Inside LA’s Most Iconic Modernist Home, Case Study House #22

Getty Art + Ideas
Getty Art + Ideas
Inside LA’s Most Iconic Modernist Home, Case Study House #22
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“Buck wanted to stand in every room from his house, turn his head, and see every view. Even the bathroom. And so that was kind of what inspired the design of the house.”

Among the most famous photographs of modern architecture is Julius Shulman’s picture of Case Study House #22, also known as the Stahl House after the family that commissioned it. Two girls in white dresses sit inside a glass cube that seems to float atop a cliff over the illuminated grid of Los Angeles at night. Built by a family with a “beer budget and champagne tastes,” the two-bedroom home designed by architect Pierre Koenig changed residential design in LA. While Shulman’s image and others of the building have appeared in countless publications, advertisements, films, and TV shows, the story of how the house came to be and what it was like to live there is less well known.

In this episode, Bruce Stahl and Shari Stahl Gronwald and writer Kim Cross discuss the story of how Case Study House #22 came to be and share personal stories about what it was like to grow up and live in the home, from roller skating across the concrete floors to diving off the roof into the pool. Stahl, Gronwald, and Cross are co-authors of the recent book The Stahl House: Case Study House #22; The Making of a Modernist Icon.

To buy the book The Stahl House: Case Study House #22; The Making of a Modernist Icon, visit https://shop.getty.edu/products/the-stahl-house-case-study-house-22-the-making-of-a-modernist-icon

Hans Holbein the Younger’s Captivating Portraits

Getty Art + Ideas
Getty Art + Ideas
Hans Holbein the Younger’s Captivating Portraits
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“Holbein was able to combine his ability to create a very believable likeness with these strong design sensibilities, and also an ingenuity, a cleverness, a creativity to create individual portraits of specificity and complexity.”

Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/98–1543) depicted some of the most important thinkers and politicians of his day in beautiful, highly individualized portraits. In Basel, he socialized with and painted humanists such as Desiderius Erasmus and Bonifacius Amerbach. In London, he captured nobles and high-ranking officials like Thomas Cromwell and Thomas More. He even became court painter to King Henry VIII in 1536. Holbein also painted many noblewomen, a somewhat unusual practice at the time, paying particular attention to their style of dress.

In this episode, Getty paintings curator Anne Woollett discusses the exhibition Holbein: Capturing Character in the Renaissance, the first large-scale presentation of Holbein’s work in the United States. Woollett highlights key works in the exhibition, placing them in the context of Holbein’s milieu and career. The exhibition is on view at the Getty Center through January 9, 2022 before traveling to the Morgan Library & Museum, New York, in February 2022.

To buy the book Holbein: Capturing Character, visit https://shop.getty.edu/products/holbein-capturing-character-978-1606067475

To explore the exhibition Holbein: Capturing Character in the Renaissance, visit https://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/holbein/index.html