the Master says "It were better for him had he never been born." Even when many others are on the stage, the presence of Judas with his hot insolent braggadocio, his swift devotion, and his eager cupidity, is felt. Not for one moment does Reginald Poel's characterization falter and he rises to his supreme heights of acting in the final scene of bitter repentance when he knows that he, too, must die, for "he has shed innocent blood."
As Mary Magdelene, Helen Freeman wins new laurels. Equally vivid and striking are her portrayals of the scarlet clad sinner who laughs in the arms of the Roman centurion as John the Baptist preaches repentance, and the woman, worn and wan with watching and weeping who mourns at the door of the tomb that "they have taken my Lord away and I do not know where they have laid Him." (McDonough, Jane, "Pilgrimage Opening," Holly Leaves, July 20, 1923, p. 5. For much more on Pole and Freeman and their dramatic circles see my "WSZW").
Reginald Pole as Judas in the Pilgrimage Play, ca. 1923. Photographer unknown. From I Shock Myself, by Beatrice Wood, Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 1985, p. 67. (Author's note: Pole would be promoted to the role of Christ for the 1925 and 1926 seasons.)
Helena Rubenstein, 1924 modeling a 1923 Paul Poiret dress. Nikolas Muray photo from The Jewish Museum.
Around this time R. M. Schindler also met Helena Rubenstein for whom in 1924 he designed a Hollywood reception room-salon at the southeast corner of Highland Ave. and Hollywood Blvd. just a block away from the Shrader and Freeman Houses. The project was photographed by Viroque Baker (see two below) who may have provided the introduction through her considerable Hollywood Woman's Club connections. Schindler would in the spring of 1924 also travel to New York where he spent two months remodeling Rubenstein's Manhattan salon and Greenwich, CT residence. (For more on this see my "R. M. Schindler, Richard Neutra and Louis Sullivan's Kindergarten Chats" (Chats), WSZW and "The Schindlers in Carmel, 1924").
Helena Rubenstein ad, Holly Leaves, August 3, 1923, p. 11.
Helena Rubenstein Salon Reception Room, 1780 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood, 1924. R. M. Schindler, architect. Courtesy UC-Santa Barbara Architecture and Design Collections, R. M. Schindler Collection. A special thanks to curator Jocelyn Gibbs for providing this image.
The September 28th issue of Holly Leaves reported on the Art Association's October 1st meeting featured a City Planning Forum on the Hollywood Hills master plan being developed under the auspices of the Hollywood Hills Association. Earlier-mentioned Schindler-Weston-Mather friend Rob Wagner spoke on "the intrinsic value of beauty in the civic plan." Representatives from the Santa Barbara Community Arts Association were also in attendance to present their recent efforts at city beautification which had been garnering much national attention. ("City Planning Forum," Holly Leaves, September 28, 1923, p. 1). (Author's note: The Santa Barbara Community Arts Association representatives may have also taken this opportunity to compare notes on the planning for their inaugural Fiesta to he staged in August 1924.).
The same issue reported on Frank Lloyd Wright's presence at a dinner at the Hollywood Hotel hosted by Judge Henry Neil and referenced Wright's new design studio at Olive Hill and that his Imperial Hotel in Tokyo surviving the recent earthquake. ("Had Noted Architect as Guest," Holly Leaves, September 28, 1923, p. 9). (Author's note: Wright's design team for the Millard, Ennis,Storer and Freeman Houses, including son Lloyd, Kameki and Nobuko Tsuchiura, Anton Martin Feller and Will Smith, was at the time working out of a house at 1284 Harper Ave. in West Hollywood two blocks from the Schindlers' Kings Road House. Feller was one of the invitees to the 1923 Kings Road Thanksgiving dinner.).
The January 25, 1924 issue of Holly Leaves featured an Orren Donaldson editorial bemoaning the impending destruction of "The Outpost," the site of the Art Association's original meeting place. Outpost Estates developer Charles Toberman offered the old Orquidez Adobe, then the oldest remaining building in Hollywood, to anyone who would step forward and relocate it.
"E. Roscoe Shrader, A Hollywood Artist of Many Honors," Holly Leaves, January 25, 1924, p. 63. Photo by Viroque Baker.
The same issue included the above bio of E. Roscoe Shrader on the occasion of his being named President of the prestigious California Art Club. From his position as Club president he would play a major role in facilitating oil heiress Aline Barnsdall's decision to gift her famous Hollyhock House to the City of Los Angeles and to lease it to the Club to use as its headquarters for fifteen years (1927-1942) rent free. Shrader's below 1922 painting "Hollywood" would be shown as part of the Art Club's 1928 exhibition in its new Olive Hill venue. Shrader remained president of the California Art Club throughout the rest of the 1920s. (For more on this see my "Richard Neutra and the California Art Club" (RNCAC)).
