American Contemporary Gallery&raquo;Pacific Standard Time at the Getty

Delve into the postwar Los Angeles art world in this online archive, which provides additional material related to the exhibitions on view at the Getty Center. Learn about hipsters and happenings, and the venues across the city where all the action took place through images from the archives and first-hand accounts with the artists.

American Contemporary Gallery

Interior view of Barbara Byrnes's American Contemporary Gallery in Hollywood in the late 1940s. Image courtesy of James Byrnes

In the late 1940s, the American Contemporary Gallery was an exhibition space at this location, in a little courtyard on Hollywood Boulevard run by Barbara Byrnes and Clara Grossman. Its exhibitions featured paintings, sculptures, and graphics by avant-garde European artists, such as Man Ray, who moved to Los Angeles during the Second World War. The gallery also hosted screenings of experimental films by Man Ray, Oskar Fischinger, James and John Whitney, and others.