LAMA’s 50th
Los Angeles Modern Auctions (LAMA), headquartered in a 17,000-square-foot gallery in Van Nuys, California, has been steadily auctioning works by important 20th century artists, designers and architects for nearly two decades, and will hold their 50th auction on October 17, 2010. Director Peter Loughrey, who established LAMA in 1992, cites Pacific Standard Time, Art in L.A. 1945–1980—a celebration of L.A. art with concurrent exhibitions throughout California beginning in fall 2011—as an inspiration for the auction offerings. “In anticipation of the Getty-funded ‘Pacific Standard Time’ exhibitions to be held throughout California next year, the market has been yearning for great California-related modernism,” he says. Loughrey names an original Eames ECS unit, once set up in the Herman Miller Showroom by the Eames office, as an “obvious highlight,” as well as a photomural of Mies van der Rohe designs created by the late architect Craig Ellwood (exhibited at LACMA in 1969), and a desk made for Walt Disney Studios by German-born designer KEM Weber, used in the studio to create early Disney animation. And no Alexander Calder devotee should miss the numbered, signed and dated hammock he created in 1975.
To see some of our favorite picks from the auction preview, check out the slideshow.