Events Archive

2020

SIDNEY D. GAMBLE LECTURE
Presented in Partnership with the Driehaus Museum
FROM HAND TO HEARTH: THE UNTOLD STORY OF AMERICAN MOSAIC FIREPLACES

Lecture by Ted Ellison
Saturday, November 14, 2020  |  2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. on Zoom
$10 members | $20 non-members

Fine craftsman and designer Ted Ellison brings a historical perspective to the introduction of mosaic to the buildings of progressive American architects around the turn of the twentieth century. The Chicago firm Giannini & Hilgart is among those whose works of art stand among the highest achievements of this ancient art form, yet they remain nearly forgotten in homes across the country. In collaboration with the celebrated architects of their day, Giannini & Hilgart approached the language of mosaic with fresh experiments in material and decorative design, exemplified by their significant installation at the Samuel M. Nickerson house, now Chicago’s Driehaus Museum. In the light of his study of mosaic fireplaces nationwide, Ted will also share his observations on the art and craft of Greene & Greene’s tile mosaic fireplaces. This lecture is a rare chance to view exquisitely photographed interiors and newly discovered installations from around the country.

About the Speaker:
Theodore Ellison studied art and apprenticed in a glass studio before starting his leaded glass and mosaic company in 1998. Honoring the artistic integrity of the Arts & Crafts tradition he’s created original glass, mosaic and lighting designs for homes all over the country. His work is based on the firm belief that thoughtfully designed and carefully crafted artworks enhance the lives of those who encounter them. His work has appeared in Fine Homebuilding, Style 1900 and Old House Journal. He’s written on the history of glass for American Bungalow and presented on the history of American mosaic at the National Arts & Crafts Conference, Historic Seattle, the Society of American Mosaic Artists, and Pasadena Heritage.

HALLOWEEN PHOTO MINI SESSION @ THE GAMBLE HOUSE

Saturday, October 24, 2020  |  Photo session* by reservation only
$200 per session (15 minutes, 10 images, online gallery)
A portion of the proceeds will be donated to The Gamble House

Bring the family and come in costume to The Gamble House in Pasadena for a memorable Halloween Portrait Mini Session* Experience. The front porch of the historical home will be in full Halloween decor by the talented Hearts and Honey Do Events.

Please note that once you have selected the time-slot of your choice an email will be sent to you within 24 hrs to place your $50 deposit to secure your time-slot and to provide you additional information.

Don’t miss out this Halloween season, it will be SPOOKTACULAR!
*one family per session

VIRTUAL ARTNIGHT

Lineage Dance Company explores the intersection of architecture and movement through a special dance performance recorded in and around the spaces of the Gamble House. 

Friday, October 23, 2020  |  6:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.
View the performances: https://gamblehouse.org/artnight/

THE ICONIC AMERICAN HOUSE:
ARCHITECTURAL MASTERWORKS SINCE 1900

Discussion with Dominic Bradbury and Richard Powers
Saturday, October 17, 2020  |  11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. on Zoom
FREE to members | $5 non-members

Authors Richard Powers and Dominic Bradbury discuss their new publication, The Iconic American House: Architectural Masterworks Since 1900, a compendium of the most innovative and influential residential buildings in the United States since the beginning of the twentieth century.

Some of the world’s greatest architects, including Walter Gropius, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, have used their talents to create groundbreaking innovations in American residential architecture over the past 120 years. Though wide-ranging in style, these houses share a remarkable sensitivity to site and context; appreciation of local materials; experimentation with form, materials, and technology; and understanding of clients’ needs. Spanning the length and breadth of the United States, The Iconic American House features fifty of the most important, timeless, and recognizable houses designed since 1900.

With concise, informative text and fresh, vibrant illustrations, this book presents a lavish array of architectural masterpieces designed by architects such as Philip Johnson, Richard Neutra, Peter Eisenman, and Thomas Gluck. Specially commissioned and stunning photographs, floor plans, drawings, and architect biographies ensure that this book is perfect for students, professionals, design aficionados, and anyone who dreams of building a house of their own.

About the Authors:
Richard Powers is the author of twelve novels. His most recent, The Overstory, won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. He is also the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and the National Book Award, and he has been a four-time National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. He lives in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains.

Dominic Bradbury is a journalist and writer specializing in architecture and design. He writes for many magazines and newspapers in the UK and internationally, including Wallpaper*, World of Interiors, House & Garden, Vogue Living, The Telegraph, The Times, and the Financial Times. His many books include Mid-Century Modern Complete, The Iconic Interior, Mountain Modern, Waterside Modern,  and most recently, Off the Grid: Houses for Escape.

THE GAMBLES IN ASIA

Lecture by Miriam Reed
Saturday, October 10, 2020  |  2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. on Zoom
$10 members | $20 non-members

The Gamble family embarked on a voyage to Asia in March of 1908, just as their new winter home in Pasadena was under construction. Their agenda was not that of idle sightseers. The Gambles set their itinerary to immerse themselves and their two younger sons in a cultural experience throughout China, Japan, and Korea, and to see first-hand the results of several philanthropic projects they supported abroad. The photographs and journal that document their trip provide an extraordinary glimpse of Asia in 1908 and also reveal the Gambles as a family who were inquisitive about new experiences and the world around them. Miriam Reed’s work brings light to the Gambles’ experiences and the art objects for their new home with which the family returned.

About the Speaker:
Miriam Reed, Ph.D. (UCLA 1980) began researching the life of Clarence James Gamble, youngest son of David and Mary Gamble, and fell into a treasure trove of information on the David B. Gamble family. This lead to many years of studying Asian history which enabled her to visit Japan, China, and Korea. There she learned of a world quite different from that in her earlier study of nineteenth-century America and the historic pioneers of the political and social liberation of women: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Margaret Sanger, Susan B. Anthony, and Louisa May Alcott. Miriam continues work in both fields and lives in Ashland, Oregon with her beautiful Border Collie, Marnie.

TWO SIDES OF THE PACIFIC:
JAPAN AND THE ARCHITECTURE OF GREENE & GREENE

Lecture by Ted Bosley
Saturday, September 26, 2020  |  2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. on Zoom
$10 members | $20 non-members

Greene & Greene’s architecture revealed their appreciation for Japanese architecture and design, which was intense although the brothers–to their deep regret–never visited Japan. Charles Greene’s exposure to Japanese architecture at various world’s expositions was enriched by what he studied in magazines, books, and art goods seen in the specialized shops of Pasadena. His deeply introspective nature drew him towards Buddhism, and from late 1903, he was the creative force who guided the firm’s architectural expressions towards an Asian aesthetic. The interest flowed in both directions, as in the post-war period the Greenes’ work was the subject of attention from Japanese writers and photographers.

About the Speaker:
Edward “Ted” Bosley is Executive Director and CEO of The Gamble House Conservancy, and has served The Gamble House, a National Historic Landmark in Pasadena, California, in various capacities of increasing responsibility since 1990. He publishes and lectures widely on architects Greene & Greene and the American Arts & Crafts movement, and has taught Historic Site Stewardship in the Heritage Conservation Master’s Degree program at the University of Southern California School of Architecture, and for the School of Arts and Humanities at Claremont Graduate University. He has been a guest lecturer for USC’s popular Great Houses of Los Angeles course for more than 25 years.

Bosley’s full-length book, Greene and Greene, published by Phaidon Press in 2000, is the premier study of the architects’ work. He co-edited the 2008 exhibition publication, “A New and Native Beauty: The Art and Craft of Greene & Greene,” and organized the exhibition of the same name, which opened at The Huntington Library’s Boone Gallery before traveling to the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery and the MFA Boston in 2008-09. He contributed to Maynard Parker: Modern Photography and the American Dream, a joint publication of The Huntington and Yale University Press (2012), and was an editor and contributor to The Gamble House: Building Paradise in California (CityFiles Press, 2015). In 2016, Ted co-curated an exhibit at The Huntington Library exploring the architectural photography of Yasuhiro Ishimoto. Ted is currently researching a book on the same subject.

STICKLEY MUSEUM AT CRAFTSMAN FARMS VIRTUAL TOUR
Saturday, July 11, 2020
4:00 p.m. PST/7:00 p.m. EST

Zoom presentation with Jonathan Clancy and Vonda Givens

FREE – Members | $10 – Non-members
Ticket holders will be sent Zoom registration confirmation

Explore Gustav Stickley’s “Garden of Eden” in Parsippany, New Jersey. Join the Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms’ Director of Collections and Preservation, Dr. Jonathan Clancy, and Executive Director, Vonda Givens, for a virtual visit to this National Historic Landmark property, established by Stickley in 1911 as a family home, farm, school and community. A slideshow overview of Craftsman Farms, from its past, present and future to its buildings, landscape and furnishings, will begin the program, followed by a live-streamed tour of the Log House, the Stickley family home and the heart of the property, both in Stickley’s era and today.

About the Presenters:
Dr. Jonathan Clancy is the Director of Collections and Preservation at the Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms. An author, educator, and curator Clancy received his doctorate in art history in 2008 from the Graduate Center. Formerly Director of the MA in American Fine and Decorative Arts program at Sotheby’s, he left in 2017 to form an advisory group. As an independent consultant, he has worked with private clients and institutions on collection management, exhibition planning, label writing and research, and valuation. 

Vonda Givens has been the Executive Director of the Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms for six years. Since 2018, she has overseen the rehabilitation of an original garage building on the Craftsman Farms property, which will soon open as the museum’s Education Center and include expanded space for programs, collections storage, and the new Stickley Museum Library. Givens joined the museum’s staff in 2008 as the Director of Education. A museum educator at heart, she has been a docent for more than 20 years. She is a native of Tennessee and received her MA from Texas A & M University.

THE GAMBLE HOUSE: OUR STICKLEY STORY
Saturday, June 27, 2020
11:00 a.m. PST/2:00 p.m. EST

Zoom Presentation + Q&A with Jennifer Trotoux

FREE – Members | $10 – Non-members
Ticket holders will be sent Zoom registration confirmation

Join Jennifer Trotoux for an exploration of the Stickley furniture in the Gamble House. Gustav Stickley’s furniture, and pieces from other Stickley family makers, plays an important role in the presentation of the house’s interiors today. This commercially available furniture seems right at home in the highly customized surroundings of the Gamble House. How did Stickley furniture come to be used in the house, both in the historical period and today, and what do we understand of the spaces that had no Greene & Greene furniture? This insider’s look will be accompanied by an interactive discussion from inside the Gamble House.

About the Presenter:
Jennifer Trotoux joined the staff of the Gamble House in 2017 and now serves as the Director of Collections and Interpretation. Her education at Scripps College and the University of Chicago focused on architectural history, leading to a career of twenty-five years in the practice of historic preservation.

IN THE KITCHEN WITH JOHN OTA
Zoom presentation by author of “The Kitchen”
Saturday, May 30, 2020
4:00 p.m. 

Tickets: $5* – Registration | $28.50 – Registration + a copy of “The Kitchen” w/signed bookplate

On a mission to design the perfect kitchen of his own, John Ota traveled across North America to find inspiration in the kitchens of famed figures the likes of Julia Childs and Elvis Presley and in historic homes such as The Gamble House. Along the way, he learned about the origins and evolution of the kitchen, as well as its architecture and its appliances. Hear more about his journey, as documented in his new book “The Kitchen.”

About the Speaker: John Ota
John Ota has been involved with architecture and design since 1978. He has worked in architecture offices in Toronto, New York and Vancouver and has degrees from the School of Architecture at Columbia University and the University of British Columbia. He has also written articles on architecture and design for major newspapers and magazines across Canada. John has chaired the awards committee of the Ontario Association of Architects and also served as a juror for the committee. He has served as a Board Member on the Toronto Historical Board and has worked on major art gallery, museum and court house projects for the Ontario government. In 2004, he was the lead curator on an exhibition called “Living Spaces, 21 contemporary houses” that toured Canada. John has acted as a guest critic at the Ryerson University School of Architecture and as an advisor to the Architecture Gallery at Harbourfront Centre in Toronto. He is an active member of the Culinary Historians of Canada.

Special Tour Event
CELEBRATE VALENTINE’S DAY AT THE GAMBLE HOUSE
Friday, February 14, 2020
5:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.

Tickets: $15 per person

Join us Friday, February 14 for VALENTINE’S DAY AT THE GAMBLE HOUSE. Visit us from 5:00-8:00 p.m. and explore the Gamble House at your own pace during this open house style event. Guests are invited to present their ticket at the reception area on the rear terrace for a complimentary glass of sparkling wine or water. Light refreshments will be provided. Guitarist Shane Savala will be on hand to provide romantic background music throughout the evening. 

• This self-guided event does not include a docent-led tour.
• Admission tickets must be turned in at the reception area to receive a complimentary beverage.
• One beverage per ticketed guest. 
• No food or drinks are permitted inside the house.

“MR. NOGGINBODY GETS A HAMMER” 
Reading and Book Signing with David Shannon
Saturday, February 8, 2020
10:30 a.m. on the Gamble House lawn

FREE event, no RSVP required
• We encourage guests to bring a blanket to sit on the lawn

Join us for a reading and book signing with picture book creator David Shannon as he introduces us to Mr. Nogginbody, a new character in a satisfyingly silly and subversive take on a familiar parable.

If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. After snagging his toe, Mr. Nogginbody makes a visit to his local hardware store in search of solutions. Armed with a shiny new hammer, he successfully fixes the nail protruding from his floor. But the satisfaction of his first repair carries him away, and he figures that anything resembling a nail―from a lamp switch to a fire hydrant―can be fixed with a good whack. The results are predictably and theatrically disastrous, until Mr. Nogginbody arrives at a gentle awakening and recognizes that not everything is a nail.

About the author: David Shannon is the creator of the Caldecott Honor– winning No, David! and more than thirty other books beloved by children who “recognize immediately that they have found a kindred spirit” (New York Times). He lives in Los Angeles.

Review: Mr. Nogginbody is a jauntier and more surreal version of Humpty Dumpty: his bowler hat, collar, and tie are stacked together at the top of his ovoid body, above his marvelously expressive face. Thrilled to discover that a hammer can fix a nail that’s popped up from his floor, he starts seeing nails everywhere (some readers may recognize the classic law of the instrument at work), and it’s hammer time all the time for objects that even slightly resemble nails. Pulverizing a lamp’s turn knob, a showerhead, a flower, and all the pieces of a chess game in the park, he joyously declares “Done!” “Much better!” and “Fixed it!” (or “Flggst bit!” when the now-broken shower erupts on his face). Just when he’s ready to whack his own noggin—a wonderful moment of comic suspense—an epiphany arrives: “Maybe I can’t fix everything with a hammer. Because not everything is a nail!” Drawn and hand-lettered in rich black ink and punctuated by washes of bright color, Shannon’s latest has the timeless exuberance and psychological profundity of a great comedy. In short: nailed it. ~Publishers Weekly

HENRY GREENE’S 150TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION
Sunday, January 26, 2020
2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

FREE event, RSVP required

Join us on Sunday, January 26, 2020 from 2:00-4:00 p.m. at the Gamble House as we celebrate Henry Greene’s 150th birthday!

In honor of this sesquicentennial we’ll be joined by two of Henry’s granddaughters, Isabelle Greene and Virginia Hales, who will share personal memories of him. To further mark the occasion we’ll have a selection of rarely seen objects and photos on display from the the Greene & Greene Archives related to Henry’s personal life and remarkable career.

SAH/SCC and Gamble House Co-Sponsored Event

THOMAS ON FURNESS
Lecture and Book Signing by George E. Thomas
Saturday, January 4, 2020
4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.

Tickets: Members: $10 | Non-members: $15
Lecture – 4:00-5:00 p.m., Reception – 5:00-6:00 p.m.

Join the SAH/SCC and the Gamble House for a new take on Philadelphia-based architect Frank Furness (1839-1912) by author George E. Thomas from his book Frank Furness: Architecture in the Age of the Great Machines (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018) on Saturday, January 4th, 2020 at 4PM at the Gamble House (Charles and Henry Greene, 1908).

Misunderstood and reviled in the traditional architectural centers of New York and Boston, Furness’ projects, commissioned by the progressive industrialists of the new machine age, intentionally broke with the historical styles of the past to work in a modern way—from utilizing principles based on logistical planning to incorporating the new materials of the industrial age. Lavishly illustrated, the book includes more than eighty black-and-white and thirty color photographs that highlight the richness of his work and the originality of his design spanning more than forty years.

In his sweeping reassessment of Furness as an architect of the machine age, Thomas grounds him in Philadelphia, a city led by engineers, industrialists, and businessmen who commissioned the buildings that extended modern design to Chicago, Glasgow, and Berlin. Thomas examines the multiple facets of Victorian Philadelphia’s modernity, looking to its eager embrace of innovations in engineering, transportation, technology, and building, and argues that Furness, working for a particular cohort of clients, played a central role in shaping this context. His analyses of the innovative planning, formal, and structural qualities of Furness’s major buildings identifies their designs as initiators of a narrative that leads to such more obviously modern figures as Louis Sullivan, William Price, Frank Lloyd Wright and eventually, the architects of the Bauhaus.

George E. Thomas is a cultural and architectural historian who serves as co-director of the Critical Conservation Program at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. His books include First Modern: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and, with David B. Brownlee, Building America’s First University: An Architectural and Historical Guide to the University of Pennsylvania, both available from the University of Pennsylvania Press; and Frank Furness: The Complete Works with Michael Lewis and Jeffrey Cohen. He is also lead author of the Buildings of Philadelphia volume in the Society of Architectural Historians’ series Buildings of the United States.

Lavishly illustrated, the book includes more than eighty black-and-white and thirty color photographs that highlight the richness of his work and the originality of his design. The monograph received the 2019 Book Award from the Victorian Society in America. Books will be available for sale and signing. Reception to follow lecture.

2019

THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL
Truth to Nature in the Work of Greene & Greene
Saturday, December 14, 2019

Lecture by Ted Bosley
Session 3: Ruskin and California (9:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.)
This lecture is part of the conference “John Ruskin: 19th-Century Visionary, 21st-Century Inspiration” 
at The Huntington
1151 Oxford Road, San Marino, CA 91108, Rothenberg Hall

Tickets: $25

During the nineteenth century, the British art and social critic, John Ruskin, was revered as one of the world’s great sages and as a writer of uncommon eloquence who inspired deep reverence for nature and the arts. In the context of the Industrial Revolution, he advocated the creation of a humane society where the abilities of all would be sought-out, respected, and used. The goal of this conference, held during the bicentenary year of his birth, is to introduce Ruskin to a modern audience and to make the case for his continued relevance in our own troubled time.

---

Special Event
ANNUAL HOLIDAY GATHERING
Sunday, December 8, 2019
5:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
at the Gamble House

Tickets: $40 Members | $50 Non-Members

EAT, DRINK AND BE MERRY! Join us for the annual Gamble House Holiday Gathering presented by Friends of the Gamble House. The Old Fashioned Carolers will joining us again this year to lend holiday cheer. Specially selected menu will feature a variety of savory offerings, mouthwatering desserts and the popular “Aunt Julia” holiday mocktail. 


COME ENJOY THE SEASON WITH FRIENDS OLD AND NEW
______________________________________________

Music: Seasonal music performed by The Old Fashioned Carolers

Menu: Assortment of savory tray passed items, festive holiday buffet, delicious desserts.

