Kem Weber The Moderne in Southern California 1920 Through 1941

University of California Press. Very Good+. 1969. Paperback. Now in a protective mylar cover. Second edition. Slight signs of use. Less than 2,000 copies printed in all three editions. First edition 600 copies, second edition 750 copies, third edition 750 copies. All editions are scarce. The Art Galleries, University of California, Santa Barbara. February 11 to March 23 1969. 113 black and white photos and drawings. Architectural historian David Gebhard showcased Kem Weber as the centerpiece of his 1969 exhibition at the University Art Museum, UCSB - the first exhibition in the United States to evaluate Art Deco and the Moderne as a design movement. This is the only book published to date exclusively on Weber designs. Includes his designs for architecture, furniture, interior design and clocks. Kem Weber (1889-1963) , a native of Berlin, travelled to America in 1914 and was stranded due to the War. He then settled in California and was active in the formative years of the California modern design community, establishing his studio in Los Angeles in 1927. His approach to design was "to make the practical more beautiful and the beautiful more practical." As an architect and industrial designer he adapted the rounded corners of the streamlined style, designing items like cocktail shakers for Friedman Silver of New York and clocks for Lawson Time Company in Alhambra between 1934-1935. Weber achieved national prominence during the 1930s when he was singled out by critics as the first on the West Coast to bring a tradition-free, machine-age creativity to American interior design. Of his famous and now classic 'Airline chair', he wrote that he was guided by the "desire to make a comfortable, hygienic and beautiful chair inexpensively." ; black and white photographs; Small 8vo 7½" - 8" tall; 107 pages .