Fun With Archives: Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Los Angeles Items

Los Angeles
Carleton E. Watkins (American, 1829–1916)
Date: 1876, printed ca. 1876

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's new Open Access for Scholarly Content now provides free access to almost 400,000 high-resolution digital images of public domain artworks from their collection. We've gone through the archives searching for Los Angeles related items that we present to you for your non-commercial enjoyment. This use is part of our longstanding digital study and survey of Los Angeles, its artists, and its history. All images via The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Thomas Brook Simmons, Bunker Hill Tower, Los Angeles, California
Sarah Charlesworth (American, 1947–2013)
In 1980 Sarah Charlesworth searched the archives of wire services and tabloid newspapers for pictures of falling figures. From a selection of seventy she rephoto-graphed seven of the grainy images and enlarged them to human scale; her subjects are transformed into semi-abstract shapes hovering in front of the grids of blurry windows.

Snake Man
Alison Saar (American, born Los Angeles, California, 1956)
Date: 1994
Medium: Woodcut and lithograph

Los Angeles, California
Garry Winogrand (American, 1928–1984)
Date: 1969, printed 1974

Concrete Block from the Charles Ennis House
Frank Lloyd Wright (American, Richland Center, Wisconsin 1867–1959 Phoenix, Arizona)
Date: ca. 1924

Nude on Sand, Oceano
Edward Weston (American, Highland Park, Illinois 1886–1958 Carmel, California)

LA-C 100
James Welling (American, born 1951)
Date: 1977, printed 2000

"Radio Nurse"
Isamu Noguchi (American, Los Angeles, California 1904–1988 New York)
Date: 1937
Medium: Bakelite
Radio Nurse was Noguchi's first major industrial commission. Together with a separate enameled metal receiver called the Guardian Ear, this piece functions as a baby monitor, transmitting sounds from the baby's room to the receiver.

Large Interior, Los Angeles
David Hockney (British, born Bradford, 1937)
Date: 1988

Los Angeles
Aaron Siskind (American, 1903–1991)
Date: 1949
Medium: Gelatin silver print

Lake Vineyard and Orange Grove, Los Angeles
Carleton E. Watkins (American, 1829–1916)
Date: 1876, printed ca. 1876

Rooming House, Bunker Hill, Los Angeles
Robert Frank (American, born Zurich, 1924)
Date: 1955–56, printed ca. 1977

André Smith, 28 Years Old, from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, $30
Philip-Lorca diCorcia (American, born Hartford, Connecticut, 1953)
Date: 1991, printed 1995
In the middle of the 1990's, diCorcia gained international recognition for his large color photographs of street scenes and passersby. For an earlier series, he traveled to Los Angeles on a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and worked on a part of Santa Monica Boulevard frequented by male prostitutes and drug addicts. For each picture he made there, he carefully composed his setting, then asked young men to pose for him, giving them a small fee (from twenty to fifty dollars) that was negotiated each time.