Bar: White wine, sparkling water, coffee, the “Aunt Julia,” a special seasonal mocktail (non-alcoholic)

---

MUSEUM STORE SUNDAY
Sunday, December 1, 2019
Bookstore Hours: 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

JOIN US ON DECEMBER 1, 2019 for Museum Store Sunday when museums all over the world will be participating, encouraging folks to support the missions of their local museums by shopping in their stores this holiday season.

This year on Museum Store Sunday we’ll be welcoming authors Elisa Callow (The Urban Forager, Prospect Park Books), and Robert Inman (An Architectural Guidebook to Los Angeles, Angel City Press) for discussions and signings of their books.

The Urban Forager discussion and book signing with author Elisa Callow
10:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.Free event. Books will be available for sale at the Bookstore.

An Architectural Guidebook to Los Angeles discussion and book signing with author Robert Inman
11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.Free event. Books will be available for sale at the Bookstore.

The Gamble House Flower Committee will be leading workshops on ikebana arranging using local artist Constance Saxe’s small ceramic vessels. Once complete, participants will be able to take their arrangement home to enjoy their handiwork.

Ikebana Workshops
1:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m.
Tickets: Members: $45 | Non-members: $50
(Ticket price includes workshop fee and materials)

We’ll also be offering free gift wrapping for anything purchased in the store that day.

Guests who spend over $100 in the bookstore will receive a free Gamble House wine opener (while supplies last).

---

Craftsman Weekend

Gamble House Craftsman Weekend Activities

“THE HEALTH SEEKERS”
Lecture & Tour by the Gamble House Speakers Bureau
Friday, November 1, 2019
9:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
at the Gamble House

Tickets: Pasadena Heritage Members: $25 | Non-members: $30

At the turn of the 20th century, tuberculosis accounted for approximately one in five adult deaths, affecting every part of society. The main treatment available was living and sleeping out of doors. Attracted by its warm climate, clean air and proximity to urban Los Angeles, those seeking relief for respiratory ailments flocked to Pasadena. As a response to the epidemic and the needs of the newly arrived health-seekers, sleeping porches became a desirable feature of many dwellings, including those of architects such as Charles & Henry Greene, Myron Hunt and Frederick Roehrig.

“The Health Seekers” lecture and tour, presented by the Gamble House Speakers Bureau, will provide insights into the impact of these new arrivals on the development and built environment of the Pasadena area. The tour of the House will explore turn of the century ideas about how a residence should contribute to the health and comfort of its inhabitants. This special lecture and tour event allows guests the rare opportunity to visit all of the sleeping porches, which are seldom open to the public.

---

THE INAUGURAL DR. ROBERT WINTER MEMORIAL LECTURE
Saturday, November 2, 2019
5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
at the Pasadena Convention Center, Exhibition Hall C

Lecture – 5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Reception – 6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.

FREE RSVP Required

In honor of the late Dr. Robert Winter, Pasadena Heritage, the Pasadena Center Operating Company, The Blinn House Foundation, The Gamble House and The Pasadena Museum of History will be co-hosting a lecture and reception. Historian Ann Scheid will present the lecture from 5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. A special plaque has been commissioned by the Pasadena Center Operating Company and installed in the historic, main Exhibit Hall C of the Pasadena Convention Center. Please join us for a reception and unveiling of the plaque following the lecture, from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Sponsored by the Los Angeles Breakfast Club

---

Book Signing Event
THE BROWNS OF CALIFORNIA 
Discussion and Book Signing with author Miriam Pawel
Thursday, October 17, 2019, 6:30-8:00 p.m. 
at the Gamble House

The event is free and open to the public however space is limited.
RSVP is required. 

“Miriam Pawel’s fascinating book…illuminates the sea change in the nation’s politics in the last half of the 20th century.”
–New York Times Book Review

Even in the land of reinvention, the story is exceptional: Pat Brown, the beloved father who presided over California during an era of unmatched expansion; Jerry Brown, the cerebral son who became the youngest governor in modern times–and then returned three decades later as the oldest.

In The Browns of California, journalist and scholar Miriam Pawel weaves a narrative history that spans four generations, from August Schuckman, the Prussian immigrant who crossed the Plains in 1852 and settled on a northern California ranch, to his great-grandson Jerry Brown, who reclaimed the family homestead one hundred forty years later. Through the prism of their lives, we gain an essential understanding of California and an appreciation of its importance.

The magisterial story is enhanced by dozens of striking photos, many published for the first time. This book gives new insights to those steeped in California history, offers a corrective for those who confuse stereotypes and legend for fact, and opens new vistas for readers familiar with only the sketchiest outlines of a place habitually viewed from afar with a mix of envy and awe, disdain, and fascination.

Author Bio: Miriam Pawel is an author, journalist and independent scholar who has spent most of the last decade writing about California farmworkers, agriculture, Cesar Chavez, and the United Farm Workers union. Her latest book, “The Crusades of Cesar Chavez,” has been hailed in starred reviews as the first and definitive biography of this iconic leader. The biography picks up from where her first book left off; “The Union of Their Dreams” is the story of the heady and life-changing days of the farm worker movement, told through the eyes of eight key participants. Pawel worked for 25 years as a reporter and editor. Her recent work was supported by a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. To learn more, visit http://miriampawel.com, which features the new blog, “Field Notes,” and links to multi-media websites for “The Crusades of Cesar Chavez” and “The Union of Their Dreams.”

---

ARTNIGHT PASADENA
Friday, October 11, 2019
6:00-10:00pm at the Gamble House
Free citywide public event

A rare opportunity to see the house at night! The upstairs sleeping porch comes to life with artists’ projections reflecting the house’s intriguing history.

Visit the ArtNight website for details: artnightpasadena.org

Enjoy a free evening of art, music and entertainment as Pasadena’s most prominent arts and cultural institutions swing open their doors. Last fall, more than 16,000 people experienced the excitement of ArtNight.

ABOUT ARTNIGHT: ArtNight is an ongoing partnership among many cultural institutions and the Cultural Affairs Division of the City of Pasadena. The event is sponsored by the Pasadena Arts & Culture Commission with support from the following: Pasadena Department of Transportation Transit Division; Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority; and Pasadena Center Operating Company.

---

Concert Event
WOMAN OF THE YEAR TOUR featuring Maki Mae
Sunday, October 6, 2019, 5:00 p.m.-7:30 p.m.

SCHEDULE FOR THE EVENING:
Red carpet artist meet & greet reception 5:00pm-6:00pm
Concert-part one 6:00pm-6:40pm
Coffee & dessert intermission 6:40pm-7:00pm
Concert-part two 7:00pm-7:30pm

The Gamble House invites you to join us for a concert with soprano and genre-defying violinist Maki Mae. The sophisticated 13-language vocalist is sought after for her exquisite cuperto (high pianissimo that floats on a sustained breath) and her 3-octave range that reaches the highest note in the repertoire including Mozart’s Queen of the Night.

As the California State Senate 2019 Woman of the Year, Maki Mae is taking her world-class artistry on tour featuring intimate venues for exclusive guests. Award-winning ensembles, embroidered gowns by Russia’s Natasha Designs, and custom headpieces by Brazil’s Arturo Rios are part of the immersive experience.

The Gamble House is pleased to host the Pasadena concert of her 2019-20 Tour featuring award-winning Trio.626 with cello and piano.

Artist Bio: Described as “the most tremendous talent of our time,” soprano and classically-trained violinist Maki Mae has performed for Queen Paolo of Belgium, Clint Eastwood, Jack Lemmon, and many other dignitaries. She appeared in a Cannes Film Festival film and performed in the Special Olympics World Games, NBC’s America’s Got Talent, and other televised events. Born mostly deaf, Maki’s advocacy of equity, inclusion, and access to arts excellence are cornerstones of her philanthropic work today.

Maki debuted at age 14 performing for Taiwan’s First Lady at the Taiwan National Recital Hall, and was discovered by Berl Senofsky at Peabody Conservatory for her trifecta of violin, piano, and voice. Her coloratura soprano voice has been described as a silver pure-tone with exceptional control over dark shadings and an exquisitely high floating cuperto pianissimo. She has performed live in Italian, German, French, Czech, Latin, English, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Tagalog, and Hebrew. Her variety of roles include Mozart’s Queen of the Night but she is most sought after for her prize-winning interpretations of art song repertoire, notably the works of Bellini, Strauss, and Duparc.

---

AN EXCLUSIVE TOUR OF THE DUNCAN-IRWIN HOUSE, CHARLES AND HENRY GREENE’S MASTERPIECE ON THE EDGE OF PASADENA’S SCENIC ARROYO SECO

Sales Event
GAMBLE HOUSE BOOKSTORE TENT SALE
Friday, September 6 thru Sunday, September 8, 2019
10:00am-4:00pm

Join us for the Gamble House Bookstore Tent Sale featuring many rare and out of print publications from the Greene and Greene Archives. Additional bookstore stock including items by local artists and arts and crafts favorites will be on sale.

Receive up to 70% off marked sale merchandise! Friends of the Gamble House members receive an additional 10% off marked sales merchandise-valid active membership required.

Lecture Event
A NEW AND NATURAL BEAUTY:
John Ruskin and The Birth of The Arts and Crafts Movement
Lecture by James Spates, Ph.D.
Wednesday, September 4, 2019, 6:30-7:30 p.m. 
at the Neighborhood Church (Ross Chapel)

The event is free and open to the public.

The year 2019 marks the bicentennial of the birth of John Ruskin, the 19th century British art and social critic whose writings and lectures were fundamental to the development of the Arts and Crafts movement. In honor of this anniversary, James L. Spates, PhD, will lecture on the role that Ruskin’s writings played in laying the groundwork for so many figures who followed him in the movement. Professor Spates, a Professor of Sociology Emeritus of Hobart and William Smith Colleges, is a noted authority on the work of John Ruskin.

The lecture is hosted by the Ruskin Art Club of Los Angeles and the Friends of the Gamble House, Sidney D. Gamble Lecture Series and will be held in the chapel of the Neighborhood Church, followed by a reception at The Gamble House next door.

Speaker bio: Jim Spates is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York. He has been studying the legacy of John Ruskin for the last quarter century, authoring, over that time, a number of books and numerous articles on Ruskin’s life and works, as well as lecturing widely on both subjects in England and North America. Currently, he is working on clarifying Ruskin’s contribution to the origin of The Arts and Crafts Movement, on a modern rendering of Ruskin’s classic work on social and economic life, Unto this Last, and maintains as well a website–www.whyruskin.online—which is devoted to making Ruskin’s continuing importance to the troubled world in which we live known.

Free Members Only Event
MOVIE NIGHT + PICNIC ON THE LAWN + PIE CONTEST
Saturday, August 17, 2019, 6:00-10:00pm
on the Gamble House lawn
Movie starts at dusk, approx. 7:45pm

Join us for our annual movie night! Our movie this year is MILDRED PIERCE (1945) starring Joan Crawford and Jack Carson.

Bring a blanket, dinner, bottle of wine and share in the pre-movie fun which this year, in keeping with our movie theme, includes a PIE CONTEST. Home cooks will be competing for the best pie of the evening. After the winner is announced, guests may purchase a slice of any of the pies for $2.

As always, we’ll also provide the popcorn and candy and hold a movie themed raffle before the feature begins!

Members are welcome to bring guests. All pie sales and raffle proceeds go towards the Scholars-in-Residence Fund.

Museums of the Arroyo (MOTA) Day Celebrates 30 Years
Sunday, May 19, 2019 | 12:00pm – 4:00pm

Ticketing: FREE public event. No tickets or reservations required.

Visit: The Gamble House • Heritage Square • Los Angeles Police Museum • Lummis Home and Garden • Pasadena Museum of History • The Autry’s Southwest Museum Mt. Washington Campus

Explore great architecture, historical discoveries, family fun and entertainment at six local museums all for free at Museums of the Arroyo (MOTA) Day on May 19, 2019.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of Museums of the Arroyo Day – a community event that annually brings together thousands of Angelenos from across Southern California to experience the rich history, iconic architecture and arts-driven neighborhoods of the Arroyo Seco area. www.MuseumsOfTheArroyo.com

Mother’s Day Tours
Presented by Friends of the Gamble House
Sunday, May 12 | 11:00 a.m. – 3:40 p.m.

Tickets: $10 Members | $25 Non-members

Friends of the Gamble House invites you to celebrate mom and all the special women in your life with a docent-led one hour tour of the Gamble House.

Tour Times: 11:00am, 11:20am, 11:40am, 12:00pm, 12:20pm, 12:40pm, 1:00pm, 1:20pm, 1:40pm, 2:00pm, 2:20pm, 2:40pm, 3:00pm, 3:20pm, 3:40pm
 
After your tour guests may enjoy a complimentary** coffee or tea beverage and sweet treat in this lovely historic setting, surrounded by live music and exploring the lovely garden.


Commemorate the day with a special gift from the Gamble House bookstore, ticketed Mother’s Day guest will receive a 10% discount on all purchases the day of their tour. 


Parking: Free parking available on Westmoreland Place, directly in front of the Gamble House. Additional parking available on Orange Grove Blvd. and Walnut St. As a courtesy to our neighbors, please do not park in the Neighborhood Church parking or the Arroyo Terrace residential area. 


**One complimentary coffee or tea beverage and one sweet treat per ticketed guest. 

Co-Sponsored event with Royal Oaks Foundation
A Woman of No Importance: The Spy Who Helped Win WWII
Monday, April 15, 2019
7:15pm at the Beverly Hills Women’s Club

Tickets (includes lecture and dinner): $85 Members | $95 Non-members

In 1942, the Gestapo sent out an urgent command: “She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and destroy her.” This spy was Virginia Hall, a young socialite from Baltimore, who, after being rejected from the Foreign Service because of her gender and prosthetic leg, talked her way into the SOE, the WWII British spy organization dubbed Churchill’s “ministry of ungentlemanly warfare.” Hall, known as the “Madonna of the Resistance,” was one of the greatest spies in American and English history, yet her full story remains untold.

At a time when sending female secret agents into enemy territory was still strictly forbidden, Hall coordinated a network of spies to report on German troop movements, arranged equipment parachute drops for Resistance fighters, and recruited and trained guerrilla units to ambush enemy convoys and blow up bridges and railroads. Even as her face covered WANTED posters throughout Europe, she refused orders to evacuate. She finally escaped in a death-defying climb over of the Pyrenees into Spain, her cover blown, and her associates imprisoned or executed. But, she plunged back into the field with the American OSS secret service, directing partisan armies to back up the Allied forces landing at Normandy.

King George VI awarded her the OBE in 1943 and she received the Distinguished Service Cross from the US in 1946, the only American woman to receive this honor. Sonia Purnell will reveal the captivating story of a formidable, yet shockingly overlooked, heroine whose fierce persistence helped win a world war.

Thank you to our co-sponsors: Beverly Hills Women’s Club; The Gamble House

Co-Sponsored event with Royal Oaks Foundation
Ciphers, Secrets, and Spies in the Elizabethan Age
Monday, March 18, 2019
12:45pm at the Beverly Hills Women’s Club
Lecture proceeded by reception at 11:00am and lunch at 12:00pm

Tickets (includes lecture and lunch): $75 Members | $85 Non-members

The Elizabethan era (1558-1603) is often depicted as the “Golden Age” in England’s history—an era of great exploration and military victories in which Queen Elizabeth I is represented in sumptuous clothing and jewels. But the reality, which included religious conflicts that tore families apart; political challenges to Elizabeth’s authority; high levels of poverty and crime; and vulnerability to foreign invasion, was far grimmer.

The Queen was considered a Protestant heretic by the rulers of Europe and numerous plots were hatched to dethrone her and replace her with Catholic Mary Queen of Scots. Elizabeth’s closest courtiers tried to protect her. William Cecil (later Lord Burghley) was the first to oversee the gathering of intelligence and was aided by Francis Walsingham, another of Elizabeth’s most loyal ministers known as the “Spymaster.” Walsingham’s network of clandestine agents moved throughout England and Europe using their contacts and skills in navigating court politics to safeguard their Queen.

They unearthed a series of threats, including one led by an invasion of priests who had been trained abroad and were sent to prepare England for a Catholic rebellion. The priests scattered throughout the country and were hidden in “priest-holes” by Catholic families in places such as Baddesley Clinton and Coughton Court in Warwickshire. Other houses involved in this period of intrigue include Oxburgh Hall in Norfolk, and Scotney Castle in Kent—all National Trust houses.

Carol Ann Lloyd will describe this tumultuous time with its secret plots, intercepted and decoded messages, and assassination attempts. She will explore dark corners of Elizabethan English history and reveal how the ability to control information became the most potent tool of the realm.

Thank you to our co-sponsors: Beverly Hills Women’s Club; Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, Southern California Chapter; The Gamble House

ARTNIGHT PASADENA
Friday, March 8, 2019
6:00-10:00pm at the Gamble House
Free citywide public event

Join us for a rare opportunity to see the house by night! Enjoy the 1908 electrical light fixtures and the mysterious electronic music of the Theremin, invented in 1928.

Ed Sussman – artist, technician, and theremin musician – who will present the history of this remarkable instrument that was invented over 100 years ago. You very well might have heard the music in science fiction movie sound tracks, but now experience it live!

This unique instrument is played without touching it. See how it works and then try it yourself. Ed will invite select guests who are interested to see if they can play to have fun trying to do what seems impossible.

Watch Ed perform: https://youtu.be/GcUgOEImP1o

Visit the ArtNight website for details: artnightpasadena.org

Enjoy a free evening of art, music and entertainment as Pasadena’s most prominent arts and cultural institutions swing open their doors. Last fall, more than 16,000 people experienced the excitement of ArtNight.

ABOUT ARTNIGHT: ArtNight is an ongoing partnership among many cultural institutions and the Cultural Affairs Division of the City of Pasadena. The event is sponsored by the Pasadena Arts & Culture Commission with support from the following: Pasadena Department of Transportation Transit Division; Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority; and Pasadena Center Operating Company.

GAMBLE HOUSE HOLIDAY GATHERING
Sunday, December 9, 2018
5:00-8:00pm at the Gamble House

EAT, DRINK AND BE MERRY! Join us for the annual Gamble House Holiday Gathering presented by Friends of the Gamble House. This year’s event will prove to be magical with seasonal music performed by the Old Fashioned Carolers. Specially selected menu will feature a variety of savory offerings and mouthwatering desserts. COME ENJOY THE SEASON WITH FRIENDS OLD AND NEW.

OPENING RECEPTION OF ROOTED: CRAFT ORIGINS FROM THE CALIFORNIA EPISODE
December 8, 2018 | 
4-6pm

4pm: Ted Bosley Talk

5pm: Opening Reception

at the Craft in America Center
8415 West Third Street, Los Angeles, CA 90048

In conjunction with the opening of the exhibition, Director of The Gamble House since 1992 Ted Bosley will be giving a talk entitled “Brothers in Design and Craft: the Legacy of Greene & Greene.”

Just after the turn of the last century, Charles Sumner Greene and Henry Mather Greene created a body of work in California that caught the notice of the world. Their most characteristic houses, built in Pasadena between 1903 and 1914, stand as tributes to architecture as a fine art. Their reputations rest not only on the design sensibilities they cultivated as formally trained architects, but also on the surpassing skill of the builders and makers they were privileged to work with to create not houses and gardens, as well as furniture, light fixtures, rugs, stained glass, metal work and more. This presentation will explore the rare blend of training, skills and circumstances that made possible the internationally recognized legacy of architects Greene & Greene.

An exhibition tracing the deep roots of craft in California’s history and the roles of native plant life as inspiration for various art traditions. From Pomo basketry to the Arts and Crafts movement and contemporary art, craft defines California culture.

