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

Midcentury aficionados, better book a room at the Hotel San Jose (or a friend's couch), because you've gotta see this show at Austin's Blanton Museum of Art.
The exhibit, which takes its name from a 1957 Miles Davis compilation album, features more than 200 objects, including: Eames furniture, films, and archival materials; Noguchi sculpture; Julius Shulman's Case Study House photos showcasing the architecture of Richard Neutra, Pierre Koenig and others; fantastic abstract paintings ... oh, just hit the link. The show continues through May 17.

above Julius Shulman photograph of Case Study House #22, (Pierre Koenig, architect, Los Angeles, 1959-60) right Karl Benjamin's Black Pillars,(1957) 48 x 24 inches, oil on canvas

Design Within Reach

The rumor is that Design Within Reach is opening a store in Fort Worth, on West Seventh. Hey, DWR, what took ya so long?

Yates-Ottmann Building in Fort Worth

Fort Worth actually may be waking up to the realization that it needs to protect its midcentury architecture: The Yates-Ottman Building, 1020 Summit Ave. (north of the Hospital District and I-30) has been designated one of the city's historic and cultural landmarks. Historic Fort Worth, Inc. recently decided to try to educate the public about these local treasures, and getting the Landmarks Commission's seal of approval is a big step forward.
Thank you, HFW! But you've got your work cut out for you, having to outrun the bulldozers and the builders of faux-Tuscan McMansions. (We've lost so much history already.)

Craigslist Furniture Update

It's high time we indulged our sweet tooth with a dose of retro eye candy!

1950s Bar with Three Stools, $350:


Suddenly, I have an overwhelming desire for a Haleukelani Cocktail ...

Midcentury side tables, $75 each:

They're just begging for a fantastic Raymor lamp, maybe some Stig Lindberg ceramics. Hope they have more luck than I've had!

Midcentury Steelcase Metal Desk, $125:

Cool American beauty. Makes one feel downright patriotic.

RIP - Blossom Dearie

Blossom Dearie, the great jazz vocalist with the little girl voice, died Saturday at age 82. New Yorker critic Whitney Balliett once said that her tiny wisp of a voice "would scarcely reach the second storey of a doll's house," but her phrasing was as sophisticated as anything the great Frank Sinatra crafted. Watch her above on The Jack Paar Show in the early '60s.

3900 Bellaire Drive, Fort Worth, Part Deux

Our inner Gladys Kravitz took over when, a few days after we wrote about our lust crush on this baby (scroll down a few posts), an "Open House" sign appeared! We had to see the inside, along with quite a few other gawkers, including a couple of architecture students.

The gate to the back entry. Every home should come with its own 2-foot-tall Egyptian-style guards. The only way I would've loved this more is if the little guys had hopped down and whipped me up a Rusty Nail.


Buttah. A gorgeous, gleaming terrazzo floor that (we heard) extends the length of the house, much of it under the carpet.



Life would be so much simpler with an intercom system like this.
"Nick, darling, could you bring more cracked ice to the rumpus room?"

Plant your rubber tree in this corner while belting out "High Hopes."

Robsjohn-Gibbings Mesa Coffee Table

Every collector has a Holy Grail, an item you dream of finding when you walk into an estate sale. This is mine: the T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings Mesa Coffee Table. This one pictured above sold at auction last fall for $66,000! To put that in context, in 2002, you could have bought that table at auction for less than $20,000. Would that I could have a 401(k) that could do that. But such is the demand for Robsjohn-Gibbings furniture -- it's little known by most estate sale hounds, but crazy sought-after by collectors.

Of course, then there's the one that got away -- the Robsjohn-Gibbings tripod tables. This pair here is going for $5,600, refinished. I saw a pair at an estate sale on Warnock in South Fort Worth for $10 apiece. They had already sold. I cried a little that day.