Hollywood, 1922. E. Roscoe Shrader. From The Art and Life of Edwin Roscoe Shrader, by Janet Blake and Phil Kovinick, George Stern Fine Arts, West Hollywood, 2010, front cover and p. 10.
The article further mentioned Shrader's early training at the Art Institute of Chicago which gave him something in common with the Schindlers, Karl Howenstein and wife Edith Gutterson, Herman Sachs and many others in the Schindler-Weston orbit. The article described the Shrader House thusly,
"In addition to his painting Mr. Shrader has gained considerable repute through his interest in architecture. The Shrader home at 1927 Highland Ave. is known as one of the best examples of its type of architecture in Southern California, Mr. Shrader being particularly interested in the development of a type of architecture particularly suited to the climatic and scenic conditions of this portion of the country. Both Mr. and Mrs. Shrader are prominent in the Hollywood Art Association, and their home is always a center of local art interest." (E. Roscoe Shrader: A Hollywood Artist of Many Honors," Holly Leaves, January 25, 1924, p. 63).
"Outside the House," n.d., E. Roscoe Shrader. From The Art and Life of Edwin Roscoe Shrader, by Janet Blake and Phil Kovinick, George Stern Fine Arts, West Hollywood, 2010, p. 24.
Shrader and son in front yard of Shrader Residence, 1927 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood, ca. 1922.
As mentioned earlier, the Shrader House was located directly below the site of Frank Lloyd Wright's Freeman House at 1961 Glencoe Way, the working drawings for which were completed about the time of the publication of the above article on Shrader in Holly Leaves. Schindler's 1935 Dekeyser Duplex at 1911-13 N. Highland Ave. was also built on the hill directly above the Shrader House. Along with the Shraders, numerous soirees and salons were hosted by the Freemans and the Schindlers, often on the same night, with the crowds freely flowing from event to event. The house was also within easy walking distance from the Hollywood Bowl and Pilgrimage Theater.
Freeman House, 1961 Glencoe Way, 1924. Frank Lloyd Wright, architect. Later additions and furniture by R. M. Schindler. Photo by Kameki Tsuchiura, 1924, on slope between Freeman House and Shrader House below at 1927. N. Highland Ave. From Saving Wright by Jeffrey M. Chusid, Norton, New York, 2011, p. 117.
.jpg)
Mary Marsh Buff, 1922. Edward Weston photo. Center for Creative Photography. ©1981 Arizona Board of Regents.
The February 1st issue of Holly Leaves announced the upcoming Conrad Buff Exhibition in the Association's new R. M. Schindler and Douglas Donaldson-designed library gallery. Buff was still basking in the afterglow of his first one-man show at the Los Angeles Museum the previous December. The exhibition installation was designed by Donaldson and Edward M. Langley, art director for Douglas Fairbanks. Mary Buff, nee Marsh, was a curator at the Los Angeles Museum around the time the Schindlers, arrived in L.A. in 1920.
Otis Art Institute, 2401 Wilshire Blvd., December 28, 1923. Formerly the residence of Harrison Gray Otis, publisher of the Los Angeles Times, donated to Los Angeles County in 1918 for use as the Otis Art Institute in conjunction with the Los Angeles Museum. Formerly General H. G. Otis Residence aka "Bivouac," John T. Krempel, architect, 1897. From USC Digital Archive.
In addition to taking over as Managing Director of Otis from Shrader, then Schindler House tenant Karl Howenstein also assumed Mary Marsh Buff's Curator of Art position at the Los Angeles Museum after she married Conrad Buff in 1922. Mary and Conrad became lifelong friends of the Howensteins, the Schindlers, the Westons, and, after their 1925 arrival at Kings Road, the Neutras. (RNCAC).
Otis Art Institute Catalogue, 1923-4, p. 2.
Otis Art Institute Sculpture Class, 1924. Photographer unknown. From Otis Collections Online.
The historic image above of the 1924 sculpture class at Otis Art Institute, clearly evidences the inter-connectedness of the Schindler-Weston circle with the activities at Otis and the Hollywood Art Association. Instructor Harold Swartz is at the center. Fourth from the left is Giovanni Pasquale Napolitano whose brother Joseph soon became a Schindler client. (For much more on Napolitano and Herman Sachs see my "Herman Sachs Batik, ca. 1920"). Continuing to Swartz's left is Ruth Sowden who with her husband commissioned Lloyd Wright to design their Franklin Ave. tour de force the following year. Continuing to the right is Oscar statuette designer George Stanley, Harwell Hamilton Harris close friend and first client Clive Delbridge, and far right, soon-to-be Schindler-Neutra apprentice Harwell Hamilton Harris. (For much more on this class and Karl Howenstein's, Frank Lloyd Wright's, and Louis Sullivan's inspiration for Harris to become an architect see my "California Arts & Architecture: A Steppingstone to Fame:Harwell Hamilton Harris and John Entenza: Two Case Studies").