Special Exhibition
SHIGUCHI: THE HIDDEN ART OF JAPANESE JOINERY
On view until December 2nd!
at the Gamble House

“Shiguchi: The Hidden Art of Japanese Joinery” reinterprets the connecting elements of historic Japanese timber-frame construction as a compelling expression of contemporary art. Originally crafted by anonymous builders for traditional Japanese farm houses, shiguchi joinery, by its nature, remained hidden from view for hundreds of years while it locked into place the massive structural timbers of humble farm dwellings. A new exhibit organized by The Gamble House brings the work of architect, historian and preservationist Yoshihiro Takishita to Pasadena to showcase the intricate craft of the ancient joiner’s art, known as shiguchi,

Visit the Shiguchi Exhibition page for details.

SHIGUCHI HAPPY HOUR
Friday, November 2, 9, 16, 30 | 4:00pm-6:00pm
at the Gamble House

Join us for SHIGUCHI HAPPY HOUR. Join us Friday evenings in November to enjoy the exhibition gallery-style at your leisure. Two Shiguchi related documentaries Minka (10 mins., Yoshihiro Takishita) and Minka: A Japanese Farmhouse (15 mins., Birdling Films) will be shown on rotation during the evening. Guests are invited to present their ticket at the reception area on the rear terrace for a complimentary glass of wine or sparkling water. The Gamble House bookstore will also be open late!

1-HOUR DOCENT GUIDED TOUR OF “SHIGUCHI: THE HIDDEN ART OF JAPANESE JOINERY” 
Saturday, November 3, 10, 17 and December 1 | 3:00pm-4:00pm
at the Gamble House

Join us for a docent-led tour of the exhibition “Shiguchi: The Hidden Art of Japanese Joinery”. During this specialized 1hr tour guests will learn about Shiguchi, Minka and the natural connects between Japanese joinery and the Gamble House.

MUSEUM STORE SUNDAY 
Sunday, November 25 | 10:00am-5:00pm
at the Gamble House

Find unique gifts and support the mission of The Gamble House by pledging to “be a patron.” Shop Museum Store Sunday to take advantage of our “25 on the 25th” promotions:

• How about a year of friendship? Become a Friend of the Gamble House member for only $25 for an individual level membership.
• FoGH members receive 25% off their entire purchase, this day only.
• For every $25 spent, receive a raffle entry for one of our fabulous prize packages

SAKE TASTING
Sunday, November 4, 2018 | 5:00 pm-7:00 pm
at the Gamble House

Sake, or rice wine, was first consumed in Japan over 2,000 years ago, centuries before the introduction of tea to the islands. The drink was first used in religious rituals to honor the gods, but gradually it came to play a more important role in the secular lives of the Japanese and, for centuries it has been enjoyed, both hot and cold, by all levels of Japanese society.

Meher McArthur, specialist in the art and culture of East Asia, will present a brief slide lecture discussing the cultural history of sake, the various art forms that have evolved around the drink, its production methods and the correct ways to drink it. She will conclude by leading a sampling of several different kinds of sake, and will explain the major types of sake available in the US – and how to enjoy them. 

Craft in America: CALIFORNIA 
Screening and Panel Discussion
Thursday, November 1, 2018 at 7:30pm(check-in begins at 7:00pm)
Location: The Huntington, Rothenberg Hall | 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino, CA 91108

Join us for a preview screening of Craft in America: CALIFORNIA, a soon to be aired episode of the Peabody Award-winning PBS documentary series which explores America’s creative spirit through the language and traditions of the handmade. The episode will be followed by a panel discussion and brief Q &A.

In tracing the Arts and Crafts movement, the unmistakable genius of Greene & Greene is exemplified at the Gamble House. Cabinet makers Jim and Jack Ipkejian carry on the highest standards of this golden age of craftsmanship and generations of artists at Judson Studios create new techniques in the ancient craft of stained glass.

Other artists in the episode include master Pomo basket weaver Corine Pearce in Northern California, Bay Area textile artist Deborah Cross and the colorful explosion of wearable art, and Randy Stromsoe carrying on metalsmith techniques by Porter Blanchard on the beautiful Central Coast of the state.
__________

The panel will be moderated by Craft in America founder Carol Sauvion. Panel includes Gamble House Director, Ted Bosley, architect, Kelly Sutherlin-McLeod, FAIA and Gamble family member, Margo Winslow.

Houdini demonstrating fake ectoplasm

BEYOND THE VEIL
Sunday, October 28, 2018 | Seatings at 5:00pm, 6:30pm, 8:00pm
at the Gamble House

Don’t miss this rare experience as Magicians Mike Caveney and Rob Zabrecky lead guests on a supernatural journey to reach beyond the veil. Mike will present a brief history of Spiritualism that includes demonstrations of magical effects that are guaranteed to send a chill down your spine. After a brief intermission, the group will join Rob in a séance as he attempts to contact the spirit of Harry Houdini.

If Halloween feels like a particularly magical time of year, there is a good reason for it. The famous magician Harry Houdini died on Halloween in 1926. He spent the last years of his career attempting to find a legitimate spirit medium who could contact his beloved mother. Before Houdini’s death he promised his wife Bess that if there was any way to make contact from the other side, he would do it. Bess conducted a séance every Halloween for 10 years with the final séance taking place on the roof of the Knickerbocker Hotel in Hollywood. No sign was ever received from Houdini.

Another attempt will take place at the Gamble House on October 28th and we certainly have an experienced welcoming committee to preside over the festivities.
__________________________________


Mike Caveney is a professional magician, a life-member of Hollywood’s Magic Castle and a member of the Inner Magic Circle in London. He is the curator of Egyptian Hall Museum (the oldest private magic museum in America) and has written a dozen books on history and practice of magic.

There’s simply no other magician like Rob Zabrecky. Through a wide range of artistic work that spans acting, magic, and music, Rob Zabrecky has established himself globally as an original entertainer. In live performances, he invents a magical world through a series of strange and beautiful effects which he combines with remarkable timing and sensational theatrical edifice. Recognized for his efforts, he has received five awards by the Academy of Magical Arts at the Magic Castle.

ARTNIGHT PASADENA
Friday, October 12, 2018 • 6:00pm-10:00pm
• Performing at the Gamble House: Shamisen musician Mike Penny & The Haiku Guys + Gals
• Bookstore Raffle: Stop by the Gamble House Bookstore and enter to win a Ruby Wisteria Vase (retail value of $410) by Carl Radke. See terms of raffle below.

Visit the ArtNight website for details: artnightpasadena.org

Enjoy a free evening of art, music and entertainment as Pasadena’s most prominent arts and cultural institutions swing open their doors. Last spring, more than 23,000 people experienced the excitement of ArtNight.

ABOUT MIKE PENNY: Mike Penny has received numerous awards for his innovative compositions and performances using the Tsugaru Shamisen. He received the Japan Foundation’s Uchida Fellowship, which allowed him to study this instrument with Tokyo’s highly respected Tsugaru shamisen sensei Fukushi Toyoaki. Penny has given hundreds of public performances and continues to perform regularly as a solo artist and in various groups including the Taiko Center of Los Angeles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJFvMV2jHgY

ABOUT HAIKU GUYS + GALS: Free custom poems. Participants sit down with one of the poets to receive their haiku—the poet asks what they’d like the poem to be about, and then follows up with a few questions before setting off, concocting the poem on the spot, typed on a vintage typewriter on seeded paper. The poem can either be kept or planted in soil; the biodegradable paper disintegrates and allows seeds to sprout. (City-funded MiniGrant) https://www.thehaikuguys.com/

BOOKSTORE RAFFLE: Stop by the Gamble House Bookstore to enter to win a Ruby Wisteria Vase (retail value of $410) by Carl Radke (pictured to the right). No purchase necessary. One entry per person. Winner will be announced at a later date; need not be present to win. 

ABOUT ARTNIGHT: ArtNight is an ongoing partnership among many cultural institutions and the Cultural Affairs Division of the City of Pasadena. The event is sponsored by the Pasadena Arts & Culture Commission with support from the following: Pasadena Department of Transportation Transit Division; Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority; and Pasadena Center Operating Company.

Members Only Event
MOVIE NIGHT AND SCHOLARS-IN-RESIDENCE MEET & GREET
Saturday, August 11, 2018 • 6:00pm-10:00pm
Movie starts at dusk, approx. 7:45pm (Please, no arrival prior to 6:00pm)
on the Gamble House lawn

Join us for our annual movie night and help us welcome our new Gamble House scholars-in-residence. so bring a blanket, dinner, and bottle of wine and share in the pre-movie fun.

Our movie this year is GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES
Starring: Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell  |  Director: Howard Hawks  |  Released: 1953

About the Movie: Based on the 1949 Broadway musical of the same name, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes follows the antics of showgirls Lorelei Lee (Marilyn Monroe) and Dorothy Shaw (Jane Russell) as they travel to Paris, pursued by a private detective hired by the suspicious father of Lorelei’s fiancé, as well as a rich, enamored old man and many other doting admirers. While Russell’s down-to-earth, sharp wit has been noted by most critics, it is Monroe’s turn as the gold-digging Lorelei Lee for which the film is often remembered. Monroe’s rendition of the song “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” and her pink dress are considered iconic, and the performance has famously inspired homages by Madonna, Christina Aguilera and many more.

Connection to the Gamble House: Frank and Helen Hawks commissioned their house from the Greenes in 1906, their family of seven included their eldest son, Howard, who became a noted Hollywood director, producer and screenwriter of such classics as To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, His Girl Friday and many more.

Members Only Event
FRIENDS OF THE GAMBLE HOUSE 2018 ANNUAL MEETING
Saturday, June 16, 2018 • 3:00-5:30pm
at the Freemen A. Ford House

Join us for this rare opportunity to tour the Freeman A. Ford House, a Greene & Greene masterpiece with breathtaking views of the Arroyo. The afternoon will include self-paced tours (3:00pm-4:15pm), the meeting program (4:30pm-5:00pm) and a garden reception.

ABOUT THE HOUSE:  Freeman A. Ford, vice-president of the Pasadena Ice Company, commissioned their Greene & Greene house in 1906. Plans called for a courtyard house with a stucco finish and a unique, upper-level sleeping porch. Although the final house differed slightly from the original plan, it was ultimately built with its elegant courtyard, designed for privacy and finished with tile pavers, brick steps, and a pebble-dash fountain. The remarkable entrance door has a wood frame in the form of a stylized, human-figure surrounding art-glass peacock feathers in blue, green and cream. The interior massing of the rooms, the Greene & Greene details, fixtures, and ornaments only enhance the spectacular views of the ravine and hills. The house, completed in 1908, is lovingly cared for to this day.

MUSEUMS OF THE ARROYO DAY
Sunday, May 20, 2018 • 12:00-4:00pm

FREE day at six museums along the Arroyo:
The Gamble House  |  Heritage Square  |  L.A. Police Museum  |  Lummis Home
Pasadena Museum of History  |  The Autry’s Historic Southwest Museum

2018 Museums of the Arroyo Day (MOTA) Gamble House activities:
• Visitors can take a self-guided tour of the 1908 Arts & Crafts gem that is on the National Register of Historic Places.
• Go Back to the Future for MOTA! Check out a BTTF style DeLorean “Time Machine” and visit with Doc Brown.
• Visit the Gamble House Bookstore (aka Doc Brown’s lab) and browse a selection of BTTF themed merchandise. 
• Visit the refreshment table on the rear lawn for lemonade and cookies.
• Kids and adults can play lawn games and explore the crafts table.

Greene & Greene Home Tour:
AT HOME IN LITTLE SWITZERLAND
Sunday, April 22, 2018
3:00-7:00pm in the Arroyo Terrace neighborhood

A progressive tour of three privately owned Greene & Greene homes–all once at risk–to hear the surprising stories of their preservation. These houses (Mary Ranney, 1907; Van Rossem-Neil, 1903-06; Mary Cole, 1906-07) are rarely open to the public. It’s an opportunity not to be missed! Guests will visit each interior in small groups to tour and participate in discussions of history and survival. The afternoon will end at a fourth Greene & Greene home (James Culbertson, 1902) for a garden reception.

The Arroyo Terrace neighborhood is a National Register Historic District, located just south of the Gamble House. The Pasadena enclave was often called “Little Switzerland” by early 20th century writers for its chalet-style wooden homes with gabled roofs, dark shingles, window boxes, and mountain views.

GAMBLE HOUSE HOLIDAY GATHERING
Sunday, December 10, 2017
5:00-8:00pm at the Gamble House

EAT, DRINK AND BE MERRY! Join us for the annual Gamble House Holiday Gathering presented by Friends of the Gamble House. This year’s event will prove to be magical with seasonal music performed by the USC Chamber Singers. Specially selected menu will feature old favorites such as lobster bisque, a variety of savory offerings and mouthwatering desserts. COME ENJOY THE SEASON WITH FRIENDS OLD AND NEW.

Music: Seasonal music performed by USC Chamber Singers
Menu: Lobster Bisque, assortment of savory tray passed items, delicious desserts.
Bar: White wine, sparkling water, coffee, “The Aunt Julia,” a special seasonal mocktail (non-alcoholic)

LIVING THE CONSUMPTIVE’S LIFE IN EARLY PASADENA
Lecture by Robert G. Frank Jr.
Thursday, November 30, 2017
7:00pm at the Gamble House

In the 1880s Pasadena grew rapidly beyond its agricultural origins for one reason: the climate. Easterners brought wealth, and they sought health. Most of all, they wanted to prevent, ameliorate, or even cure “consumption”–the contemporary name for pulmonary tuberculosis. What was this chronic, but non-threatening, illness, as perceived by the pioneer generation? How, and why, did they think Pasadena could help? Was Pasadena really a “sanitarium”? What was it like to live as a consumptive in a city that aggressively promoted its healthful qualities? How did these health migrants create a unique city? And how did they, and their community, react when the medical view of tuberculosis changed rapidly by the late 1890s to classify them as carriers of a dangerous infectious disease?

Speaker Bio: Robert Frank is Professor of Medical History and History at UCLA, where he is based in the School of Medicine. Since 1972 he has taught the history of medicine, and the history of the neurosciences, as well as clinical neurosciences for medical students. His research interests range from the 17th to the 20th century, in which he has written over 40 books, articles and reviews, including an award-winning book in 1981. Most recently he has focused on the history of disease: plague, yellow fever, smallpox, and tuberculosis, including a new introduction, “Tuberculosis and Medicine in the Era of Health Seekers,” for the Huntington Library Press’s republishing of John Baur’s classic, The Health Seekers of Southern California, 1870-1900 (2010).

Members Only Event
THE STUDY OF THE ENGLISH COUNTRY HOUSE
Presentation by Ted Bosley
Saturday, November 18, 2017
5:00pm at the Gamble House

Three weeks of the Attingham Summer School for the Study of the English Country House and Ted Bosley thinks he might have something to say about the experience. Let’s hear it! Join us at the Gamble House on Saturday, November 18 at 5:00 pm for vicarious visits to ancient castles, stately manor houses, a genuine palace, and every manner of historic site in between! You’ll hear how they do house museums English-style, and have a chance to ask Ted what, if anything we all might learn from each other when it comes to sustaining important heritage sites into the future.


—————————-


The Attingham Trust offers a special insight into one of Britain’s greatest contributions to Western art: the country house, together with its collections and landscape setting, as well as the development of the royal palace in England.

Founded in 1952 as The Attingham Summer School Trust and named after the great neoclassical house in Shropshire at which the Summer School was first held, The Attingham Trust has built and sustained an international reputation for academic excellence. 

GAMBLE HOUSE IKEBANA EXHIBITION
Talk, Book Signing and Sales Event
Friday, November 3, 2017
4:00pm at the Gamble House

Pasadena author Naomi Hirahara will be joining us for a special presentation on the Los Angeles Flower Market and the history of flower growing in Southern California. The presentation will be followed by a brief Q&A and a book signing. Ms. Hirahara’s books “A Scent of Flowers” and “Blood Hina” (part of the Mas Aria mystery series) will be available for purchase at the event. We will also be hosting a special Haori (kimono jackets) sale, many of them made prior to WWII. Also available this evening will be books relating to Ikebana and a selection of new Ikebana vessels made by local ceramic artist Constance Saxe.

GAMBLE HOUSE IKEBANA EXHIBITION
Tours and Demonstrations at the Gamble House
Saturday, November 4, 2017 – 11:00am tour | 12:10pm demo
Sunday, November 5, 2017 – 1:00pm tour | 2:10pm demo

Tour and demo: $10 FoGH Members | $25 Non-Members 

Demo only: $10

Join us for the Gamble House Ikebana Exhibition presented by the Gamble House Flower Committee. Ikebana instructor Yumiko Kikkawa and Gamble House docents will lead guests on a 1hr tour of the Gamble House with emphasis on the natural connection between the aesthetics of Charles and Henry Greene and the natural beauty and artistry of Ikebana. Tours will be followed by Ikebana floral arranging demonstrations.

Click here for more info.

THE BUTCHERING ART
Lecture by Lindsey Fitzharris
Saturday, October 21, 2017
7:00pm at the Gamble House

Lindsey Fitzharris reveals the shocking world of nineteenth-century surgery and shows how it was transformed by advances made in germ theory and antiseptics between 1860 and 1875. She conjures up early operating theaters—no place for the squeamish—and surgeons, working before anesthesia, who were lauded for their speed and brute strength. These pioneers knew that the aftermath of surgery was often more dangerous than patients’ afflictions, and they were baffled by the persistent infections that kept mortality rates stubbornly high. At a time when surgery couldn’t have been more hazardous, an unlikely figure stepped forward: a young, melancholy Quaker surgeon named Joseph Lister, who would solve the riddle and change the course of history.

Fitzharris  introduces us to Lister’s contemporaries—some of them brilliant, some outright criminal—and leads us through the grimy schools and squalid hospitals where they learned their art, the dead houses where they studied, and the cemeteries they ransacked for cadavers.

Speaker Bio: LINDSEY FITZHARRIS has a PhD in the History of Science and Medicine from the University of Oxford. She is the creator of the popular website The Chirurgeon’s Apprentice, and writer and presenter of the YouTube series Under the Knife. She writes for The Guardian, The Huffington Post, The Lancet, and New Scientist.​ ​The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine will be published by Scientific American / FSG in October of 2017.

THE ARCHITECTURE OF HEALTH: AN ARCHITECTURAL RESPONSE TO AN EPIDEMIC
Lecture by Ann Scheid
Thursday, September 28, 2017
7:00pm at the Gamble House

In this lecture historian Ann Scheid will discuss how sleeping porches became a desirable feature of many dwellings and how architects such as Charles & Henry Greene, Myron Hunt, Gordon Kaufmann and Frederick Roehrig responded to the tuberculosis epidemic in a city where the climate drew many health-seekers.

At the turn of the 20th century tuberculosis accounted for approximately one in five adult deaths, affecting every part of society. The main treatment available, was living and sleeping out of doors. It was believed that a strong constitution, developed by a vigorous outdoor life, was the best way to cure and prevent tuberculosis. Patients visited sanitariums where they slept on “cure porches” and were encouraged to exercise vigorously. Schools and other institutions were also redesigned to foster the outdoor life.

Speaker Bios: ANN SCHEID is a member of the Gamble House staff and heads the Greene & Greene Archives at the Huntington Library. An author and historian she has published several books on Pasadena history as well as scholarly articles and essays on the history of architecture, planning, and landscape in Southern California. Ann worked as a preservation planner for the City of Pasadena and as an architectural historian in environmental planning for the State of California. She is a graduate of Vassar College, the University of Chicago, and Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, and the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship.

