Research Catalog

Title

Backyard oasis : the swimming pool in Southern California photography, 1945-1982 / edited by Daniell Cornell ; research team essays, Daniell Cornell [and others] ; with a contribution by Robert Atkins.

Publication

Palm Springs, Calif. : Palm Springs Art Museum and DelMonico Books, 2012.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Cornell, Daniell.
• Palm Springs Art Museum.

Description

256 pages : illustrations; 29 cm

Summary

"Southern California's pool culture is the subject of this unique and luscious collection of photographs that explore the parallel evolution of an iconic symbol and an artistic genre. Since the end of World War II, Southern California's backyard pools--those blue-green oases in an otherwise often arid landscape--have symbolized any number of American ideals: optimism, wealth, consumerism, escape, physical beauty, and the triumph of people over nature. Simultaneously, the field of photography developed as a transformative method for recording the human condition. This exhibition catalog celebrates the nexus of these two phenomena in a one-of -kind collection that features more than two hundred works by more than forty postwar artists and photographers. It presents works by photographers and artists including Bill Anderson, John Baldessari, Ruth Bernhard, David Hockney, Herb Ritts, Ed Ruscha, Julius Shulman, and Larry Sultan. Thematically grouped into topics ranging from the rise of celebrity culture, suburbia and dystopia, avant garde architectural landscape design, and the cult of the body, these images offer a rich study of the cultural connotations of the swimming pool. Six insightful essays provide a comprehensive overview of the development of the swimming pool and its attendant aesthetic and social culture."--P [4] of cover.

Subjects

• Swimming pools > Social aspects > United States > Exhibitions
• Swimming pools > California > Pictorial works > Exhibitions
• Portrait photography > California > Exhibitions
• Landscape photography > California > Exhibitions
• Architectural photography > California > Exhibitions

Genre/Form

• illustrated books.
• exhibition catalogs.
• Exhibition catalogs.
• Exhibition, pictorial works.
• Illustrated works.
• Ouvrages illustrés.
• Catalogues d'exposition.

Note

• Published on the occasion of an exhibition held at Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, California, January 21-May 27, 2012.
• "Pacific Standard Time: art in L.A., 1945-1980"--T.p. verso.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 248-249) and index.

Contents

Introduction : Swimming in the American dream / Daniell Cornell -- Exposed desires : poolside reflections on celebrity / Daniell Cornell -- Swimming alone : the backyard pool in Cold War California / Jennifer A. Watts -- Designing nature : the pool in the garden / Robert Stearns -- From beefcake to skatecake : shifting depictions of masculinity and the backyard swimming pool in southern California / Tyler Stallings -- My beach boyhood : a personal history of southern California in the 1960s / Robert Atkins -- Hole : swimming... floating... sinking... drowning / Dick Hebdige

ISBN

• 9783791351766
• 3791351761

LCCN

2011039304

OCLC

• ocn755080553
• 755080553
• SCSB-1627105

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library