The February 15th issue of Holly Leaves listed the Art Association officers for the upcoming year. F. W. Blanchard took over as President from Francis William Vreeland. Bess Shrader became First Vice President, Pauline Schindler, Second Vice President, and RMS, Viroque Baker, Douglas Donaldson and Vreeland became the Association's new directors. Besides her activities with the Hollywood Art Association Bess Shrader also became chairman of the art department of the Hollywood Woman's Club in 1926.
"Address on Healing." Holly Leaves, February 22, 1924, p. 15.
The February 22nd issue announced a series of lectures by J. J. van der Lleuw who would later become prominent in the Theosophist Movement. He had close connections to Jiddu Krishnamurti, a later idol of Pauline Schindler, Beatrice Wood and Reginald Pole and many others in their circles. Pole and Wood socialized with Krishnamurti in New York as early as 1923. Krishnamurti was photographed by Edward Weston in Carmel in 1934. Van der Leeuw was coincidentally also the brother of future Richard Neutra client C. H. van der Lleuw who provided Neutra the loan to enable construction of his personal residence, the V[an] D[er] L[leuw] Research House, in Silver Lake in 1932. (PGS).
In March Holly Leaves reported on a Loren Barton exhibition in the Association's Library Gallery. April featured the Hollywood Bowl Easter Sunrise service. The Association's May 5th meeting fell during Music Week. Pauline Schindler used the occasion to announce that the Levings Trio would be providing "a special and distinctive musical program" at their Kings Road house which was open to the public. Pianist Doris Levings was at the time living in the Kings Road guest apartment and likely likely taking advantage of privileges with Pauline's piano. ("Art: Loren Barton's Exhibition," Holly Leaves, March 14, 1924, p. 17). ("Art Association's May Meeting," Holly Leaves, May 2, 1924, p. 4).
In his foreward in Esther McCoy's Vienna to Los Angeles Two Journeys Harwell Hamilton Harris wrote of the Levings,
"Doris Levings, a young pianist and later wife of John Pennington, first violinist of the London String Quartet, rented the Schindler guest wing. Her sister, Marcia, a cellist, first came to the Schindlers to play duets with her. They were joined for a time by another sister who played the violin. And so the Sunday evening trios were started. They continued for a number of years until the Schindlers separated. When the Neutras arrived, Dione Neutra with her cello and voice became a participant in these Sunday evening musical entertainments (see two below)." (Harris, Harwell Hamilton, "Foreword," Vienna to Los Angeles: Two Journeys by Esther McCoy, Arts + Architecture Press, Santa Monica, 1977, p. 14).
"Levings Trio in Concert," Los Angeles Times, October 10, 1926, p. III-24.
The Levings Trio also played at a benefit concert for Russian refugees held at the Shrader residence on August 13th. "Concert to Aid School in Balkans," Los Angeles Times, August 10, 1924, p. II-25). The Levings often appeared under the auspices of the Art Association evidenced by their recital at the Vreeland's home in Los Feliz a couple years later (see above). Cellist Marcia Levings would have had much in common with amateur cellist Lloyd Wright who often jammed at Kings Road salons before falling out with the Schindlers in the late 1920s and Dione Neutra who with her husband Richard and son Frank had moved into Kings Road in early 1925 (see below for example).
Richard, Dione and Frank Neutra and R. M. Schindler, ca.1928. Photo by Jean Murray Bangs Plotkin as cited in Harwell Hamilton Harris by Lisa Germany, note 6, p. 212. Courtesy UC-Santa Barbara Architecture and Design Collections, R. M. Schindler Collection.
Through Pauline's largess, Dione would perform at the Art Association Gallery and at the Garment Workers union hall at least twice each in the first half of 1925. (Dione Neutra to Frances Toplitz, July 1925, Richard Neutra: Promise and Fulfillment, 1919-1932, edited by Dione Neutra, Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale, 1986, p. 139).
Dione Neutra, Songs Sung Differently, ca. 1925. Courtesy Neutra Papers, Cal Poly Pomona.