THE GAMBLE HOUSE BOOKSTORE TENT SALE
Friday, September 15-Sunday, September 17, 2017
10:00am-4:00pm

Join us for the first annual bookstore tent sale featuring many rare and out of print publications from the Greene and Greene Archives. Additional bookstore stock including items by local artists and arts and crafts favorites will be on sale.

Receive additional savings on marked sale merchandise: 30% off general public, 40% Friends of the Gamble House members with coupon*

FRIENDS OF THE GAMBLE HOUSE MOVIE NIGHT
Saturday, August 12, 2017
Movie begins at dusk

In honor of our Upstairs/Downstairs tour this year, our movie is GOSFORD PARK. Enjoy a picnic on the Gamble House lawn and settle in to watch Robert Altman’s 2001 British mystery written by Julian Fellowes of Downton Abbey fame.

FRIENDS OF THE GAMBLE HOUSE ANNUAL MEETING
Sunday, June 11, 2017
12:30pm to 3:00pm
Tours, buffet lunch and speaker presentation

Tours of the Rev. A Moss Merwin House (1904) and Robert Pitcairn, Jr. House (1906)
Friends of the Gamble House annual meeting program
Presentation by Kelly Sutherlin McLeod, FAIA and Michael Krakower, FASCE

MUSEUMS OF THE ARROYO (MOTA) DAY
Sunday, May 21, 2017
12:00noon to 5:00pm – Last Entry at 4:00pm

IT’S FUN, FREE AND ONLY ONE DAY A YEAR!
Celebrating a diverse mix of art, architecture and history of the Arroyo Seco area, MOTA Day features six unique history-based museums that preserve and perpetuate early Los Angeles life. The public can visit one or all of the museums during the day at no charge.

MOTA museum members include The Autry’s Historic Southwest Museum Mt. Washington Campus, the Gamble House, Heritage Square Museum, the Los Angeles Police Museum, the Lummis Home and Garden and the Pasadena Museum of History. In addition to its ongoing regular displays and exhibits, each museum will feature a distinctive slice of Southern California history.

FRIENDS OF THE GAMBLE HOUSE
MOTHER’S DAY TOUR & TEA
Sunday, May 14, 2017

Tour and Tea Times
1st tour and tea seating:
Choice of 11:45am or 12:00pm tour time. Tea seating begins at 1:00pm
2nd tour and tea seating:
Choice of 1:45pm or 2:00pm tour time. Tea seating begins at 3:00pm

Friends of the Gamble House invites you to celebrate mom and all the special women in your life with an afternoon tour and tea event at the Gamble House.

This special afternoon begins with a docent-led tour of the Gamble House, followed by a tea buffet with a selection of delightful sandwiches, scones, tarts and a variety of fine teas. Join us for this unique opportunity to enjoy the day in this lovely historic setting, enjoying delicious food, surrounded by live music and exploring the newly restored garden.

“HOUSE MUSIC” CONCERT SERIES
Presented by Friends of the Gamble House
in collaboration with USC Thornton School of Music

Friends of the Gamble House invites you to a four part music series in collaboration with the Thornton School of Music. The Gamble House living room will be reimagined as an intimate music venue for a series of performances in classical, jazz, vocal and period (1908) music. Evenings begin with a pre-performance reception on the terrace at 6:30pm.

Proceeds from these special performances go towards the restoration and ongoing maintenance of the Gamble House Baldwin piano. [The interior works of the instrument for the Gamble family while the exterior cabinet was designed by the Greenes and built by the Hall Brothers.]

Visit the “House Music” series page for full series details.

THE HEALTH SEEKERS
Tuesday, March 28, 2016 • 7:00pm

at the Gamble House

Friends of the Gamble House presents “The Health Seekers” with historian Michele Zack. Michele will speak on illness as a major factor in nineteenth and twentieth century immigration to Southern California.

Michele, an Altadena resident and author of histories of Altadena and Sierra Madre, says that her research shows “The importance of the illness legacy has been underestimated as an influence of how we think of Southern California today.”

Indeed, many health seekers who suffered from tuberculosis and other respiratory diseases moved to California and other Western states in the late 19th and early 20th centuries for their then-dry, unpolluted air. The foothill communities of Pasadena, Altadena and Sierra Madre were home to a number of TB sanitariums and hospitals, as were other communities in the San Gabriel Mountain foothills. 

2016

2016 Gamble House Holiday Gathering

Sunday, December 18, 2016 • 5:00-8:00pm

at the Gamble House

A celebration of the holiday season presented by Friend of the Gamble House. This joyful gathering includes good cheer, hors d’oeuvres, cocktails and live seasonal music all in the warm glow of the Gamble House.

Menu for the Evening:
Lobster Bisque & Tomato Soup served with mini grilled cheese sandwiches
Holiday Salad (frisee and arugula)
“Make Your Own Pizza” Bar
Asian Steamed Buns: Pork Belly, Crispy Shrimp, Japanese Fried Chicken
Dessert Trio: Fancy Holiday Cookies, Mini Fresh Fruit Tarts, Decadent Chocolate Mouse

White Wine, Sparkling Water and Holiday Mocktail

Entertainment:
Vocal/Piano Performance by Kerrie Caldwell and Brad Smith
Guitar Performance by Emilio Tello

Holiday Twilight Shopping Event 

Saturday, December 17, 2016 • 5:00-6:30pm

at the Gamble House

The evening will feature:
ARTIST SHOWCASE
: Evan Chambers of Pavonine Glass, 
Sarah Moore of Sassafrass Pottery, 
Bret Iwan of Bungalow Modern

SPECIAL DISCOUNTS: 
Friends of the Gamble House members receive 30% off bookstore merchandise
CHAMPAGNE RECEPTION: 
Champagne and a few festive holiday treats

FESTIVE HOLIDAY MUSIC
: Holiday music provided by guitarist Scott Bramer

“Sleeping Around” 
Lecture by Franklin Vagnone

Monday, November 21, 2016 • 7:00pm

at the Gamble House

Come and enjoy an entertaining and thought-provoking presentation by Franklin Vagnone, a self-proclaimed “domestic-archeo-anthropologist” and co-author of The Anarchist’s Guide to Historic House Museums. He will describe his “One-Night Stand” series, where he spends the evening in historic house museums and writes about his experiences on his blog, Twisted Preservation. Vagnone’s blog posts attempt to shift our cultural perceptions of historic house museums away from viewing them as passive-voiced public spaces toward a more intimate appreciation of them as places of private domestic life. Vagnone is coming to Pasadena to experience a “one-night stand” at the Gamble House, where he’ll stay overnight on a second-floor sleeping porch.

Gamble House 50th Anniversary Celebration Week

September 21 – 25, 2016

January 14, 2016 marks the 50th Anniversary of the gift of the Gamble House from the Gamble family to the City of Pasadena and the University of Southern California. This generous gift agreement allowed the Gamble House to open its doors to the public in September of the same year. In the half century since then, The Gamble House has become one of the most beloved premier historic sites in America.

A series of celebratory anniversary events will take place throughout September 2016 including an invitation only dinner for major donors; a fundraising reception to kick-off a new endowment campaign to raise funds to continue to protect the Gamble family’s generous legacy gift to the public with another decade of conscientious preservation; a reception to recognize the contributions of Gamble House docents through the years; a 50th Anniversary public celebration on Sunday, September 25, with self-paced tours and family-friendly activities and entertainment; and very importantly an Alumni Day Open House for former Gamble House Scholars in Residence and the USC School of Architecture on Saturday, September 24.

 Friends of the Gamble House Annual Meeting

Saturday, June 11, 2016
at the Crow-Crocker House

The Crow-Crocker House was executed entirely under Henry Greene’s direction. The house, originally designed for Dr. S. S. Crow with garden and outbuilding additions for Edward S. Crocker, shows the younger brother’s mature ability. The single-story structure is arranged around a narrow courtyard in a U-shaped plan whose open end stands away from the street. One wing of the plan is devoted to the service functions of the house, the opposite wing to family bedrooms. The link between the two is devoted to living room and dining room. Glazed doors opposite the entry provide garden views beyond the courtyard from which light floods into the north wing through a continuous wall of casement windows that open into the hallway serving the bedroom chambers.

The Crow house and Crocker gardens are Henry’s early triumph, giving him the confidence to sustain increasing independent design work in future years.

Thank you to our special guest, Virginia Hales (granddaughter of Henry Greene), for signing copies of her latest book, “Greene & Greene, Their Ancestral Heritage, 1550-1900”.

From Blooms to Bloomers: Schools for Lady Gardeners

Tuesday, April 19, 2016
at the Neighborhood Church

A small but significant number of schools during the Progressive Era sought to educate women and girls to earn a livelihood in horticulture. They were international in context, often privately funded, and typically established by women in leadership positions. Although there were many such institutions throughout Europe, most closed before or after World war II. However, one school, the Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women, founded by Jane Bowne Haines in 1910 was an astounding success and had a longevity that led to its incorporation into Temple University in 1958. Well illustrated with period photography this lecture opens a window on a women’s movement little recognized today.

Speaker Bios: VALENCIA LIBBY is a landscape historian and museum educator living in Down-East Maine. She was formerly an Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture & Horticulture at Temple University in Philadelphia and the recipient of the Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Landscape History to Portugal in 2004. She currently serves as an advisor to numerous historical collections in Maine and the Beatrix Farrand Society’s Garland Farm.

California’s 1915 World’s Fairs: Creating San Diego’s Garden Fair and San Francisco’s Jewel City

Tuesday, March 22, 2016
at the Neighborhood Church

This lecture takes a close look at the centennial of the 1915 San Francisco World’s Fair which celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal and the city’s reconstruction after the great earthquake of 1906.

Our speaker, a favorite from past presentations, will also discuss the Panama-California Exposition held in San Diego’s Balboa Park between January 1, 1915 and January 1, 1917. The exposition celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal, and was meant to tout San Diego as the first U.S. port of call for ships traveling north after passing westward through the canal.

About the Speaker: VICTORIA KASTNER, Hearst Castle’s historian, has written and lectured about San Simeon’s land and buildings for nearly thirty years. She has master’s degrees from the University of California at Santa Barbara and George Washington University. She lives in Los Osos, California.

Photo: 1915 San Diego Panama-California Exposition at Balboa Park

Prophets Without Honor: The Rediscovery of Greene and Greene

Tuesday, February 23, 2016
at the Neighborhood Church

Charles and Henry Greene were nearing 80, living quietly in Carmel and Altadena respectively, when strangers began to come calling at their door. Their architecture had been nearly forgotten, most of their clients, the Gambles, Elisabeth Prentiss, the Pratts, the Blackers, had long since died. Yet, slowly a new appreciation of their work was taking hold among young architects, journalists, academics and photographers. Ann Scheid’s talk will tell this story, which eventually led to the remarkable enthusiasm for the Greenes’ work and for the Arts and Crafts movement today. Slides will illustrate the lecture.

About the Speaker: ANN SCHEID is a member of the Gamble House staff and heads the Greene & Greene Archives at the Huntington Library. An author and historian she has published several books on Pasadena history as well as scholarly articles and essays on the history of architecture, planning, and landscape in Southern California. Ann worked as a preservation planner for the City of Pasadena and as an architectural historian in environmental planning for the State of California. She is a graduate of Vassar College, the University of Chicago, and Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, and the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship.

Photo: Charles and Henry Greene, at the home of Henry Dart Greene, Altadena, CA, circa 1950

2015

  Gamble House Holiday Gathering

at the Gamble House
Sunday, December 13, 2015

A celebration of the holiday season presented by Friend of the Gamble House. This joyful gathering includes good cheer, hors d’oeuvres, cocktails and live seasonal music all in the warm glow of the Gamble House.

Building Paradise in California

at the Neighborhood Church Pasadena
Monday, September 14, 2015
• Lecture & Presentation by Alex Vertikoff: 7:00-8:00pm
• Panel discussion with Edward R. Bosley, Ann Scheid, Anne Mallek: 8:00-8:30pm
• Book signing and reception at the Gamble House: 8:45-9:30pm

For more than a century the Gamble House has stood on a promontory overlooking the Arroyo Seco, a thin riverbed that meanders down from the San Gabriel Mountains through Pasadena, California. For much of that time the house has been open to the public. More than a million visitors have toured the house since it became an architectural site in 1966. They come for a variety of reasons, but primarily to appreciate the uncommon mixture of art and craft that is the hallmark of architects Charles and Henry Greene. That they have arrived in such numbers for so long is a testament to the vision of the designers, the skill of their craftsmen-builders, and the fruitful connection they had with their clients.

This presentation by photographer Alex Vertikoff officially launched the first full-length book ever published on The Gamble House. Vertikoff discussed the four-year project of photographing the house and showed many of the stunning images he made for the book. A panel discussion with the book’s other contributors followed.

Embroidering in Architecture with Jenny Hart

The Gamble House | Aunt Julia’s Sleeping Porch
Saturday, August 8, 2015 • 9:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.

Especially conceived for “Upstairs Downstairs”, participants embroidered a small (and easy-to-stitch) portrait of one of the Gamble House’s most beloved former staff members while gathered on Aunt Julia’s sleeping porch.

No embroidery experience necessary. Hart will teach the basics of embroidery.

All materials provided for each participant to use and keep: Original Design on Fabric • Embroidery Hoop • Needles • Floss • Scissors • How-To Instructions • Additional Patterns

Artist, author and embroidery designer Jenny Hart originated a series of site-specific workshops called “Embroidering in Architecture” in 2013. Held in locations of architectural beauty and significance, participants learn introductory techniques of hand embroidery while enjoying the rare opportunity to spend time in an inspiring environment.

Hart provides each student with a pre-printed composition on fabric, inspired by architectural hallmarks or history of the site, for each student to keep.

Hart previously participated in the Machine Project’s Field Guide to L.A. Architecture with workshops at the Gamble House and the Neutra VDL house.

Jenny Hart was born in 1972 in Iowa City and raised in rural Illinois. She is best known for her artwork in hand embroidery and her design and supply company Sublime Stitching. Hart’s work has been published in numerous books and magazines including Vogue, Nylon, Spin, Real Simple, Juxtapoz, The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post Magazine and others. Her work has appeared in nationally televised commercials, rock videos and television shows. She has exhibited in solo and group shows in Los Angeles, Paris, London and New York.

Hart is also an award-winning author of seven titles on embroidery for Chronicle Books, including Embroidered Effects. Jenny’s work is in multiple public and private collections of note, including the estate of Elizabeth Taylor and the permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Jenny has lived in Kansas, France and Texas. She lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

Summer Movie Night

The Gamble House Lawn
Saturday, August 1, 2015 • 6:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.

THE ILLUSIONIST
The Illusionist (2006) is a period drama written and directed by Neil Burger and starring Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti, and Jessica Biel. The film is based loosely on Steven Millhauser’s short story, “Eisenheim the Illusionist”. The film tells the story of a Viennese magician, Eisenheim, who reunites with his childhood love, a woman far above his social standing.

Movie starts at dusk (Please, no arrival prior to 6:00pm) so bring a blanket, dinner, and bottle of wine and share in the pre-movie fun. As usual, we’ll have popcorn, candy, snow cones and we’ll also be raffling off some great prizes.

Back to the Future Movie Night and VIP Event

The Gamble House Lawn
Saturday, July 26, 2015 • 6:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m.

This is a charity event – Proceeds benefit the Gamble House Jr. Docent Program Endowment
Visit gamblehouse.org/junior-docent-program for more info on the junior docents program

Movie Night Event (general ticketing)

• Tour of the Gamble House prior to the movie
• DeLorean Car exhibit, courtesy of DeLorean Motor Company
• In-n-Out Burger food truck
• Photo Booth
• Come dressed as your favorite BTTF character

Celebrating Back to the Future in true VIP Gamble House style! This unique opportunity will include:

• Two groups of four guests will delight in viewing Back to the Future from a Gamble House Sleeping Porch
• You will enjoy a personal attendant for the entire evening
• Preferred parking on Westmoreland Place
• 5:00-7:00 pm Behind the Velvet Ropes tour with John Hamm
• 7:00 pm Dine on your private sleeping porch. Enjoy Pie-n-Burger dinner and beverages
• 8:00 pm screening of Back to the Future from your private sleeping porch
• Snacks on your private sleeping porch prior to and during screening
  (You’ll be keeping your personal attendant very busy!)
• Commemorative Back to the Future lap blanket

Friends of the Gamble House Members Only Event

Isabelle Greene Home and Garden Tour, Santa Barbara
Saturday, June 27, 2015 • 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Join us as we visit the Santa Barbara home and garden of renowned landscape architect and granddaughter of Henry Greene, Isabelle Greene.

Afternoon included:
Garden & home tour | Talk by Isabelle Greene | Light refreshments

Friends of the Gamble House Annual Meeting

The Lanterman House, La Canada
Sunday, June 14, 2015 • 11:30 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.

The FoGH Annual Meeting will include a docent led tour of the Lanterman House, the meeting program, presentation by guest speaker Jennifer Trotoux and lunch on the terrace.

About the house:
Completed in 1915, the Lanterman House (or “El Retiro,” as it was then known) was built by the second generation of La Cañada’s founding family, the Lantermans. Dr. Roy Lanterman commissioned architect A. L. Haley to design a fireproof bungalow of reinforced concrete for his family.

There are many arts and crafts elements to the U-shaped house, including 32 pairs of french doors, which provide natural light and heat and make all the rooms accessible to the interior patio and trellis-shaped perimeter walkway. The house retains its exquisite original interiors and furnishings, including elaborate hand-painted wall and ceiling ornamentation.

The house’s entire second floor is devoted to a grand ballroom, and the interior of the house retains its original furnishings and is elaborately decorated with detailed plant and flower motifs, represented in painted ornament, wallpapers, and light fixtures.

About the speaker:
Jennifer Trotoux is an associate with Architectural Resources Group, where she has worked as an architectural historian and historic preservation planner since 2006. A native Pasadenan, she was educated in art and architectural history at Scripps College and the University of Chicago and later taught architectural history at Woodbury University.

House description courtesy of the City of La Cañada • Photo by Douglas Keister, courtesy of the Lanterman House

Louis Sullivan: The Struggle for American Architecture

Documentary Screening
Thursday, March 12, 2015 • 7:00 p.m.

Louis Sullivan: the Struggle for American Architecture marks the first time that the life and career of Louis Sullivan has been brought to the screen. Aside from several films that presented certain parts of Sullivan’s career such as his skyscrapers and banks, there has never been an in-depth exploration of him as an artist and what he tried so hard to do for American architecture.

After months of research that began in early 2007, director Mark Richard Smith began traveling throughout the Midwest and East Coast to view first hand most of Sullivan’s surviving works. The experience shaped his commitment to presenting as vividly as possible the stirring, profound beauty of Louis Sullivan’s architecture. Much of the footage is made up of moving shots that trace building details and ornamentation not readily seen by the naked eye.

But this film aspires to present a lot more than just great photography. Sullivan’s quixotic belief in the unbreakable connection between social values and architecture is closely examined, as are the cultural forces at work at the end of the nineteenth century that made it impossible for Sullivan’s aesthetic to take root in the American consciousness. The film presents him as an artist who never felt completely comfortable in either the vanishing world of nineteenth-century romanticism or the unsentimental and mechanized one of the twentieth century. Yet he understood both like no other artist of the period. Out of this conflict came incomparable works of architecture that vividly captured the end of one age and the dawn of another.

