The Los Angeles County Museum of Art exhibition, California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way" is the first major study of California midcentury modern design. The show is installed in the elegantly modern Resnick Pavilion gallery space. It opened October 1, 2011 and closed June 3, 2012. Actor Dick Van Dyke's 1963 Studebaker Avanti is prominently displayed with the furniture, lighting, product and fashion items in the show. Wendy Kaplan, the show’s curator and head of LACMA’s decorative arts and design department, included the car because it embodies an entrepreneurial, start-up quality that would also distinguish the aviation and electronic industries in California. The video from the show includes the Avanti. LACMA Promotional Video
California Design 1930-1965.
The 63 Studebaker Avanti in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
This exhibition is the first major study of California midcentury modern design. With more than 300 objects - furniture, ceramics, metalwork, fashion and textiles, and industrial and graphic design - the exhibition examines the state’s role in shaping the material culture of the entire country. Organized into four thematic areas, the exhibition aims to elucidate the 1951 quote from émigré Greta Magnusson Grossman that is incorporated into the exhibition’s title: California design “is not a superimposed style, but an answer to present conditions… It has developed out of our own preferences for living in a modern way.