The end of April brought the announcement of the naming of Viroque Baker and William Francis Vreeland as co-chairs of the third annual Fiesta Mexicana at the Hollywood Bowl. The Fiesta Setting and Decorations committee included R. M. Schindler and close friends Alexander R. Brandner and Conrad Buff, Carleton Winslow, Douglas Donaldson, Joseph and Eugene Weston, Harold Chambers and others; the Dancing and Performance committee included Norma Gould and Neely Dickson whose dance and drama troupes were to perform; Lighting was headed by Russell Iredell; Poster Design Competition was under E. Roscoe Shrader; Parade Planning and Design by Edward Langley; and the barbecue pit was under the direction of Bess Shrader who likened the event to Mardi Gras in New Orleans. (Ibid).
Hollywoodland Riding Club ca. 1924. From Pinterest.
In late May the Association announced that over 500 horsemen from Palm Springs, Beverly Hills and the nearby newly formed Hollywoodland Riding Club adorned in Spanish regalia would be in the Fiesta parade.
Hollywoodland Riding Club brochure, ca. 1924. From Under the Hollywood Sign.
In early June Holly Leaves reported on an exhibition of etchings curated by mutual Schindler-Weston-Tibbett-Geritz friend Arthur Millier's at the Art Association's Library Gallery. Millier lectured on the art of etching and a selection of 50 pieces on display from the collection of the Cannell & Chaffin Gallery at the Association's June 2nd monthly meeting. Millier would take over as permanent art critic for the Los Angeles Times in 1926. The Levings String Trio also performed at the June meeting. ("Etchings at Library," Holly Leaves, June 6, 1924, p. 15).
Miss Neely Dickson, Director Hollywood Community Theater, Holly Leaves, January 18, 1924, p. 36.
The same issue also announced a series of Norman Bel Geddes lectures on "Modern Developments in Theatrical Production"at the fourth annual summer session of Neely Dickson's (see above) Hollywood Community Theater to begin on June 30th. Annita Delano and many of her students at U.C. Southern Branch attended the lectures in stage set and costume design. It was a triumphant return for Geddes to the scene of his earliest theatrical success as he was the stage set designer and advisor for Aline Barnsdall's critcally acclaimed Los Angeles Little Theatre productions in 1916-17. ("By Norman Bel Geddes," Holly Leaves, June 6, 1924, p. 15). (WSZW).
Norman Bel Geddes, Holly Leaves, June 20, 1924, front cover. Photographer unknown.
All classes of Neely's six-week summer session were held at the Hollywood Community Theater on Ivar St.
"Mr. Geddes will illustrate his lectures with models, blue prints and photographs from many of his productions, including "The Miracle," for which he converted the old Century Theater in New York into a medieval Gothic cathedral, an achievement which was hailed as outstanding in scenic design of the present decade. In addition to Mr. Geddes' course, Miss Neely Dickson will offer instruction in play acting, production and stage technique, while Theodora Ursula Irvine will come directly from New York and give instruction in voice and diction and interpretation." ("Great New York Authority in Theatrical World Begins Series of Lectures Here Monday, June 30," Holly Leaves, June 20, 1924, p. 21)Page one of the same June 6th issue also featured an article on Aline Barnsdall's offer of a $5,000 prize for the best plan for developing the Hollywood Bowl by an American-trained architect. Schindler must have been deeply dismayed at the restriction after all of the effort he had put forth for Barnsdall on Olive Hill and not to mention the Art Association. Barnsdall's explained her reasoning,
"I am offering $5000.00 for plans for the improvement of the Bowl. The competition is limited to American and American trained architects and plans are to be submitted for judgment to the directors of the Bowl Association without names. ... I am asking that it be restricted to American architects because I have felt for the last ten years that an almost provincial attitude was necessary in us who look wistfully toward a racial art expression in America. Art is international, of course, in so far as it expresses Spirit of Man, but it should also be racial and our own artists encouraged for our own sakes because they are of our own blood and sinew and express most subtly our own spiritual and aesthetic life." ("Miss Barnsdall's Offer; Owner of Olive Hill Explains Her Tender of $5000 as Prize for Bowl Development Plan," Holly Leaves, June 6, 1924, p. 1).
In the same news-filled issue a status report on the Fiesta site construction was reported.
"The large group of architects, decorators and illuminating experts that have been engaged for the past month in laying out plans for he Fiesta grounds, have finished the necessary preliminaries and their most romantic setting and background for the affair will soon be in process of construction. The plans provide four separate and completely equipped open air stages and platforms for dancing, situated at various points of vantage in a colonnaded and tower-flanked plaza surrounded by scores of alluringly decorated and fantastically illuminated booths. These various stages will be used for spectacular features of a never-halting entertainment program accompanying the barbecue at six-thirty and continue far into the night. In this particular, troupes of Mexican, Spanish and Aztec dancers to the number of almost a hundred are to participate with vocalists and instrumentalists in a joy feast of music and a great variety of solo, duet and group dances. And for those who "love to dance," there will be a spacious brilliantly lighted open air ball where everyone who wishes may "trip the light fantastic" to a continuous flow of orchestrated syncopation." ("A Carnival of Dancing," Holly Leaves, June 6, 1924).