Taliesin East and West

Lecture by Sean Malone
Tuesday, February 24, 2015 • Lecture: 7:00 p.m.

Built on land whose beauty would inspire Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural philosophy, Taliesin (1911) is perhaps the most personal of Wright’s works. Taliesin served as Wright’s main residence and the summer home of the Taliesin Fellowship until 1937, when Wright built his oasis in the Arizona desert, Taliesin West, to serve as his winter residence.

Join us as we look at these two Wright masterworks, Taliesin East and West, and discuss their relationship to the unique natural environments in which they were built, the distinct design elements that are their hallmarks, the culture that thrived at each site and the journey to restore these masterpieces.

About the Lecturer: Sean Malone is President and CEO of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. During Malone’s tenure, the Foundation has performed such mission-critical work as establishing a joint stewardship of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives between the Foundation, the Museum of Modern Art, and Columbia University’s Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library; an in-depth Preservation Master Plan program to define how Taliesin West will be preserved for generations to come; and much more.

Valentine’s Day Twilight Tour for Couples

Saturday, February 14, 2015 • 5:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m.

Evening including a champagne & hors-d’oeuvre reception on the terrace followed by a twilight tour of the Gamble House. Special performance by Los Angeles composer Galen Wilkes.

2014

FOGH: Holiday Gathering

Sunday, December 7, 2014 • 5:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m.

The Gamble House has a certain twinkle this time of year, making it the perfect place to kick off the holiday season with friends old and new. Join us as we gather in the beauty of the house to share good cheer with edibles in the warmth of the kitchen and the glow of the dining room, and holiday libations on the terrace accompanied by a jazz trio! We look forward to celebrating with you at this special members-only event.

STORIES IN STONE: Lecture and Tour at Mountain View Cemetery

Tuesday, November 18, 2014 • Lecture 6:00 p.m. | Tour 7:00 p.m.

Douglas Keister, who has been called “America’s chief tombstone tourist” by CBS Sunday Morning correspondent Rita Braver, will be giving an informative and entertaining lecture illustrated with photographs of cemeteries and funerary art from around the world.

As a special bonus, Doug will guide a limited number of guests on a candlelight tour of Mountain View Cemetery in Altadena. The tour will feature funerary architecture, secret societies, cemetery symbolism and even a unique hollow tombstone. We’ll end the tour by visiting the resting place of George Reeves, the original Superman.

About the Lecturer: Doug Keister gives annual nighttime Halloween cemetery tours at his hometown cemetery in Chico, California and has been honored as a co-tour director at the famous Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in New York. Doug has authored six books on cemeteries, from his seminal work on funerary architecture, Going Out In Style to his latest cemetery-centric book, Stories In Stone Paris. Doug has spoken at dozens of venues across America including the Smithsonian Institution and the Cooper Union in New York. In March, 2014 he spoke at the Gamble House on Storybook Style architecture.

PIONEERS OF MODERNISM: The Arts & Crafts Movement in Australia

Tuesday, September 30, 2014 • 7:00 p.m.

This presentation will explore the ways in which the architecture of the Australian Arts and Crafts movement was influenced by concurrent movements, and how it informed the development of Modernism in Australia. Of particular interest will be the resonance between the California bungalow and Australia’s own version of the typology.

Harriet Edquist is Professor of Architectural History and Head of the School of Architecture and Design at RMIT. She is the author of a number of books including Harold Desbrowe-Annear: A Life In Architecture, Pioneers of Modernism: The Arts and Crafts Movement in Australia, and numerous other titles related to architecture and design of the Victorian period forward.

Video: Harriet Edquist speaks about the Arts & Crafts aesthetic

Esther McCoy posing in the George P. Turner Residence, Flintridge, 1947, Maynard L. Parker, photographer. Courtesy of The Huntington Library, San Marino, CA

THE ESTHER McCOY COLLECTION: Tour of the McCoy Collection at the Greene & Greene Archives

Saturday, May 3, 2014 • Choice of 10:00 a.m. or 11:30 a.m.

The Esther McCoy Collection at the Greene and Greene Archives contains McCoy’s library, including over 500 books, at least as many periodicals, and numerous copies of her own publications. McCoy can be credited with introducing Greene and Greene to a wider audience with her book Five California Architects (1960). Her library collection focuses on early 20th century architecture; many of the books are autographed gifts to McCoy by their authors, a testament to her wide-ranging friendships in the field. She was not only an authority on Southern California architecture, but also on Mexican and Italian architecture of the period.

For this display at the Archives, items will be selected to illustrate McCoy’s friendships in the world of architecture as well as to show unusual or rare examples of architectural publications. To brush up beforehand, attend the lecture on April 29th and consult the Archives of American Art which holds the papers of Esther McCoy

Esther McCoy at her drafting board, mid-1940s. Courtesy of Esther McCoy Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

ESTHER McCOY: Piecing Together LA

Lecture by Susan Morgan
Tuesday, April 29, 2014 • 7:00 p.m.

Esther McCoy (1904–1989) was one of the foremost architectural writers of the twentieth century. A gifted literary stylist and keen social critic, her work recognized the genesis of American modernism, witnessed the birth of mid-century design, and ignited public awareness. McCoy’s book Five California Architects (1960) has long been acknowledged as an indispensable classic. As Reyner Banham declared, “No one can write about architecture in California without acknowledging her as the mother of us all.” Throughout her sixty-year career, McCoy worked variously as an author, editorial scout, lecturer, screenwriter, architectural preservationist, and exhibition curator; her life charted the progressive edge of American idealism from the utopian spirit of Jazz Age Greenwich Village through the radical evolution of post-war architecture.

Susan Morgan: Susan has written extensively about art, design, and cultural biography. Her work has been featured in exhibition catalogues, artist’s monographs, and mainstream publications ranging from the New York Times to the World of Interiors. A former contributing editor for Interview, Mirabella, and Metropolitan Home, she is a contributing editor forAperture and www.eastofborneo.org, the collaborative online art journal and archive. With support from the Graham Foundation, the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, and the Smithsonian Institution, Morgan has been researching the life and work of writer Esther McCoy. She is editor of Piecing Together Los Angeles: An Esther McCoy Reader (2012), the first McCoy anthology, and cocurator (with Kimberli Meyer) of Sympathetic Seeing (2011), for the MAK Center at the R. M. Schindler House, West Hollywood, CA.

The Spadena House in Beverly Hills, CA

STORYBOOK STYLE: Whimsy in LA

Lecture by Douglas Keister
Tuesday, March 25, 2014 • 7:00 p.m.

Storybook Style, the rambunctious evocation of medieval Europe in American housing, was born in the early 1920s and almost forgotten by the late 1930s. It took its inspiration from the Hollywood sets that enthralled Americans of the period and that still appeal to our jaded modern eye. Half-timbered and turreted, pinnacled and portcullised, these houses owed their fanciful bravura to architects and builders with theatrical flair, fine craftsmanship, and humor.

Douglas Keister: Douglas has authored and co-authored thirty-nine critically acclaimed books. He also writes and illustrates magazine articles and contributes photographs and essays to dozens of magazines, newspapers, and books. His twenty-five books on architecture include America’s Painted Ladies, Victorian Glory, The Bungalow, Inside the Bungalow, Storybook Style, Going Out in Style, Classic Cottages and many more.

Julia Morgan designed this spacious residence for the poultry ranch manager in 1928. Hearst Castle is visible in the distance.
Photo by Alex Vertikoff

HEARST RANCH: Family, Land, And Legacy

Lecture by Victoria Kastner
Tuesday, February 11, 2014 • 7:00 p.m.

The Hearst Ranch is the stunningly beautiful 82,000-acre cattle ranch surrounding William Randolph Hearst’s legendary Hearst Castle. Much of this spectacular landscape is still privately owned and has never been seen by the public. Through historical images from the vast Hearst archive, and full-color photography commissioned for her recent book, Victoria will show us the Hearst Ranch and its many century-old ranch buildings and residences designed by Julia Morgan, revealed for the first time. A favorite lecturer from past presentations, Victoria delivers engaging and insightful tales of the Hearst family, of the talented Morgan and her staff, of the many colorful ranch employees, and of the countless Hollywood movie stars who joined Hearst and Marion Davies as they went roughing it out on the ranch.

Victoria Kastner: Victoria, Hearst Castle’s historian, has written and lectured about Hearst Castle and San Simeon’s land and buildings for nearly 30 years. She is the author of Abrams’ Hearst Castle and Hearst’s San Simeon.

2013

Charles Phoenix at The Donut Hole

ARCHITECTURE IN LA

Presentation by Charles Phoenix
Sunday, November 24, 2013 • 4:00 p.m.

Pop culture humorist Charles Phoenix leads a fun-fueled whirlwind adventure tour extravaganza exploring undiscovered and underrated mid-century architectural gems past and present.

With his trademark enthusiasm, gracious wit, and keen eye for odd-ball detail, the Southern California in the 50s author shares spectacular space-age drive-ins, coffee shops, bowling alleys, strip malls, shopping centers, extreme homes, dingbat apartments, fast food stands, theme parks and much more all in glorious color!!!

This live slide show performance will also celebrate Pasadena area landmarks, Googie, mid-century mod, themed-environments, and more!

Prepare for your local pride to swell! Festive dress is encouraged but not expected!

Charles Phoenix: Charles Phoenix is a performer, humorist, chef and author. In his live shows, videos, media appearances and books, the self-proclaimed “retro daddy” explores America’s classic and kitschy pop cultural past and present, and predicts retro-inspired future trends. Fans enjoy his unique spin and genuine reverence for all things Americana, trust his guide to attractions from coast to coast.

Celtic Fiddler Jamie Laval

The Gamble House Celebrates The Celtic Roots Of The Gamble Family

Sunday, June 2, 2013 • 4:00-7:00 p.m.

A family fun-filled afternoon featuring:
• The Premier Celtic Fiddler Jamie Laval
• Pasadena Scottish Pipes & Drums
• Highland Dancing by Erin Swanson
• Irish Folk Singer George Cavanaugh
• Celtic Food by Real Food Devotee
• Marketplace
• Activities for Children
• Craft Brew Tasting from Craftsman Brewing Co.
• Artisan Sodas
• Tours of the Gamble House

Wharton Esherick studio, Valley Forge, PA. Photo: Leslie Williamson, 2010. Courtesy of Rizzoli New York

Handcrafted Modern

Lecture by Leslie Williamson
Saturday, March 9, 2013 • 6:00 p.m.

There have been many studies of mid-century interiors but few explore the intimate settings of the artists, designers and architects homes they’ve created for themselves. Leslie Williamson will discuss her compelling collection of photographs that show the homes of now-iconic personalities such as Jerome and Evelyn Ackerman, Charles and Ray Eames, Wharton Esherick and Albert Frey who, like Charles Greene and William Morris, employed their deep knowledge of fine art, traditional craft, and design, to create detailed and rich private spaces in which they chose to spend their lives.

Leslie Williamson: Leslie was born and raised in San Jose, California and educated at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Since graduating she has pursued both fine art and commercial photography, which have garnered her numerous accolades including being a Surface Magazine “Avant Guardian” and featured in Communication Arts Magazine. Her latest book, “Handcrafted Modern Europe,” will be available early 2014.

Eames House Studio, Photo by Timothy Street-Porter, © 2012 Eames Office

Handcrafted Modern: Eames House And Office

Saturday, March 9, 2013 • 10:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m.

You won’t want to miss this intimate tour of the Eames House and Office. We will gather at 10:00 a.m. in Pacific Palisades for a private visit to the iconic Eames House (Case Study House #8), where our group will be met by staff with deep knowledge of the house, its landscape, contents, and inspirations, all of which represent the Eames’s unique and engaging approach to life and design. The tour of the house will be followed by a break for lunch on your own in Santa Monica, and, at 2:30, a guided visit to the world-famous Eames Office on Pico Boulevard.

Designed by husband and wife design team, Charles and Ray Eames, their radically different and colorful hillside home became a symbol of post-war Modernism in California the moment it was completed in 1949. Widely published ever since, it has inspired generations of design students and practitioners, especially those who value the elegant intersection of function and aesthetics. Last fall, a highly prized collection of objects from the Eames living room was installed in a replica of its original space at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for the temporary exhibition California Design, 1930-1965: Living in a Modern Way. This spectacularly successful exhibit has moved on, but we will be able to appreciate the beautiful collection in situ. (Note that the Eames House interiors are viewed from the garden through large plate-glass doors and windows.) After lunch at a nearby restaurant of your choice—three great recommendations offered by the Eames staff—our tour will continue at 2:30 with a visit to the Eames Office on Pico Boulevard in Santa Monica. Here, the Eames staff will introduce us to the professional side of the Eames partnership and we will hear about the Eames’s method of approaching design problems as opportunities to enhance function and beauty. This exclusive tour is a rare chance to learn about two of California’s most famous industrial designers.

California Institute of Technology (1915-1939) – Goodhue’s proposed domed building and reflecting pool. Courtesy of the Archives, California Institute of Technology

Bertram Goodhue’s Legacy: A Tour of The Caltech Campus

Saturday, February 9, 2013 • 10:30 a.m.

Join us for a one-hour tour of Bertram Goodhue’s sublime architectural legacy on the Caltech campus, where original buildings provide a rich display of an innovative design vocabulary that followed Goodhue’s ground-breaking work at the Panama-California Exposition in San Diego (1915). Accompanying us on our walking tour of the campus will be Romy Wyllie, historian, lecturer in this year’s series, and author of definitive monographs on Bertram Goodhue and the architecture of the Caltech campus. Indeed, Ms. Wyllie is the developer of Caltech’s architecture tour programs, which have won acclaim for decades.

St. Bartholomew’s Church, New York City, New York, South Chapel by Bertram Goodhue, 1903

Bertram Goodhue’s Arts & Crafts Legacy

Lecture by Romy Wyllie
Saturday, February 2, 2013 • 6:00 p.m.

We are privileged to have author and historian Romy Wyllie deliver a presentation entitled “Bertram Goodhue’s Arts and Crafts Legacy.” Goodhue was a gifted polymath of the Arts and Crafts movement. Architect, typographer, and graphic designer, Goodhue’s career spanned several movements, including Arts and Crafts, Spanish Colonial Revival, and Art Deco. Ms. Wyllie’s acclaimed 2007 book, Bertram Goodhue: His Life and Residential Architecture, provides many new insights into a complex career, and forms the basis for our understanding of the architect today.

Romy Wyllie: A native of Yorkshire, Romy Wyllie holds an MA from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland and is certified as an interior designer. She taught architectural history and interior design at the Herrington Institute of Interior Design in Chicago, and served as managing editor of the University of Chicago’s Journal of Geology. Since 1985 Ms. Wyllie has led Caltech Architectural Tour Services as its co-founder and chairman. Her published works include Caltech’s Architectural Heritage: From Spanish Tile to Modern Stone, (2000, Balcony Press) and most recently, Bertram Goodhue: His Life and Residential Architecture (2007, W.W. Norton)

2012

Mural by Dean Cornwell at the LA Central Library

TOUR
Los Angeles Central Library: Art, Architecture and Archives

Saturday, November 10, 2012 • 3:00 p.m.

Join the Friends of the Gamble House for a special additional tour, related to two of the Sidney D. Gamble Lecture Series lectures on artist Frank Brangwyn (Saturday, November 3, 2012) and architect Bertram Goodhue (Saturday, February 2, 2013). Participants will be taken on a docent-led tour of the art and architecture of the Los Angeles Central Library, focusing particularly on the rotunda murals by Dean Cornwell (who had trained with Frank Brangwyn in England) and the original 1926 library building designed by Goodhue, with its Egyptian and Mediterranean Revival influences. Our tour will end with a visit to the Art Department, where library staff will share unique drawings and other items from the collections related to the library building and its design elements. Join us for this unique opportunity to learn more about a remarkable local landmark!

Carpet, ‘Plants’, designed by Frank Brangwyn, woven by Templeton & Co for 1930 Pollard exhibition. Courtesy Musea Brugge, Groeningsmuseum

The Works of Frank Brangwyn

Lecture by Tim Solliday
Saturday, November 3, 2012 • 6:00 p.m.

California Art Club member Tim Solliday will present a lecture on Frank Brangwyn, one of England’s most talented artists of the Arts and Crafts era. Brangwyn was a muralist, oil painter, watercolorist, draftsman, lithographer, engraver and designer of interiors, furniture, carpets, ceramics and stained glass. Solliday’s passion for Brangwyn’s work brings to life this ‘artist’s artist’.

Tim Solliday: California landscape and figure painter Tim Solliday was born in 1952 and was inspired by his artist-father to begin painting. In the late 1980s he studied with early California Impressionist, Theodore N. Lukits (1897-1992). Solliday’s paintings have appeared in numerous prestigious group exhibitions and his work is frequently featured in national publications.

Dard Hunter’s 1908 drawing for a glass mosaic, spiraled green leaves contrast with more severe red roses. Image from Dard Hunter: The Graphic Works by Lawrence Kreisman (Pomegranate, March 2012),© Dard Hunter Studios

Dard Hunter And His Graphic Works

Lecture by Lawrence Kreisman
Saturday, October 6, 2012 • 6:00 p.m.

Lawrence Kreisman will speak on Dard Hunter and his graphic works. Hunter is perhaps best known for his book designs for Elbert Hubbard and the Roycrofters, but Kreisman will also delve into how Hunter’s work was influenced by European ideas, including avant-garde German Jugendstil and Austrian Secession concepts. Kreisman’s insights on this fascinating book-designer, printer, typographer and papermaker will be appreciated by anyone interested in the graphic designs of the Arts and Crafts movement.

Larry Kreisman: Since 1997, Kreisman has been the program director of Historic Seattle. He is known for bringing public attention to the Northwest’s architectural heritage and its preservation through courses, tours, exhibits, lectures, articles and books, and program development. Kreisman holds master’s degrees in architecture from the University of Washington, and in English literature from the University of Chicago.

Herkimer Gardens Tour

Grand Opening & Open House
Friday, June 15, 2012

Herkimer Gardens is a 4-unit affordable housing, first-time homeownership development in Pasadena. It includes the 1912 Herkimer Arms (a.k.a. Mary Maud Earl apartments), one of the only multiple-unit buildings ever designed by Greene and Greene. The development is a public/private partnership between the City of Pasadena and non-profit developer Heritage Housing Partners (HHP). Learn more about Herkimer Gardens, including how to apply for affordable homeownership opportunities at: www.herkimergardens.org.

411 North Raymond Avenue Pasadena CA 91103
Herkimer Gardens is located just north of the corner or Maple Street & Raymond Avenue.

The Japanese Gardens at the Huntington Library, courtesy of the Huntington.

TOUR
Restoration of The Huntington’s Japanese Garden

Tour with Kelly Sutherlin McLeod, AIA & Kendall Brown
May 12, 2012

Kendall Brown and architect Kelly Sutherlin McLeod, AIA lead a behind-the-scenes tour of the historic Japanese Garden at The Huntington Library.

The Japanese Gardens at the Huntington Library, courtesy of the Huntington.

History and Restoration of the Huntington’s Japanese Garden

Lecture by Kelly Sutherlin McLeod, AIA & Kendall Brown
May 12, 2012

Japanese garden expert and Asian art professor Kendall Brown along with architect Kelly Sutherlin McLeod, AIA will discuss the much anticipated restoration of the historic Japanese Garden at The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.

