The Panafold | Publications

Eight decades after her death, the multi-hyphenate Galka Scheyer is having a moment. She’d be thrilled.

In February, Dear Little Friend: Impressions of Galka Scheyer, an exhibition devoted to the curator, art dealer, and impresario who brought European Modernism to the West Coast, opened at the Norton Simon Museum. And this spring, at her Richard Neutra–designed home on Blue Heights Drive in the Hollywood Hills, Okey Dokey Konrad Fischer and Del Vaz Projects presented Wunderkammer, a site-specific installation by contemporary artist Rita McBride.

My own introduction to Scheyer came in the form of a small black-and-white snapshot in the archives of R.M. Schindler. Taken in 1931, it shows her reclined on a daybed stacked with pillows. She’s framed by a grid of windows—Schindler’s Kings Road House in West Hollywood, where she lived for a short time. I was conducting research on Pauline Gibling Schindler, best known as the architect’s wife, who in recent years has reemerged back into the history of modernism as a creative force in her own right. Read More …

In 1971, the American Institute of Architects awarded the prestigious AIA Industrial Arts Medal to self-proclaimed “potter” Edith Heath. It was the first time the organization had bestowed such recognition on a ceramicist.

Heath, the remarkable founder of the Sausalito-based Heath Ceramics, is probably better known for midcentury homewares. Her earthen tableware captures a casual West Coast modernism in hues drawn from California’s landscape. Her company was founded in 1947, and most design aficionados have a Heath bud vase or generous serving bowl in their collection. Yet the AIA recognition shed light on what was then an emerging and exciting facet of her practice—architectural tile. “Heath Ceramics have become integral parts of architecture in installations across the United States,” noted the jury.

Mimi Zeiger

Critic, editor, curator and instigator.

Avant Guardian

How Galka Scheyer Brought European Modernism to the West Coast

A Legacy in Clay

The Norton Simon Museum’s newly-restored façade reestablishes Edith Heath’s enduring influence on modern architecture