"El Mercado de la Fiesta," Santa Barbara 1927. George Washington Smith, architect (by Lutah Maria Riggs). I am grateful to Melinda Gandara, archivist of the Lutah Maria Riggs Society for sharing this image.
I have not been able to locate any actual photographs of the Art Association's Fiesta Mexicana but the above drawing of the 1927 Santa Barbara Fiesta booths provides a sense of what the scene at the Hollywood Bowl might have looked like. The Santa Barbara Community Arts Association had made a presentation on their activities at a Hollywood Art Association meeting in 1923 where most likely information on both groups' Fiesta planning efforts was exchanged.
Another recently formed group also collaborated on the preparations for the 1924 Fiesta, i.e., the Arts and Crafts Society of Southern California. The first official act of the Society was the erection of four Fiesta booths. Fellow artist Arthur Millier reported in the Times,
"Porter Blanchard (the group's new president seen below) and Harry Sheppy turned out tambourines on their anvils, James Hewson and his helpers made the handlooms buzz, Olive Newcomb, assisted by ten girls from the university conducted the tent of Omar where pottery was thumped into shape, while the waxing and dyeing of batiks was presented by Annita Delano, Amy McDermid and May Nichols." (Millier, Arthur, "Of Art and Artists, Arts and Crafts," Los Angeles Times, June 29, 1924, p. II-26).
Porter Blanchard at work, n.d. Photographer unknown. From Handbook of California Design, 1930-1965, edited by Bobby Tigerman, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2011, p. 49.
Additional booths demonstrating the handcraft work of Annita Delano's UC-Southern Branch students were also part of the festivities. Recently returned from New York where he was installing his design of a beauty salon for Helena Rubenstein, Schindler collaborated with Russell Iredell to design booths and install lighting for the evening's activities.The Fiesta's Arts and Crafts Society area was designed by Brandner, Sachs and others who "fashioned the colonnades and colorful minarets and turrets into a charming effect suggestive of a Maxfield Parrish painting." ("A New Arts and Crafts Society," American Magazine of Art, November 1924, pp. 600-1 and "Fiesta at Bowl Lure for Many," Los Angeles Times, June 29, 1924, p. III-12).
Announcement for the opening of the Arts and Crafts Society of Southern California salesroom, 1924. Courtesy of Lael Morgan.
Other Schindler circle habitues who joined the Arts and Crafts Society were Art Association director Douglas Donaldson who was vice-president under Blanchard, Alexander Brandner, Herman Sachs, Kem Weber, the Society's driving force Annita Delano (see below letter for example), Barbara Morgan and Kings Road tenants Karl and Edith Gutterson Howenstein. Howenstein and Shrader hosted a membership supper for the Arts and Crafts Society on the lawn of the Otis Art Institute on July 9th. Edith would become a director of the organization in 1925. ("Arts, Crafts Society to Give Lawn Supper," Los Angeles Times, July 6, 1924, p. II-36). (Author's note: The metalsmithing of Donaldson and Blanchard's father was often featured in the Art Instiute of Chicago's annual Industrial Art exhibitions in the 1910s where the Schindlers would have first become aware of their work.)
Letter from Barbara Morgan to Willard Morgan, August 3, 1925, on Arts and Crafts Society stationery. Courtesy Lael Morgan.
Letter from Barbara Morgan to Willard Morgan, August 3, 1925, on Arts and Crafts Society stationery. Courtesy Lael Morgan.
Herman Sachs, 1925. Viroque Baker portrait. (Anderson, Antony, "Of Art and Artists: Sachs Decorates New Gas Building," LAT, February 5, 1925, p. 30).
From left to right, Franz K. Ferenz, Barbara Morgan (kneeling), David Giffen, Ragenhilde Liljedahl (Mrs. Giffen), unknown, unknown, Annita Delano, Richard Neutra, unknown, Harwell Hamilton Harris and Gregory Ain. (E. Merril Owens is one of the three unidentified students). Photo by fellow class-member Willard D. Morgan, early 1929.
Schindler-Sachs mutual friends Annita Delano (above center) and Barbara Morgan (above kneeling), U. C. Southern Branch art teachers, had also befriended Sachs by at least 1924 evidenced by Barbara's lengthy description of Sach's Culver City studio in a letter to her then fiance Willard Morgan.