Kendall Brown is a well-known authority on Japanese style gardens, and is the lead author of a book on the history of the Japanese gardens at the Huntington (scheduled for release in 2012). He has written extensively on the subject in his book Japanese Style Gardens of the Pacific West Coast and has published books and articles on Japanese art. Brown is associate professor of Asian Art History at California State University Long Beach.

Kelly Sutherlin McLeod, AIA, founded her Long Beach-based firm in 1988. A graduate of the USC School of Architecture, and a Gamble House Scholar-in-Residence, she resided in The Gamble House during her senior years. McLeod was the Project Architect during the Gamble House exterior conservation project, completed in 2004, and has worked on other Greene & Greene projects, including the Tichenor, De Forest, Jennie Reeve and Pitcairn houses. McLeod is overseeing the rehabilitation of the Huntington’s historic Japanese house.

April 22, 2012

A rare opportunity not to be missed! Join us Sunday April 22 for “Arroyo’s Edge,” when six private Greene & Greene properties will open for touring to benefit The Gamble House.

Along the edge of Pasadena’s Arroyo Seco, these houses are almost never open for public touring. Thanks to the generosity of the six homeowners, participants will tour five Greene & Greene interiors and a beautiful garden that remain largely unknown, even to devotees of the Arts and Crafts movement.

The tour includes the incomparable Duncan-Irwin house (1906-08), the Mary Ranney house (1907), F. W. Hawks house (1906), Van-Rossem Neil house (1903-06), S. Hazard Halsted house (1905-15), plus the beautiful garden of the James Culbertson house (1902-14).

The Crow-Crocker house, G&G, 1909, Maynard Parker (ca. 1947), courtesy the Huntington Library.

Post-War Modernism and the Legacy of Greene and Greene

Lecture by Ted Bosley
March 10, 2012

European influences, American ingenuity and the optimism of the era all contributed to the rise of new design ideals for domestic, commercial and industrial construction in post-war United States.

Gamble House Director Ted Bosley will examine the influence of Arts and Crafts masters Greene and Greene on Post-War Modernism, and how the architectural style reconciled craft traditions with industrial technology. In the 1940s and ’50s, House Beautiful magazine vigorously promoted the Greenes as legitimate forerunners of American modernism, sparking a political debate that went far beyond the design world.

Director of the Gamble House since 1992, Ted Bosley has since published and lectured widely on The Gamble House, Greene and Greene, and the American Arts and Crafts Movement. With Anne E. Mallek, Gamble House curator, he co-edited A ‘New and Native’ Beauty: The Art and Craft of Greene & Greene, and co-curated the exhibition of the same name which toured the United States in 2008-2009.

Garden sculpture, c. 1955, La Gardo Tackett Architectural Pottery, Collection of the Lawrence family; lent in honor of Max and Rita Lawrence © La Gardo Tackett Estate. Architectural Pottery, Vessel® USA Inc. All rights reserved. Photo © 2011 Museum Associates/LACMA

TOUR
Curator’s Tour of “California Design” Exhibit at LACMA

With Wendy Kaplan, LACMA curator
February 4, 2012

Wendy Kaplan, Department Head and Curator, Decorative Arts and Design, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) since 2001, will lead an in-depth and personal tour of the exhibition. A leading expert on late nineteenth- to mid-twentieth-century design, Kaplan has authored, co-authored, or edited many books on the subject such as The Arts & Crafts Movement in Europe and America: Design for the Modern World (2004), Leading “The Simple Life”: The Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain, 1880-1910 (1999), and Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1996), to name a few, and has organized major exhibitions. She is currently co-organizing the exhibition and has edited and contributed to the exhibition catalogue.

ESU (Eames storage unit), c. 1949, Ray & Charles Eames, LACMA, Gift of Mr. Sid Avery and Mr. James Corcoran © 2011 Eames Office LLC; Herman Miller, Inc. Photo © 2011 Museum Associates/LACMA.

California Modern Design

Lecture by Bobbye Tigerman
February 2, 2012

California Design, 1930–1965: “Living in a Modern Way”, LACMA’s first major exhibition on mid-century California design, is a comprehensive study on how California became the world center for design innovation sparked from the minds of such iconic designers as Charles and Ray Eames, Richard Neutra, Sam Maloof and more.

Bobbye Tigerman, Assistant Curator of Decorative Arts and Design at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, is co-curating this exhibition along with Curator, Wendy Kaplan. Her lecture will delve into the details of their five years of research and discuss the appeal of this era of California creativity which resulted in new designs for all the decorative arts.

2011

Manor Del Mar, courtesy of Ann Chaves

TOUR
Where Britain Meets America: The Arts and Crafts House of Lewis Merritt

October 1, 2011

To compliment the Sept. 27th lecture, we offer a first look home tour of this Pasadena architectural gem that hasn’t been opened to the public since its recent restoration.

Reservations are required. No tickets will be available at the door. Directions and map will be available with your payment and reservation.

Located on Pasadena’s famed Millionaire’s Row, this stunning 1908 estate home was designed by William F. Thompson for Lewis J. Merritt who, after navigating a successful career in the mining business in the Midwest, came to retire in the warmth of Southern California.

The Lewis house is a wonderful blend of influence from both American and British Arts and Crafts. Exotic wood — including mahogany, koa wood and bird’s eye maple — mingle with stained glass, tile work and two hand-hammered copper fireplaces.

In addition, the use of clinker brick and Arroyo stone gives the home a distinct Pasadena feel. In keeping with the SoCal tradition of Arts and Crafts, indoor/outdoor living is the norm with a pergola, a veranda and an exterior fireplace.

This is the first public tour of the house which recently underwent a massive restoration. More than a dozen rooms on two floors will be open for viewing, including a printing shop and a textiles studio which will display a selection of British textiles.

Known affectionately as Manor Del Mar when the estate was acquired by Ambassador College in 1956, the house had been used as a student dormitory until the present owners bought the property in 2009 and began the meticulous renovation project which is still ongoing today.

Archibald Knox biscuit box, courtesy of Digital Image © 2009 Museum Associates/LACMA/Art Resource, NY

Special FoGH lecture co-sponsored by the Royal Oak Foundation with related house tour!

Archibald Knox: In the Ministry of the Beautiful

Lecture by Liam O’Neill
September 27, 2011

Archibald Knox’s (1864-1933) unique style made him one of the foremost artist/designers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is best known for his more than 400 metalwork and jewelry designs he “ghosted” for Liberty & Co. (London and Paris). While working as a designer, he lived an almost monastic life in the isolated village of Sulby, on the Isle of Man in the heart of the British Isles.

The natural beauty and traditions of his homeland were his inspiration for Knox’s art. The rapid growth of the tourist industry brought many British industrialists to the Isle of Man where they built their summer homes, many of them in the Arts and Crafts style. Knox was an elusive, ephemeral character whose genius lay in his inner imagination and individuality. His life is simply described on his grave stone, “Archibald Knox, artist, humble servant of God in the ministry of the beautiful.”

Educator and lecturer Liam O’Neill founded the Archibald Knox Society in 2006 to promote the legacy of Archibald Knox both nationally and internationally, presenting the Isle of Man as an “Island for an Art Lover.”

Tours of 6 Eichler Homes

Saturday, May 14, 2011
Balboa Highlands, San Fernando Valley

Enjoy a rare opportunity to tour 6 private Eichler homes in Balboa Highlands. As noted on BalboaHighlands.com, “This neighborhood of roughly 100 homes was built by renowned developer Joseph Eichler between 1963 and 1964 and is located at the northern edge of the San Fernando Valley. It is the only Eichler tract in Los Angeles County.”

Between 1950 and 1974, Joseph Eichler’s company, Eichler Homes, built over 11,000 homes in nine communities in Northern California and homes in three communities in Southern California.

An Eichler home

Joseph Eichler and His Architects: The Men Behind Eichler Homes

Lecture by David Weinstein
Friday, May 13, 2011

The last Series lecture features David Weinstein presenting an overview on the work of famed builder Joseph Eichler who is best known for developing distinctive residential subdivisions of Mid-Century modern style tract housing in California.

Joseph Eichler (1900–1974) was a 20th century post-war U.S. American real estate developer. He was one of the influential advocates of bringing modern architecture from custom residences and large corporate buildings to general public availability. His company and developments named “Eichler Homes” remain in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area and Greater Los Angeles regions.

David Weinstein is a well-known journalist and author who writes about modern architecture for CA Modern magazine, published by the Eichler Network.

“Images of the Pacific Rim: Australia and California, 1850-1935” by Erika Esau, photos by Pam Frost & Erika Esau

The Transcontinental Bungalow: From Pasadena to Australia

Lecture by Erika Esau
March 12, 2011

California and Australia have always had strong similarities and significant connections, most of all in terms of their architecture. Erika Esau’s lecture reports upon the research for her new book Images of the Pacific Rim: Australia and California, 1850-1935. She is concerned with exchanges between California and Australia, especially in the early years of the twentieth century. But the special relationship dates from the time of the gold rushes, when the first frame house in California was built of wood from houses brought from Tasmania. Esau has discovered much else about the travels of Australian architects to California, and about the means by which Californian developments were disseminated in Australia.

Erica Esau is a native Californian who spent more than a decade teaching art history—including the history of Australian art—at the Australian National University, Canberra. She received her Ph.D. in the History of Art from Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania. Her writings on Australian art and culture include Images of the Pacific Rim, Blue Guide Australia (with George Boeck), E.O. Hoppé’s Australia (with Graham Howe), and articles on the history of Australian photography.

Kenton Nelson, “Charitably Inclined,” 1995, oil on board, courtesy of artist.

Art, Architecture and California Culture: The Works of Kenton Nelson

Lecture by Kenton Nelson
January 29, 2011

American scene painting, Regionalism and the work of WPA artists of the 1930s inspires the current work of Pasadena-artist Kenton Nelson who offers insight into the connections between art, architecture and California culture.

Kenton Nelson was born and raised in Los Angeles. He attended Long Beach State University and Otis Parsons Art Institute, and for the last 35 years has had his art studio in Pasadena. He has been on the faculty of the Otis Parsons Art Institute in Los Angeles and the Academy of Art in San Francisco.

Kenton Nelson Studio Tour

January 29, 2011
Pasadena

The artist will open his studio and grounds for public tours after the lecture.

2010

J.H. Dearle, Design for wallpaper “Seaweed,” ca. 1900, watercolor and graphite on paper, Courtesy of the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California.

Patterns for a Movement: The Arts & Crafts in England and Scotland

Lecture by Anne Mallek
November 6, 2010

Craftsman-designer William Morris wrote, “No pattern should be without some sort of meaning.” The Arts and Crafts Movement, which had its beginning in Great Britain, was inspired by the idea that objects (and architecture) could be imbued with a moral as well as functional purpose – that a kind of spiritual handshake occurred between the maker and user of a piece when it was handmade, or when care and attention were given to choice of materials and manner of production. This lecture will investigate the patterns and patternmakers of a movement that transformed the history of craft, and which in turn created a pattern for successors in America to follow.

Anne Mallek is currently the curator at The Gamble House. Previously, she worked at The Huntington Library, where she was responsible for cataloguing and researching their extensive collection of William Morris and Morris & Company material. In 2002, Anne curated the exhibition William Morris: Creating the Useful and the Beautiful at The Huntington, and also helped to research and prepare the 2004 exhibition The Beauty of Life: William Morris and the Art of Design along with its accompanying publication.

She received her BA from Lincoln College, Oxford, in English Language and Literature, and her MA from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, in nineteenth-century British art. Upon completion of these programs, she also worked closely with the collections of two Victorian house museums in London, Leighton House Museum and Linley Sambourne House.

BETWEEN SAND AND SKY: The Architecture of Palm Springs

September 25 & 26, 2010

Our guide, Robert Imber, is “the undisputed expert on midcentury modern architecture in Palm Springs” (Westways Magazine). Join us as Robert guides us through the totally boss and hip world of Palm Springs in the 50’s and 60’s.

Tour: Lloyd Wright Homes

Saturday, May 8, 2010 • 10am–4pm
Locations: 3 Lloyd Wright homes in the Los Angeles area.

Tour 3 rarely seen Lloyd Wright homes in the Los Angeles area: an exotic concrete block house with a mysterious past, and upscale version of a Usonian, and a hillside house with Native American themes.

Before Frank Lloyd Wright first built in Los Angeles, his eldest son, Lloyd Wright, moved to the city where he would practice architecture for the rest of his life. Lloyd Wright designed buildings and landscapes in the spirit of his father’s revolutionary ideas, but infused with the brash vitality of Southern California. From his spectacular houses of the 1920s to orchestral shells for the Hollywood Bowl to the celebrated Wayfarers Chapel, Lloyd Wright’s buildings are as theatrical as stage sets, yet his work remains under-appreciated today.

Lloyd Wright’s Sowden House. Courtesy of TempleHome.

Lloyd Wright: Architect of Sunshine and Shadow

Lecture by Dana Hutt
Saturday, May 1, 2010

Before Frank Lloyd Wright first built in Los Angeles, his eldest son, Lloyd Wright, moved to the city where he would practice architecture for the rest of his life. Lloyd Wright designed buildings and landscapes in the spirit of his father’s revolutionary ideas, but infused with the brash vitality of Southern California. From his spectacular houses of the 1920s to orchestral shells for the Hollywood Bowl to the celebrated Wayfarers Chapel, Lloyd Wright’s buildings are as theatrical as stage sets, yet his work remains under-appreciated today.

Dana Hutt will highlight Wright’s efforts to create an architecture unique to Southern California, his experimentation with materials and new building technologies, and his most significant works in a career that spanned 6 decades.

Dana Hutt is co-author of Lloyd Wright: The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright Jr. (Harry N. Abrams, 1998). An architectural historian and writer, she is currently editor of SCI-Arc Press at the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles.

Rufus B. Keeler Home

March 20, 2010

This is a rare opportunity to tour the Spanish Colonial Revival home of Rufus B. Keeler, founder of both Calco and Malibu Tile. A key focal point is a magnificent fireplace, 9 feet tall and 8 feet wide, which was inspired by the main panel of the Temple of the Cross, at Palenque, and is a magnificent example of the Ancient Mayan Revival style popular at that time.

Calco tile wainscoting, from the entry hall at Rufus Keeler home. Courtesy of Brian Kaiser.

Everlasting Tile: The Life and Work of Rufus B. Keeler

Lecture by Brian Kaiser
March 13, 2010

Brian Kaiser will present the life and works of Rufus B. Keeler, founder, plant manager, and sole ceramist of the Calco (1923-1932) and Malibu potteries (1926-1932). Keeler’s mastery of the medium contributed to many historic locations throughout Los Angeles; such as the Natural History Museum; “Dias Dorados” in Beverly Hills, the home of Thomas Ince; “Ocean House”, the beach home of Marion Davies and William Randolph Hearst; City Hall; the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel; The Mayan Theatre; and Rindge Castle in Malibu.

The primary emphasis of this lecture will be on Keeler’s own home, designed and built by Keeler himself in 1924 and made entirely of Calco tile. This Spanish Colonial Revival was meant to be a showcase for the use of clay products in home construction and decoration, and still stands as a magnificent example of Keeler’s artistry.

Brian Kaiser has owned the Rufus Keeler home since 1987. Kaiser has extensively researched Keeler’s life, conducted many interviews with the Keeler family, spending several years excavating the original Calco Pottery site and is responsible for the discovery and restoration of the original Malibu tile wall fountain in the blossom ballroom at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.

Cinco de Mayo Rose

Roses and the Arts & Crafts Movement

Lecture by Tom Carruth
January 23, 2010

The arts-and-crafts movement of the late 19th and early 20th century was inspired by the writings of John Ruskin and a romantic idealization of the craftsman taking pride in his personal handiwork. Present in works such as detailed William Morris textiles, stylized Charles Rennie Mackintosh furnishings and the “cottage” garden designs of Gertrude Jekyll, the rose is the enduring symbol of the romantic notions of the movement.

Tom will discuss the roses found in the imagery of the arts and crafts movement, revealing their ancestry to the modern roses of today. He’ll share the secrets of the mechanics of rose hybridizing and give us a peek into the rose ‘future’. We all know of Pasadena’s history as the City of Roses. Tom will explain why our lovely climate is one of the best rose gardening areas in the nation and provide a list of low maintenance roses specifically selected for us.

Tom Carruth has worked in the rose industry in California since 1975, training under and working with the late Bill Warriner of Jackson & Perkins Co. in Tustin, CA (3 years) and Jack Christensen of the former Armstrong’s Nursery in Ontario, CA (7 years). He is currently in charge of the rose hybridizing effort as Director of Research at Weeks Roses in Pomona, CA. Tom has over 60 rose patents that bear his name as the inventor. Among those hybrids are ‘Betty Boop’, ‘Fourth of July’ and ‘Julia Child’.

2009

adDRESSING Titanic: Appearance and Identity in 1912

Lecture by Kevin Jones
November 14, 2009

There are many stories about the 2,227 people who survived or perished in the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912. Though they were joined together for this one ill-fated voyage, each passenger’s social identity was revealed by his or her sartorial appearance in a microcosm of European class-consciousness. This lecture will examine the 4 categories the passengers had to fit into: First Class, Second Class, Steerage, or Crew. The ship carried many individuals associated with the fashion world — from high society, to industry trade, to journalism — and some of the most well-known will be discussed, along with garments and accessories known to have been worn aboard, survived, or have been recovered from the wreck site.

Kevin Jones is curator of the FIDM Museum at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, Los Angeles. Born in Ventura, California, Kevin studied fashion design at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising and art history at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His fashion and social history expertise encompasses the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.

Betsy Bloomingdale, 1969. Photo: Nicholas Ackerman. Courtesy of
Mrs. Alfred Bloomingdale, FIDM Museum.

High Style: Betsy Bloomingdale and the Haute Couture

Special exhibit tour with curator Kevin Jones
November 14, 2009

This exhibition celebrates a donation of 125 haute couture garments given to the FIDM Museum over 30 years by International Best Dressed Hall of Fame icon Betsy Bloomingdale. Mrs. Bloomingdale, wife of Alfred P. Bloomingdale — an heir to Bloomingdale’s department stores and founder of Diners Club credit cards — purchased French haute couture from 1961 to 1996. Her couture wardrobe included designs by Marc Bohan and Gianfranco Ferré for Christian Dior, Hubert de Givenchy, Pierre Balmain, Yves Saint Laurent, and André Courrèges, along with ready-to-wear by James Galanos, Adolfo Sardina, Oscar de la Renta, and Valentino Garavani. This exhibition includes 60 ensembles and describes the process of couture, showcases her favorite designers, and examines her personal style and lifestyle. The exhibition also includes hand drawn croquis (colored sketches with attached fabric swatches), contemporary photographs of Mrs. Bloomingdale at many international events (including the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana), as well as magazine layouts illustrating garments she ordered photographed by famed photographers.

A live comedy performance by the King of Retro sure to get you in the mood for all the holidays like you never have before!

Saturday December 5, 2009
At the Neighborhood Church, 301 North Orange Grove Blvd., Pasadena, California 91103

King of Retro, Charles Phoenix returns to spread holiday cheer with a slyly entertaining live comedy performance that celebrates mid-century holiday life and style. With his unstoppable enthusiasm and wry, eagle eye for the very best and most bizarre of his massive collection of found-Kodachrome slides, Phoenix supercharges the classic living room slide show into a hysterical/historical celebration of American holiday life and style. It’s a 1950s & 60s New Years, Easter, 4th of July, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas jubilee that’s sure to get you in the mood for the all the holidays like you never have before! IN COLOR!