"Herman Sachs showed us some beautiful work at his studio the other night. Books that he had bound in papers he had dyed, pottery figurines, pottery of all kinds and of many glazes which he had made, among them an orange glaze (difficult color to obtain), many batiks of all kinds of designs bold and subtle, and silver ornaments. He had a number of panels of which the design was made with fine stitches of fine woolen threads and another hanging on a wall which was strangely crocheted in the riches[t] gamut of colors. There was a number of dolls fantastically designed caricatures of people he had known. He showed us the manuscripts of three books that are to be published in Germany soon, one on Anatomy, "How to Paint" and one on "Frescoes" (see later below) all with illustrations. Then too there was a huge bookcase filled with rare illustrated art text books, folklore etc. etc. etc. He's an interior decorator and is at present designing the interior of a bank in Santa Ana.
Thruout seeing these there ran a semi argument Sachs vs. all the rest on American art but we great more understanding. He surely understands the economic system which strangles art. Out of doors we could see a lurid glow in the night sky. He explained that the lumber companies give a discount to these Culver City film companies and doubtless it is the same other places, if the companies burn all of the lumber in a once used set. Accordingly men are hired who do nothing but burn sets. Thrifty and far-sighted business methods!" (Letter from Barbara Johnson to Willard Morgan, September 9, 1924. From the Morgan Archive. Courtesy Lael Morgan.).
Hewson Handcraft Studios (and Arts and Crafts Society of Southern California Headquarters), California Southland, December 1925.
The Arts and Crafts Society's activities were a monthly feature of California Southland throughout 1924-26. Kem Weber and Herman Sachs lectured at club meetings at the group's shared space at 2508 W. 7th St. during 1925 (see above). Delano, Sachs, Stojana, Jock Peters and John Weber would go on to collaborate on the interior design for Bullock's Wilshire in 1929. (For more on Annita Delano, Barbara and Willard Morgan, Herman Sachs, Gjura Stojana, and Kem Weber see my "Foundations of Los Angeles Modernism, Richard Neutra's Mod Squad." For much more on Weber during this period see my "Kem Weber's Whitley Heights Enclave."). (Author's note: The Arts and Crafts Society office was next door to the photographic studio of Llewellyn Bixby Smith who had just returned from his photography apprenticeship with Edward Weston and Tina Modotti in Mexico City. (SWWWS)).
Ceiling decoration in the space occupied by the Arts and Crafts Society, presently occupied by McManus and Morgan Bookshop, 2508 W. 7th St. (Herman Sachs?). Photo by the author, February 2015.
Clock by Douglas and Louise Donaldson. Photo by Viroque Baker. (Donaldson, Douglas, "Craftsmanship Comments," California Southland, February 1924, p. 24).).
The previous December Donaldson's wife Louise and Marcia Potter opened the Decorative Arts Guild in the Assembly Tea Room at 644 S. Flower St. where the work of Society members was exhibited and sold. Examples of craft work on display upon the Guild's opening were silver pieces by the Donaldson's and Blanchard (see above and below). (Donaldson, Douglas, "Craftsmanship Comments," California Southland, February 1924, p. 24).).
"Hand-wrought silverware designed and executed by Porter Blanchard, President of the Arts and Crafts Society of Southern California." Photograph uncredited. (Blanchard, Porter, "The Arts and Crafts Society of Southern California," California Southland, August 1924, p. 24).).
Further evidence of the close interactions of the Arts and Crafts Society members is the collaboration of Weber and Blanchard on work such as the below pewter candelabra.
Kem Weber, pewter candelabra, executed by Porter Blanchard, ca. 1928. Photo by P. Holloway. From Kem Weber: The Moderne in Southern California 1920-1941 edited by David Gebhard and Harriette Von Breton, The Art Galleries, University of California Santa Barbara, 1969, p. 64.
Program for the Hollywood Bowl Concerts, Week of July 22, 1924. Cover art by Francis William Vreeland.
Another busy summer season in Hollywood was kicked off by the Fiesta. The Pilgrimage Play began its annual summer run a couple weeks after the Fiesta again starring Schindler-Weston friend Reginald Pole as Judas. Besides his co-chairing the Fiesta with Baker, the busy Vreeland also designed the cover art for the Hollywood Bowl's summer concert series which started around the same time(see above). This was also about the time that a similarly busy Schindler was completing his earlier-mentioned How and Packard Houses which he commissioned Fiesta co-chair Viroque Baker to photograph (see photos earlier above).
R. M. Schindler caa. 1923. Photo by Viroque Baker. Courtesy of the Schindler Archive, UC-Santa Barbara Art and Design Collection, University Art Museum.