Bandini House, Greene & Greene

U Are Here: Roots of the California House

Saturday, October 24, 2009
As part of the Art & Ideas Festival, entitled “Origins,” Gamble House Director Ted Bosley joins Roberta Martinez and Dr. Robert W. Winter, discussing how Pasadena’s early settlers embraced a new generation of courtyard houses that promised to re-make the idea of “home” in California.

Little Journeys to Roycrofters, Rustic Camps, and Buffalo

The Arts and Crafts in New York
September 10–17, 2009

Join Ted Bosley, Director of The Gamble House, for an architectural study tour to explore the Arts and Crafts movement in upstate New York during its most beautiful season.

We’ll visit East Aurora, home of the Roycrofters, as well as nearby Buffalo, where Frank Lloyd Wright’s Darwin Martin house, among other architectural gems, has just been lovingly restored. Next stop is Lake Placid and other towns in the Adirondack Park for visits to the rustic “camps” that were turn-of-the-century resort homes of the wealthy.

Hearst Castle, San Simeon, California, photo by Lisa Reitzel

The Gardens of Hearst Castle

Victoria Kastner
Saturday, May 16, 2009

Victoria Kastner will provide the first in-depth look at San Simeon’s landscape, examining the influence of the Arts & Crafts movement on its design. She will detail the garden’s history as well as discuss its wider meaning in early 20th century California. Specifically, she will:

• Analyze Julia Morgan’s unrecognized work as William Randolph Hearst’s landscape architect
• Discuss the contributions of Bernard Maybeck and other Arts & Crafts architects to San Simeon’s garden design
• Link San Simeon to other landscape-related events in California, including the University of California’s campus design, the restoration of the missions, the preservation of the redwoods, and the two 1915 California World’s Fairs

Victoria Kastner is the historian at Hearst Castle and author of “Hearst Castle: The Biography of a Country House” (2000) and the upcoming “Hearst’s San Simeon: The Gardens and the Land.” She has lectured nationwide on San Simeon.

Jennifer Cheung and Steve Nilsson
San Rafael Estate Garden, Pasadena, California.

TOUR: The Gardens of a San Rafael Estate

Led by Heather Lenkin, AIA, ASLA
Saturday, May 16, 2009

Indulge in the romance of a bygone era amid the restored grounds of a 1919 Reginald Johnson Mediterranean Revival estate along Pasadena’s Arroyo Seco in the San Rafael Hills. Landscape architect Heather Lenkin will share her insights into the designs, details and plant materials that make up the property’s cultivated spaces including a walled orchard, rose garden, spring garden, desert-inspired “inferno garden” and a delightful secret garden. Refreshments will be served.

Heather Lenkin, AIA, ASLA will discuss her landscape design, renovation and restoration of this 1919 Reginald Johnson designed mansion whose gardens were originally created by renowned landscape architect Paul Thiene. Thiene was responsible for many famous gardens in southern California including the Doheny Greystone garden, as well as the 1915 Panama-California World Exposition in San Diego.

President of Lenkin Design in Pasadena, Heather Lenkin is a two-time winner of the Golden Trowel Award from Garden Design magazine honoring excellence in creating “America’s Best Gardens.” Her own gardens were selected by Fine Gardening magazine as “One of the Ten Great Gardens in the United States,” and by Japanese public television as “One of the Great Gardens of the World.”

Hidden Valley in Moab, Utah, completed 2007; photo by Joe Fletcher

Prefab Housing: From Craftsman to Contemporary

Leo Marmol
Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Leo Marmol will provide an overview on the history of prefab architecture and will discuss Marmol Radziner Prefab’s ongoing quest to explore the feasibility of creating modern, well-constructed homes within the constraints of a factory. Highlights will include:

• A look at the history of prefab architecture
• An overview of past Marmol Radziner Prefab projects from design to installation
• An exploration of the efficiencies gained by building homes within a factory
• Leo Marmol, FAIA, is the managing principal of the design/build firm Marmol Radziner + Associates. In 2005, the company launched Marmol Radziner Prefab to create green, modular homes that are built in its factory and delivered complete.

Luer Quality Meat rocket, 1956, courtesy of the Charles Phoenix Collection

Charles Phoenix’s Southern Californialand!

Presentation by Charles Phoenix
Thursday, March 19, 2009

A slide show by “histo-tainer” Charles Phoenix celebrates how locals lived, shopped, worked, played and partied in the 1950s and ’60s. Charles’ spectacular collection of Kodachrome slides together with his informed commentary, quick wit and keen eye for detail are sure to give you a whole new appreciation for the place he calls Southern Californialand.

Tiffany Studios, Wisteria lamp; designed by Clara Driscoll, ca. 1901, photo courtesy of Collection of the New-York Historical Society

The Women of Tiffany Studios

Lecture by Margaret K. Hofer
Saturday, January 31, 2009

Margaret K. Hofer will discuss new groundbreaking research on the role of women in the design and manufacture of Tiffany Studios’ famous leaded-glass lamps. The recently discovered correspondence of Clara Driscoll has revealed that it was Driscoll who designed many of the firm’s iconic lamps, including the Wisteria, Dragonfly and Peony. Ms. Hofer will discuss how:

• Louis C. Tiffany believed that women had an innate sense of color and design and relied on the women’s glass-cutting department to select glass for many lamps and windows – and paid them on the same scale as the men.
• Rivalry between the men’s and women’s departments created tension at Tiffany Studios, resulting in a strike by unionized male glass cutters in 1903.

Margaret K. Hofer, curator of decorative arts at the New-York Historical Society, co-curated its 2007 exhibition “A New Light on Tiffany: Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Girls” with Martin Eidelberg and Nina Gray.

2008

Teremok, by Sergei Malyutin; Talashkino estate, near Smolensk, Russia, 1901, photo courtesy of Rosalind P. Blakesley

From Britain to Russia: An International View of the Arts & Crafts Movement

Rosalind P. Blakesley
Friday, November 7, 2008

The Arts & Crafts Movement was one of enormous intellectual ambition, encompassing everything from menus in Moscow to chic domestic architecture in the United States. The lecture will:

• Examine some of the great British figures, including William Morris and Charles Robert Ashbee
• Follow the movement’s little-known but fascinating progress in Russia
• Provide a context for America’s unique contribution, not least The Gamble House

Dr. Rosalind P. Blakesley, senior lecturer in the history of art at the University of Cambridge, was a consultant for “International Arts and Crafts” (2005) at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and is the author of several books including “The Arts and Crafts Movement” (2006).

A “New and Native” Beauty: The Art and Craft of Greene & Greene

October 18, 2008 – January 26, 2009
Centennial 1908-2008
At The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens

The Gamble House, USC, in partnership with The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California, created and presented the most comprehensive exhibition ever undertaken on the work of Arts and Crafts legends Charles Sumner Greene and Henry Mather Greene — the first such exhibition to travel outside of California.

“A ‘New and Native’ Beauty: The Art and Craft of Greene & Greene” opened at the Huntington on Oct. 18, 2008 and was on exhibit through Jan. 26, 2009. This landmark exhibition now travels to the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C. (March 13- June 7, 2009), and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (July 14-October 18, 2009).

Historic photo of The Gamble House.

Seeing Greene & Greene: Architecture in Photographs

Pasadena Museum of California Art
September 28, 2008 – January 4, 2009

The exhibition interprets the architecture and landscape work of Greene & Greene through the lenses of 20th century photographers. Images, many being seen for the first time in public, span the century from soft-focus pictorialism, to architectural spatial relationships, to fine art photography. Photographers include Leroy Hulbert, Maynard Parker, Minor White, William Current and others.

Living Beautifully: Greene & Greene in Pasadena

Pasadena Museum of History
August 16, 2008 – January 4, 2009

This exhibition of personal objects, documents, and family photographs explores the lives of Charles and Henry Greene, and their collaborators. Drafting instruments, wood carving tools, shop drawings, and other artifacts of the partnership show how the Greenes worked with their craftsmen, including John and Peter Hall.

Aesthetes, Bohemians & Craftsmen: Artistic Dress, 1880s-1920s

Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising
May 20 – July 2, 2008

A second exhibition, curated by FIDM at their downtown Museum and Galleries, will explore the artistic dress movement over a forty-year time span of changing morals and attitudes relating to dress and positions in society. Examples of Greene and Greene decorative arts and others from the period will set the scene in the galleries. The exhibition will open on May 19, 2008 and continue through July 3, 2008.

Make Music Pasadena

June 21, 2008

Experience the city filled with music. Over 100 free concerts, six main stages, and other small and unusual locations. The Gamble House will feature two acoustic music groups on the rear terrace:

From 12:30 – 1:15 — Kaedmon
“Kaedmon plays sweet and grooving Celtic music with decided Beatle-esque, pop music influences. They craft precise harmonies and instrumental arrangements.” The band is made up of songwriters and multi-instrumentalists writing songs with a diverse range of instrumentation ranging from guitar and mandolin to box drum and pennywhistle . . . think Americana with a whistle.

From 1:45 – 2:30 — Banna Beag Mall
Banna Beag Mall is an eclectic Celtic-influenced acoustic band with local roots playing everything from Irish and Scottish music to Italian, Latin American, country and punk rock music. They play fast or slow as the mood strikes them, but always with feeling. Their musical styles cover a thousand years, from medieval harmonics to socially relevant hip-hop. They sing in six languages: English, Spanish, Italian, Cajun French and 2 dialects of Gaelic. There’s something for everyone.

Fashionable Dress in an Artistic Landmark

April 13 – June 8, 2008

For 6 glorious weeks, The Gamble House can be viewed both as an architectural masterpiece and as a private home. 12 mannequins dressed in 1908 fashions and accessories, representing David and Mary Gamble, their children, aunt Julia, household staff, Charles Greene and visitors will be on view inside the House.

This very unusual exhibition featuring the House as a family home, consists of mannequins located in several rooms and placed in vignettes. Mr. David Gamble is in the living room wearing a silk dressing gown along with Charles Greene in a pinstripe shirt with drawings under his arm. Mrs. Mary Gamble can be seen in the dining room wearing an exquisite afternoon frock and her sister, Julia Huggins, is seated in her bedroom in a wicker rocking chair in a slightly out-of-date dress. 2 of the sons are dressed for sport activity, there is a gentleman in the downstairs guest bedroom bathroom less than fully dressed, and a uniformed household member, to mention a few. The House feels as if the family is in residence.

The exhibition is curated by FIDM/Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising Museum & Galleries from their collection of over 12,000 costumes. This exciting partnership is a 3-phase celebration of The Gamble House Centennial 1908-2008. Phase 2 is “Aesthetes, Bohemians & Craftsmen: Artistic Dress, 1880s-1920s. The 3rd phase of the celebration is a one-day Artistic Dress conference at FIDM on May 31. See details below.

To view The Gamble House and the family in their 1908 attire, join one of our regular docent-led tours, Thursday-Sunday from noon – 3 p.m. (last admission). For tour hours and fees, to arrange a private group tour or one of our special Behind The Velvet Ropes tours please visit the Tour page on this website.

Kevin Jones, exhibition curator, commented that the contrast between how the Gambles dressed and what the 30,000 or so annual visitors to the house often wear today serves as a reminder of the age of the House. In 1908 when the house was built by Charles and Henry Greene for David and Mary Gamble it was ahead of the times, but, judging from family photographs, he said, “their clothes were typical, conventional, not haute-couture, and quite comfortable. The Gambles would have found people wearing shorts and T-shirts quite shocking.”

Gerard Colcord: Hollywood’s Society Architect

Lecture by Bret Parsons
April 24, 2008

From 1924 through 1984, Gerard Colcord created a significant architectural legacy amid the Southern California residential landscape. He worked in a variety of styles including classic Tudor, Country French, Hollywood Regency, Spanish Hacienda and Monterey Colonial and, perhaps his best-known genre, the sprawling gentleman farmhouse.

Parsons will explore the:

• Tremendous architectural variety of Colcord’s work;
• Motion pictures in which his homes played a starring role;
• Anatomy of the beloved “Colcord farmhouse”;
• Keys to the architect’s success.
• The author of Gerard Colcord: Hollywood’s Society Architect, Bret Parsons spent 18 years in the architecture and design industry; many in the executive suite at Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles. During that time he co-published three design trade books and wrote monthly architecture and design columns.

Tour it: Design for Elegant Living
April 26, 2008
Tour (self-drive) three classic Colcord residences in the Pasadena/San Fernando Valley area. These sprawling country estates feature lavish gardens, half-timbered walls and hand-carved detailing – all throwbacks to an era of style and panache. An elegant, country lunch (available for purchase) will be served in the garden.

Christine Casey, Irish Scholar, lectures at The Gamble House

March 27, 2008

Visit Dublin as an architect, tourist, or armchair traveller under the guidance of noted Irish scholar Christine Casey, as she reveals the City of Dublin’s churches, public buildings, streets, canals and private homes, at an illustrated lecture.

Casey’s views of Dublin from Gothic to 21st century will come to life in the setting of the 100-year old Gamble House in Pasadena. She will feature grand 18th century set pieces, Georgian cityscapes, commercial Victorian architecture, post-war buildings, and a new generation of Irish architects.

This special lecture is co-sponsored by the USC/Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute, USC’s Institute for British and Irish Studies, and the Huntington/USC Institute on California and the West, with additional support from The Gamble House, Caltech and the Modern Language Society.

Dr Christine Casey is a senior lecturer in the School of Art History & Cultural Policy at University College Dublin and author of the critically acclaimed Dublin: The City Within the Grand and Royal Canals, and the Circular Road, with the Phoenix Park (Yale University Press, 2005). An honorary member of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland she has served on the boards of the Irish Georgian Society and the Irish Architectural Archive and on the architectural committee of the Heritage Council.

Plein Air: From Giverny to the Arroyo

Lecture by Ronald E. Steen
March 20, 2008

Developed in late-19th century France by painters who defied convention as they carried their canvases outdoors to interpret everyday scenes shining in a natural light, the plein air technique quickly spread to the East Coast of the United States and on to Southern California.

Ronald E. Steen will chart the progress of the movement from:

• Monet and French Impressionism to
• William Merritt Chase and American Impressionism to
• Southern California’s plein air artists to
• The San Gabriel Valley and William Lees Judson.
• Ronald E. Steen, an art historian and educator, has been an instructor at California State University-Fullerton and lectured for the J. Paul Getty Museum Education Department. He is Curator of Exhibitions and Director of Programming and Education at The Judson Gallery of Contemporary and Traditional Art at Judson Studios.

Tour it: The View From Here
March 22, 2008
See Southern California through the eyes of present-day landscape and cityscape painters in this dynamic group exhibition at the Judson Gallery, 200 South Avenue 66, Los Angeles.

TOUR IT: LA MINIATURA
Cast in Concrete: Frank Lloyd Wright in Pasadena

January 26, 2008

Here is an extraordinary opportunity to tour Wright’s unique textile-block commission, La Miniatura (1923), originally envisioned as a Mayan ruin set in a jungle ravine. Rarely open to the public, this spectacular private home is a restoration in progress.

Tour the main house, a mysterious and exotic blend of wood, stone and ironwork, and Lloyd Wright’s studio building, added in 1926.

Frank Lloyd Wright said of this commission, “I would rather have built this little house than St. Peter’s in Rome” Join us for this singular opportunity.

Frank Lloyd Wright: The Southwest Legacy

Frank Henry
January 25, 2008

Frank Lloyd Wright discovered the Southwest in the latter half of his life, its vast landscapes inspiring him to produce some of his greatest works. He developed the “Romanza” style, with its unique textured concrete block houses, for Southern California in the early 1920s. While in Arizona in 1929, the drama and beauty of the desert triggered what he called “a catharsis of his spirit” and his winter home, Taliesin West, was born.

Frank Henry will highlight:

• The climatic factors that affected Wright’s organic approach to architecture;
• The biological discoveries he made that spawned new structural concepts and uses of materials;
• The overall effect of his Southwest experiences on his later work.
• After meeting Frank Lloyd Wright, Frank Henry decided to become an architect. He is currently the Studio Master at The Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture and gives tours, lectures and conducts research on the architecture of the Southwest.

2007

Pasadena Skin/Arts & Ideas Festival

October 10-31, 2007

The Gamble House, along with 21 Pasadena arts, science, cultural institutions and community organizations, will participate in the 2007 Pasadena Art & Ideas Festival—Skin, from October 10-31, Skin/Art & Ideas 2007 is a citywide cultural collaborative, issue-based arts festival, which will continue for three weeks throughout the city of Pasadena. The goal of the festival is to spark public debate around a theme, and provide multiple perspectives that are innovative and timely, as well as artistically and intellectually resonant to a diverse audience and a changing world.

Skin/Art & Ideas 2007, explores its specific theme, skin, through performances, exhibitions, films, presentations, and public conversations; commissioned, curated, and conceived by 23 of the city’s arts and science institutions and community organizations.

Among the Festival’s programs are: Art Center College of Design’s “In the Dermisphere,” which will study skin as camouflage, cultural symbol, and organ; the Pasadena Conservatory of Music exploring how human skin interacts with musical instruments; the Spitzer Science Center will demonstrate how different the world is when viewed by infrared light (all skin types look the same) with an outdoor, interactive display at One Colorado.

The Gamble House will explore and reflect on the idea of “Architecture as the Third Skin” with two lectures in the Sidney D. Gamble lecture series, sponsored by Friends of The Gamble House. “Like a Third Skin: The Leisure Architecture of Wayne McAllister” by Chris Nichols on Saturday, October 13th, will review the larger-than-life, show-off, mid-century, Southern California and surrounding region architecture from Las Vegas casinos to Bob’s Big Boy drive-in hamburger stands.

“Skin and Body: The Ambiguity of Plane and Space in Vienna 1900 Interiors” on Tuesday, October 23, 2007, when Christian Witt-Durring from Vienna will present a curator’s view of the designs of secessionist architects who set the prerequisites for European Modernism 100 years ago. Their work was later linked to international Modernism, whose high priest, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe called his architecture “skin and bones.”

Josef Hoffmann, Bergerhöhe dining-sitting room, 1899, Austria

Vienna 1900: A Most Radical Reinvention

Lecture by Christian Witt-Dörring
October 23, 2007

Gustav Klimt. Otto Wagner. Gustav Mahler. Sigmund Freud. The explosion of art, architecture, music, philosophy and science caused many to refer to Vienna in 1900 as “the experiment at the end of the world.” Out of this fin de siècle creative chaos emerged a groundbreaking design vocabulary that would set the prerequisites of modernism.

Christian Witt-Dörring will examine:

• Joseph Hoffmann and Koloman Moser’s design process in architecture and the decorative arts;
• The debate between the modern style in Vienna (as created by Otto Wagner and Adolf Loos) and international modernism.

After more then 25 years as curator of the furniture collection at the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts (M A K), Christian Witt-Dörring now runs a consulting business and is curator for decorative arts at the Neue Galerie New York.

Lawry’s the Prime Rib, 1947, Los Angeles, California. Photograph courtesy of the Chris Nichols Collection from The Leisure Architecture of Wayne McAllister.

A Place in the Sun: The Leisure Architecture of Wayne McAllister

Lecture by Chris Nichols
October 13, 2007

Wayne McAllister was an iconoclast; an unlicensed, untrained designer who created an incredible series of hotels, restaurants and nightclubs that epitomized the chrome-and-neon mood of mid-century Los Angeles and defined a fledgling Las Vegas.