After Pauline recovered somewhat from a nervous breakdown and apparent suicide attempt while RMS was in New York working on the Rubenstein Salon and house remodel projects (Sweeney, p. 97), the Schindlers motored up the coast to Carmel sometime in July or August to reconnect with many friends from Chicago and the Bay Area. The Schindler's Chicago artist-publisher friend Ralph Fletcher Seymour had asked RMS for advice on building on his lot at Carmel Point near Robinson Jeffers Tor House. Old Chicago Little Theatre founders Maurice Browne and Ellen Van Volkenburg were directing plays at Ted Kuster's just completed Theatre of the Golden Bough and Johan Hagemeyer had agreed to host an exhibition of Schindler's work in his studio. Carol Aronovici was also in town teaching city planning in the U.C. Berkeley summer session while performing in plays under Browne's direction. Hedwiga Reicher, the earlier-mentioned director of the Pilgrim Pageant in the Hollywood Bowl in 1920 was assisting the Brownes during their summer season (see below). (See much more on this in my "The Schindlers in Carmel, 1924").
From Carmel-By-The-Sea by Monica Hudson, Arcadia, 2006, p. 85. Note the multi-talented Kings Road salon attendee, actor and noted city planner Carol Aronovici on the left who, while wearing his City Planner hat, collaborated with Schindler and Richard Neutra on the 1928 Richmond, California Civic Center project and other projects under their Architectural Group for Commerce and Industry (AGIC) partnership. Noted director and stage performer Hedwiga Reicher would periodically recte poetry at Kings Road salons. For much on Maurice Browne's involvement with the Schinflers see my "Schindlers-Westons-Kashevaroff-Cage").
The acme of the Hollywood Art Association in terms of activity and prominence was the summer of 1924. This year would mark the last of the popular Fiestas whose demise was perhaps a casualty of the continued rapid growth of Hollywood and the maturation of the Hollywood Bowl as a performance venue. The Association apparently disbanded sometime around 1925-6. Art exhibitions of former Association members did continue at the Hollywood Public Library through the ongoing largess of Head Librarian Eleanor Brodie Jones but gradually tapered off through the rest of the 1920s. The members dispersed into other organizations providing more prestigious exhibition venues became available, most notably the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce in 1926 (see below) and California Art Club in 1927.
Hollywood Chamber of Commerce Building, 6520 Sunset Blvd., 1926. Morgan, Walls and Clements, architects.
Vreeland who became Chairman of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce's Art Commission upon its formation wrote of the demise of the Hollywood Art Association as an organization in an unpublished manuscript,
"In 1920, a hopeful and determined little band of art lovers rallied to the cause of Fine Arts under the standard of the Hollywood Art Association, and wore itself out in a struggle of five years arduously devoted to laying the foundation for art consideration and encouragement in the community. ...
Apparently with an appreciation of its position in a potential art center, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce with the cooperation with the body of artists resident and working in Hollywood, established the Hollywood Art Commission, the title and activity being proposed by the Chamber executives, with the chairman of the commission being selected by the artists, appointing three painters and one sculptor to serve. The movement is therefore one of artists, purely for art's sake, proposed, sponsored, sided and abetted by our Chamber of Commerce.
Through the activity of this Commission, and under the auspices of the Chamber of Commerce, in a charming gallery at the Chamber's beautifully appointed building on Sunset Boulevard, facing Hudson Avenue, a constant rotating exhibition of the highest artistic standard, works of painters and sculptors residing in Hollywood, is maintained open to the public every day except Sundays, and known as "The Salon of Hollywood Artists." (Francis William Vreeland, "When You Think of Hollywood, Think of Art," manuscript, Vreeland Papers, Los Angeles Public Library, Samuel Goldwyn Branch).
Aline Barnsdall donated her Hollyhock House to the City of Los Angeles and leased it to the well-established and reputable California Art Club in 1927 for $1.00 a year for the next 15 years. As mentioned earlier, E. Roscoe Shrader who first became president of the Club in 1924 was prominent in brokering the Art Club lease with Barnsdall. (For much more on this see my "Richard Neutra and the California Art Club").
Interior of Aline Barnsdall's Hollyhock House, Frank Lloyd Wright, architect, R. M. Schindler, construction supervisor, 1921. California Art Club Bulletin, February 1927.
Vreeland wrote of the CAC's major coup,
"...it has recently acquired the most distinguished artist's club house in America and with it the headquarters of the California Art Club, which is the oldest, the largest, the most active and the most influential painter-sculptor organization on the Pacific slope, having a membership of some 350 artists representing practically every city and art colony in California..." (Ibid).
Lauding longtime President Shrader, Vreeland ended a companion piece on the Art Club's new digs,
"The proven capacity and integrity of the club's president, E. Roscoe Shrader, a recognition of like spirit in the personnel of its officers and active membership; together with the California Art Club's record, covering almost thirty years in the achievement in the cause of art are the expressed reasons for the great trust placed with the organization by the donor." ((Francis William Vreeland, "The California Art Club's New Home," manuscript, Vreeland Papers, Los Angeles Public Library, Samuel Goldwyn Branch).
The Los Angeles Museum of History, Science and Art also hosted the annual exhibition of California Art Club members through the association of Howenstein and Shrader and their direct Otis connections with the Museum. Of this perk of CAC membership Schindler intimate Conrad Buff stated in his oral history,
"About 1922, I joined the California Art Club. The California Art Club in those days was practically the only club in Los Angeles that represented the artists. They had a yearly show at the Los Angeles Museum [of History, Science and Art], that was a privilege they had, and it was quite the show of the year, although there was another exhibition that took place in the fall where everybody was eligible to submit their works to a jury. In those days, the museum was really a place where the artists were treated royally, not like now where everybody has to send pictures in and submit them to a jury and be perhaps in competition with ten thousand others. In those days, the museum would come to your house, pick up the pictures, and submit them to the jury. Practically everybody that had half-way decent work would be accepted. After the show was over, the museum would bring the pictures back. So it was a golden age for the artists.
In the middle '20's or the later '20s, the club had a wonderful opportunity. Miss Barnsdall of Barnsdall Hill gave her residence to the club, to be solely used by the club. I don't know why Miss Barnsdall didn't like her house, although at this time it was considered the most beautiful building in Los Angeles. It was, of course designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and the supervising architect was Rudolph Schindler; as I said, it was quite a remarkable building and everybody liked it except the other architects. The architects were down on Frank Lloyd Wright. We were very fortunate in having this privilege of using the building for fifteen years. She gave us a fifteen-year lease on the building."
Afterword:
One of the notable exhibitions of Schindler circle members which took place in the Art Association's Hollywood Library Gallery after the Art Association's apparent dissolution was that of the "Modern Art Workers." Evidenced by a letter from the group's president Gjura Stojana to RMS seeking the Art Association's gallery space for the "Workers'" first show, the Schindlers were still well connected with librarian Eleanor Brodie Jones. (Letter from Gjura Stojana to R.M. Schindler, July 15, 1925, UCSB). (Anderson, Antony, "Modernists Show: Hollywood Library," L.A. Times, October 11, 1925, p. 36).
R. M. Schindler, a close friend of both Delano and Morgan and many of the other "Workers" was called upon by his soon-to-be client and the group's president Stojana to design the catalog cover for their second exhibition at the Los Angeles Museum in Exposition Park in March 1926 (see below).
Catalog cover design for the second exhibition of the Modern Art Workers at the Hollywood Library, October 1925 designed by R. M. Schindler. Courtesy of the Schindler Archive, UC-Santa Barbara Art and Design Collection, University Art Museum.
Schindler circle members of the "Workers" included besides Stojana, the group's spokesperson and manifesto author Stanton MacDonald-Wright, Annita Delano and fellow U.C. Southern Branch art teacher, Barbara Morgan, fellow Delano art teachers at Otis Art Institute Harold Swartz, Edouard Vysekal and Frederick Monhoff, Kem Weber, Conrad Buff, Ray Boynton, Henrietta Shore, Helena Dunlap, Henri De Kruif, Mabel Alvarez, and many others. The "Workers" had shows at both the Hollywood Writer's Club and Los Angeles Museum around this same time (see below). ("Modernists' Show at Los Angeles Museum, L.A. Times, March 14, 1926, p. III-19 and RNCAC).
Catalog checklist for Exhibition by The Modern Art Workers, Los Angeles Museum, Exposition Park, March 2 - April 4, 1926. From Los Angeles Museum of History, Science and Art exhibition scrapbooks, 1926.
Another Hollywood Library Gallery exhibition with strong Schindler circle connections took place in the Schindler-Donaldson designed Library gallery in the summer of 1927 during Galka Scheyer's stay at Kings Road. While friend from Oakland, Grete Greenbaum was staying with her in the Kings Road guest wing, the Schindlers were able to arrange an exhibition of her collection of "New Graphic Arts" including work by Edward Hagedorn, Maynard Dixon, Imogen Cunningham and others. Many of the pieces from this show are now in the Galka Scheyer Collection at the Norton Simon Museum. (Anderson, Antony, "Of Art and Artists: New Graphic Art at the Hollywood Library," Los Angeles Times, August 27, 1927, p. III-22). (Author's note: This was right around the time Pauline Schindler separated from her philandering husband and left Kings Road. For much more on the events surrounding her departure see my "Pauline Gibling Schindler: Vagabond Agent for Modernism").