In his biography and pop culture history tour of Hollywood and Las Vegas at their most glamorous, Chris Nichols will:

• Reveal how a high school student was tapped to design a $2-billion dollar project;
• Detail how McAllister “invented” Las Vegas and created the first resort hotel in the desert;
• Visit his “Fred and Ginger” nightclubs, the Streamline Moderne drive-in restaurants and his cool modernism in the hot desert.

Author of The Leisure Architecture of Wayne McAllister, Chris Nichols has helped create conferences and tours for the National Trust, California Preservation Foundation and the Los Angeles Conservancy, where he chaired the Modern Committee.

White rose garden, designed by Heather Lenkin.

Gardens of Intrigue: Greenscapes of Magic and Mystery

Lecture by Heather Lenkin
Saturday, April 28, 2007

An architect, and landscape and interior designer, Heather Lenkin will explore the natural splendor found in 21 gardens that surround her 1923 Italianate home. For 18 years she has planted, renovated, restored and rehabilitated the distinctive gardens on the 1-acre, steeply sloping hillside site to complement the home’s architecture and interior design. Multiple outdoor seating and dining areas and water features are incorporated into this plant collector’s garden, which now has more than 1,000 plant species and 10,000 bulbs. Garden Design magazine has called her work “history in the making.”

Lenkin will share her passion and award-winning garden design principles, including:

• Considerations of scale;
• Enhancing existing architecture;
• Looking to historic sources;
• Linking the interior to the exterior;
• Choosing plants sympathetic to the climate;
• Using color, structure and light.

President of Lenkin Design in Pasadena, Heather Lenkin is a two-time winner of the Golden Trowel Award from Garden Design magazine honoring excellence in creating “America’s Best Gardens.” Her alma mater, the University of Arizona, has recognized her with its Professional Achievement Award and designated an area of the Norton School as the Heather Henricks Lenkin Honor Student Center.

May House, Los Angeles; photograph by Julius Shulman, 1954. ©J. Paul Getty Trust*

California in a Container: Cliff May and the Modern Ranch House

Lecture by Daniel Gregory
March 23, 2007

You could call Cliff May the father of the suburban ranch house as more than 18,000 of them were built using his designs. The best of them managed to be both modern and traditional, celebrating a casually elegant, indoor-outdoor way of life that became synonymous with the California Dream. An early description in Sunset Magazine said it all: Cliff May’s houses “ramble almost to the point of departure, with lines as natural and satisfying as those of the hills.” In other words, the house was actually a landscape. You just had to add water.

Highlights of the lecture will include:

• Cliff May’s early career;
• His evolving brand of regional modernity;
• His inevitable discovery by the press;
• His perfection of what might be called the architectural palindrome.

Daniel Gregory is Senior Editor, Special Projects/Home for Sunset Magazine. He has contributed essays on William Wurster and Thomas Church to several books, and wrote the introduction for Greene & Greene by Marvin Rand. He is at work on a book about Cliff May’s ranch houses for Rizzoli.

MARCH 24, 2007
Additional tour: Designs on the Good Life
In a sylvan Brentwood canyon, just steps from busy Sunset Boulevard, Cliff May created what many believe to be the finest interpretation of the California lifestyle ever realized. Join us for a rare opportunity to enter this private world and experience the ultimate in “Ranch House Deluxe.”

The Rodriguez House, 1942

Rudolph M. Schindler: Architect, Builder, Theorist, Utopian

Kimberli Meyer
Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Rudolph M. Schindler left Vienna for the United States in 1914, working first in Chicago for Frank Lloyd Wright, then settling in Los Angeles. Schindler rejected not only traditional styles of architecture but also the dominant form of modernism of his day, the International Style.He believed in the continuity of architecture and life, in the relation between site and building, and in the blending of the indoors and outdoors.

In the lecture Meyer will:

• Examine Schindler’s own house and studio on Kings Road as the purest expression of his ideals and the most radical of his experiments;
• Discuss Schindler’s concept of “space architecture”;
• Explore his most important houses, all sculptural, efficient, sensual and attuned to the climate and the body.

Kimberli Meyer is an architect and the Director of the M A K Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles at the Schindler House. She is co-curator of the exhibition “The Gen(h)ome Project” (October 28, 2006-February 25, 2007) at the Schindler House in West Hollywood.

The Bridge, circa 1915, by William Lees Judson.

William Lees Judson: Craftsman at Heart, Painter by Trade

Lecture by David Judson
Thursday, January 25, 2007

From the moment his train pulled into Pasadena in December 1893, William Lees Judson knew he would never reside in another place. This pioneering painter came to Southern California to live out his days in a warm climate, only to be reinvigorated by the idealism and optimism of the day. A Civil War veteran, artistically trained in Europe, Judson would become known simply as “The Professor.” Though lesser known, this premier plein air painter would leave an artistic legacy that continues to this day.

Aspects of Judson’s life and career to be discussed include:

• His extensive travels that furthered his career as an art professor and painter;
• Judson’s role as author, professor, craftsman, activist and early environmentalist;
• His contributions to the art world of Southern California as the founder and first dean of U S C’s School of Fine Arts and the founder of the Judson stained glass studios.

Since 1997, David Judson, of the family’s fifth generation, has run the Judson Studios. He joined the firm by founding the Judson Gallery of Contemporary and Traditional Art. David has lectured extensively on Judson and stained glass and is currently working on Judson’s biography.

January 27, 2007
Additional tour: The Art and Craft of Light
The Judson Studios, founded in 1897, is the oldest stained glass studio in the United States still owned and operated by the same family. There artists continue to design, create and restore stained glass nationally and internationally. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

February 24, 2007
Additional tour: Art and Geometry
The 1942 commission for composer Jose Rodriguez in the Verdugo Woodlands of Glendale pays homage to Taliesin West. Dynamic, exposed roof rafters wrap around walls of glass. The house bridges the gently sloping lot, creating gardens that sweep up, around and beneath the structure, one of Schindler’s least-altered homes.

2006

May House, Los Angeles; photograph by Julius Shulman, 1954. ©J. Paul Getty Trust*

Modernism’s Auteur: L.A. Through the Lens of Julius Shulman

Saturday, November 4, 2006

Legendary architectural photographer Julius Shulman will discuss his body of work, including his recent project photographing the newly renovated Getty Villa in Malibu. Since 1936 Shulman has been the visual recorder of modern designs throughout 45 states of the country and internationally. His images promoted the work of numerous visionary architects worldwide.

Highlights of the presentation will include:

• The photographer’s relationship to the development of modern architecture in Los Angeles;
• The tactics, techniques and challenges of architectural photography;
• A question-and-answer session with Mr. Shulman.

2005

Architects Conrad Buff III & Donald Hensman
Home Tour & Events: A Celebration of the Work of Architect Donald Hensman

October 15, 2005

Homes for the upcoming Conrad Buff III and Donald Hensman October celebration have been announced: four homes in Pasadena, and one in Altadena, will be on the tour while another Pasadena residence will serve as the locale for the opening night reception.

Sponsored by USC School of Architecture, the Friends of the Gamble House and the Pasadena & Foothill Chapter AIA, the October 15th tour is part of a larger tribute to Buff and Hensman with events that also include a symposium and an opening night reception. The home tour will feature some of the best work of Buff and Hensman who helped define the ultra cool California modern architecture scene of the 1950-60s, says Edward Bosley, director of the Gamble House.

“Before his death in 2002, Hensman personally selected these homes as outstanding examples,” says Bosley. “They are rich in history and for those interested in modern architecture; this tour will be a great lesson in how master designers worked with materials, the surrounding landscape and the client’s needs.”

Indeed, the influence of Buff and Hensman is significant, according to Barton Anderson, president of the Pasadena & Foothill AIA. “They helped define an era with dynamic designs that are evocative of the quintessential Southern California lifestyle,” he says, adding that Buff and Hensman played an important role in articulating a regional style of “beauty, grace and what have proven to be highly sought after homes.”

Tour Date: October 15, 2005
Scheduled from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on October 15th, the shuttle tour will take ticket holders to five private Buff and Hensman homes some never before open to the public.

Opening Reception, October 14
An opening night reception at Buff and Hensman’s Peck (Shiell-Shallack) House in Pasadena at 7:30 p.m. on October 14.

Homes on the October 15 Tour

The Moseley Residence
photo Situated on a Pasadena hillside, this house features a dramatic 180-degree view of the San Gabriel Valley. The one-story house takes full advantages of its modest size with flowing spaces connecting the rooms. From the motor court, an 8-foot, carved, sliding gate serves as the dramatic entrance to the interior reflecting pool and house

The King Residence
Under the historic Colorado Street Bridge that spans the Arroyo Seco, this sheltered hideaway is true Southern California living that takes advantage of an open atmosphere with no hallways or formal separations. Outside, pathways are defined by gravel, concrete and railroad ties and the terraces are surrounded by the remains of a river-rock wall.

The Hernandez Residence
Built for a large family, this Pasadena house with an imposing view, accommodates three children’s bedrooms each complete with a study, bath and large wardrobe area. Reached by a concealed spiral staircase is an office with a balcony that overlooks the first floor and the stunning views. A spline of tan limestone leads outside to a waterfall and reflection pool.

Bass Residence, Case Study #20
Using several, innovative and prefabricated Douglas fir plywood products as part of its structural concept, this newly restored Altadena house (built from 1958-60) is based on a structural grid module of steel columns and plywood box beams. All major rooms open directly into a garden court. Diffused and cove lighting are used throughout creating warm and intimate spaces.

Conrad Buff III (Zendle/Hanson) House
Built in 1977 for himself and his wife, Buff called this modest 1,600 square-foot house Rapor. Perched on a private knoll and with views of the entire San Gabriel Valley, the house is a peaceful, secluded retreat. Materials used here are simple but elegant: redwood, teak, stucco, glass and quarry tile. Natural and artificial light are essential components of the design that includes 75 light sources in the living room alone.

About Conrad Buff III and Donald Hensman
Born in Nebraska in 1924, Donald Hensman graduated from Hollywood High School, served in the navy during World War II and entered USC School of Architecture on the GI Bill in 1948. At USC, Hensman met his collaborator of 40 years, Conrad Buff III. Born in Los Angeles, Buff also arrived at USC after wartime service in the Navy. Both were elevated to Fellowship in the AIA: Buff in 1980 and Hensman in 1982.

Like other architects who participated in the Case Study program of the ’50s and ’60s, Buff and Hensman were partial to post-and-beam construction, glass walls and floor plans that often served as elegant solutions to difficult sites. Producing an impressive body of work during their long partnership, Buff and Hensman contributed to the innovative and transformative architectural styles that were to define an era. They designed homes for many celebrities like Joan Collins, James Garner, Steve McQueen, Frank Sinatra and Paul Anka as well as the Governor’s Mansion for Ronald Reagan.

Hensman continued to work after Buff died in 1988, creating designs into the dawn of 21st Century. Hensman died in 2002 at the age of 78.

About James Steele
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Steele received his Bachelor and Master Degrees in Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania. He practiced architecture in and around Philadelphia prior to teaching in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from 1980-1990.

Steele served as the Senior Editor at Academy Editions from 1990-1991 and has been an associate professor at USC since 1991. His publications include: The Complete Works of Hassan Fathy; Los Angeles: The Contemporary Condition, Architecture Today and Architecture and Computers.

Transylvania! Arts and Crafts Movement in Hungary?

Thursday, March 31, 2005

A Gamble House lecture by Anthony Gall, author and preservation architect specializing in the work of Kos and Hungarian Arts and Crafts.
The Gamble House will present a special lecture on March 31st, by Anthony Gall, on the inspired architecture of Hungarian-Transylvanian architect/craftsman Karoly Kos and the Hungarian Arts and Crafts movement.

Gall’s illustrated lecture will discuss works of major Hungarian architects and applied artists from this period as an introduction to the work of Kos who created some of the most important vernacular-inspired masterpieces of the Hungarian Arts and Crafts period. The Budapest Zoo Pavilions, Kos’s studio home in Transylvania, and other important projects will be presented in the context of Transylvanian folk architecture, which inspired it, and emphasis will be placed on the beautiful craftsmanship and detailing which resulted from this connection. Recent renovations of the pavilions of the Budapest Zoo will also be described

At the turn of the Twentieth Century, the twin-capitals of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Vienna and Budapest were significant centers of art and architectural production. The Viennese Secession and the Hungarian “Szecesszió” both describe a new beginning, and a break with the past. Exquisite examples of work from this period can be seen at the Los Angeles County Art Museum exhibition: The Arts and Crafts Movement in Europe and America, 1880–1920: Design for the Modern World

Lecturer Anthony Gall
Anthony Gall is a Lecturer in Architecture at the University of Queensland and principal of Gall and Associates Architects in Budapest. An award-winning architect, he was Chief Architect for the Restoration of the Budapest Zoo and Botanic Gardens (a National Monument) and was awarded one of Europe’s most prestigious awards for Heritage Reconstruction (Europa Nostra) in 2000. His extensive monograph on Károly Kós, was published in 2002.

Schoenberg, Prokofieff and Joplin; music from the early 20th century.

What Did They Hear?: The Musical Landscape of the Early 20th Century

Lecture by Charles McKnight
Tuesday, April 12, 2005

The first decades of the 20th century were teeming with innovations in musical style. Russian, German, French and American composers sought to find new ways to express the dynamic nature of modern society. At the same time, many composers were taken with a nostalgia for the past. The variety of approaches to musical style, some of which will be sampled during this lecture, created an excitement about contemporary developments that is unparalleled in musical history.

McKnight will explore some of the styles and their affinities with the visual and literary arts including Impressionism, Expressionism, Primitivism, and Nationalism.

Charles McKnight is associate professor of music at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. He holds degrees in music performance and music history from Stetson University, Yale University and Cornell University. A specialist in the history of Russian music, he has done extensive research on the interaction of music and politics in the early Soviet period.

William Henry Gummer, Tauroa, Havelock North, New Zealand, 1916.

Architecture and Identity in the Southern Pacific: The New Zealand Contemporaries of Greene and Greene, 1885-1915

Lecture by Ian Lochhead
Tuesday, March 29, 2005

At the beginning of the 20th century, progressive New Zealand architects, like their American contemporaries, were searching for ways in which to express an emerging sense of national identity. As they sought to break free from the twin shackles of a dominant English tradition and 19th century historicism, they discovered in the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement a means of expressing both national and regional identities. Drawing inspiration from the work of colonial architects as well as from their British and American contemporaries, architects such as Samuel Hurst Seager, Basil Hooper and James Chapman Taylor developed a regionally distinctive Arts and Crafts architecture as yet little known beyond New Zealand.

Issues to be examined include:

• Links and parallels with contemporary British and American architecture;
• Samuel Hurst Seager’s independent development of the timber bungalow from 1900 on;
• The use of motifs derived from indigenous flora and fauna;
• Architects’ attitudes toward the art traditions of the Maori.

Ian Lochhead is associate professor of art history at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. He has written extensively on the history of New Zealand architecture, with particular emphasis on the Gothic Revival and Arts and Crafts movements. In 2000 he was Laing visiting professor of architecture at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Marsh Moon, circa 1925, by William Seltzer Rice.

The Color Woodcut and American Arts & Crafts

Lecture by David Acton
Tuesday, February 22, 2005

From the 1890s through the 1930s and beyond, the craft of color woodcut flourished in the United States as never before. Inspired by longtime European traditions, professional artists and amateurs explored the medium as a way to multiply their designs. In New England and in Northern California, others explored Asian printmaking, combining their techniques and styles with those of European art. Vivid in hue and consciously aesthetic in style, these works were immensely popular as decorative accents in Arts and Crafts-style architecture. The simplicity of their facture encouraged innovation, and the most skillful artists developed their own, highly individualized modes of working. Thus the diversity of this fashion made it distinctly American.

In a broad, lavishly illustrated survey of this period, Acton will discuss the art and its innovators:

• The technical rudiments of European and Japanese color woodcut;
• Intrepid female printmakers;
• Arthur Wesley Dow, Ernest Fenollosa and Japonisme;
• The Provincetown Print;
• Western dissemination of color woodcut;
• Gustave Baumann and the Southwest.

David Acton is curator of prints, drawings and photographs at the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts. Among his books are A Spectrum of Innovation: Color in American Printmaking 1890-1960, and monographic studies of Arthur Wesley Dow, Blanche Lazzell and Gustave Baumann.

The Joshua Melson house in Mason City, Iowa.

Building for Nature: The Architecture of Walter Burley Griffin

Lecture by Paul Kruty
Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Walter Burley Griffin (1876-1937) was the most international of the early 20th century American Modernists, with careers successively in America, Australia and India. Surpassed only by Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright in importance among Chicago’s Prairie School, his achievement exceeded theirs in its great breadth. His organic approach to design, materials and the environment—as revealed in two of his most complete projects, Rock Crest/Rock Glen in Mason City, Iowa, and Castlecrag near Sydney, Australia—were remarkably ahead of their time and continue to serve as model solutions for many contemporary problems of context and sustainability.

Among Griffin’s achievements:

• Uniting architecture, landscape architecture and urban planning into a single discipline;
• Creating an alternative organic form of modern American architecture to those of Sullivan and Wright;
• Combining the Arts and Crafts values of materiality, craftsmanship and place with modern technology and systems of construction.

Paul Kruty teaches the history of Modern and American architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The author of Frank Lloyd Wright and Midway Gardens and Walter Burley Griffin in America, he has published numerous articles on the architects of Chicago’s Prairie School, including Wright, Griffin, Robert Spencer and George Elmslie. His lecture venues have included the Griffin Society of Australia, the Frank LloydWright Home & Studio Foundation and the Arts and Crafts conference in Perry, Iowa.

2004

Organic Beauty: Japanese-Style Gardens for Arts & Crafts Houses

Lecture by Kendall H. Brown
Tuesday, November 30, 2004

In the first decades of the 20th century, Japanese-style gardens were built across North America. Popularized at world’s fairs and other commercial venues, these gardens were soon used residentially, adorning the great estates of the wealthy and the humble bungalows of the middle class. Yet nowhere did the Japanese garden find a more congenial setting than at Arts and Crafts houses, where Japanese aesthetics and motifs were integral to the design.

Characteristics of these gardens include:

• Integration of the garden with the residence;
• Dramatic use of architectural and ornamental elements;
• Emphasis on organic, “natural” features;
• Conception of Japanese culture as an antidote to industrialization.

Kendall H. Brown is associate professor of Asian art history in the department of art at California State University, Long Beach, and adjunct curator of Japanese art at the Pacific Asia Museum. He has published widely on the subject including the book Japanese-Style Gardens of the Pacific West Coast. He is currently a fellow in landscape history at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., where he is writing a book on the social history of Japanese-style gardens in North America.

Radical but Reserved: The Englishness of English Arts & Crafts

Lecture by Alan Crawford
Tuesday, October 19, 2004

The Arts and Crafts movement got its start in England, with the writings of John Ruskin and the example of William Morris, and we often think of it as having spread from England to other countries. But, as the forthcoming Arts and Crafts exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art will make clear, the movement was not simply an English export: It was Belgian in Belgium, Finnish in Finland, American in America. It was also peculiarly English in England, and Crawford will explore its main features there including:

• A vague but powerful anti-industrialism;
• An emphasis on method and substance in design, reacting against the superficiality of commercial decorative art;
• Love of the countryside;
• Close links with the upper and upper-middle classes.

Alan Crawford lives in London where he is a freelance historian specializing in British architecture and decorative arts in the decades around 1900. He is the author of C.R. Ashbee: Architect, Designer and Romantic Socialist and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and is currently working on a book about the Arts and Crafts movement in England.